Walking

Today was walking day in Vientiane. I started out the morning doing the Travelfish walking tour, heading south-ish along the Mekong past the Presidential Palace and the first of three Wats. The first was just another Wat, the second was interesting because it was the Lao home of the Emerald Buddha.
As the story goes, there was an old stupa at the Forest Wat in Chiang Rai, Thailand. The stupa was struck by lightning and fell open to reveal the Emerald Buddha, 60 some cm tall and carved in jade. I have been to this Wat in Chiang Rai.

The Emerald Buddha was carried off on more than one occasion by warring kingdoms. One of those times brought the Emerald Buddha to the Vientiane Wat where I was today.
The EB eventually ended up at the Royal Wat in Bangkok and I was at this Wat as well when I was on the Big Mango.
The first two Wats of the day were mum Wats, pretty, but mostly lifeless. The third Wat was a local one that gets a lot of use from the locals and was very, very busy. This was great stop not for the architecture, which was cool,but for the vibrant scene going on all over the grounds as well as the temple itself.
The next stop was COPE, the visitors center for an organization dedicated to helping the victims of land mines, cluster bomblets and other unexploded ordinance (UXO). COPE fits Lao People who have been hurt by UXOs with prosthetics and does therapy and physical rehabilitation at its facility here in Vientiane, as well as manufacturing the prosthetic devices themselves from local material and using local labor.
I knew this was going to be a tough part of the day, but it was far more wrenching than i imagined.

During the war in SE Asia, US forces bombed Laos so fiercely it became, and remains, the most bombed country in history no matter what statistical yardstick is used. By US Forces estimates, based on testing, at least 30% of the munitions dropped on Laos did not explode. Since many of the bombs dropped were cluster weapons, there are bomblets, called "bombies" by the locals, there are literally hundreds of thousands of this horrible things scattered over large portions of the countryside. Some bombies were designed to explode on contact and did not. Others were designed to deploy trip wires and become landmines, a function the bastards still serve to this day, almost 40 years later.
Laos is a very poor country. People collect scrap metal to feed their families. Using cheap metal detectors made in, ironically, Vietnam, the people find all sorts of old war debris including lethal UXO.
The many stories and exhibits made the whole sorry history far to real and personal for me. After the tears and realization of how insane and insidious this horror is came a resolution get more involved and make a difference.
The rest of the day was spent tramping Vientiane, with it's huge former colonial boulevards, great socialist monuments and amazing food. Lunch was spent at a busy street stall packed with locals including a bevy of cute Lao PDR Party Members complete with green skirted uniforms and bus driver hats.

Fruit shakes, more walking, this time the Lonely Planet architectural tour including the last French Colonial houses. My dogs were barking when I finally settled in for a killer steamed fish dinner at the Night Market on the Mekong.
Tomorrow is a lazy morning and then a short bus ride to the Friendship Bridge and my crossing back into Thailand.

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