Rode a rented mountain bike several miles across town and somehow found the musuem. Along the way, I was amazed about how a local Lao could look at a map of Louang Prabang and not have a clue about where they were. It happened several times. I could read and estimate my location better than they could. I got the impression that they were either unwilling to help me or were one of those persons that gets lost in their own closet. Probably the latter.
The banner ouside my balcony window, overlooking the Mekong.
At the UXO museum there was information about all the bombs dropped in Lao and the current effort to clear Unexploded Ordinance (UXO).
It was sobering, but not as sobering as a cold, dark and overcast December day touring the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps in Poland 10 years ago.
Every day, , including today, a Lao mother, father, son or daughter is killed or maimed by a UXO. The human toll is horrific. As I started to learn about Lao and searched the web about the Plain of Jars and what my father, the CIA, Air America and the US military were doing during the Secret War in Laos, the issue of UXOs came to the forefront and became a focus of my travel in Lao.
* over two million tons of ordinance were dropped over Lao PDR
* more than 270 million cluster munitions were dropped over Lao PDR
* up to 30 % of all munitions failed to detonate
* more than 500,000 bombing missions
* approx 80 million cluster munitions failed to explode
* .62% of the cluster muntions have been destroyed. 99.38% remain. So there are still 79 million UXO remaining in LAO.
* 1,179,626 UXO items have been destroyed.
I saw signs about support for the UXO organization from Australia, Germany, even Japan. As if Germany and Japan had anything to do America's secret war in Laos. The US is one of the current donors, but I got the distinct impression that countries like Japan, Canada, Germany and the Swiss were doing more than the US.
I gave a very generous donation to the organization and had several conversations wiith workers in the organization.
Xieng Khuang (Phonsavan) is in the middle of The Plain of Jars, my destination in 48 hours.
"Bombies" in a cluster munition
After signing the log book, making my donation and noting that I was from the USA, I entered my comment.
"Unproud to be an American today."
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