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| Large bombs outside the Museum |
I will be the first to admit that history is not my strongest subject nor something I spent much time thinking about in high school (total science nerd). That being said, I totally missed the boat on the history of Laos and their involvement in the the second Indochina War (Vietmnam war). I knew Vietnam and Laos shared a border but I didn't realize most of the Ho Chi Minh Train actually goes through Laos. Today Anna and I went to the unexploded ordnance museum here and were both quite sobered by today.
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| UXOs that have been disarmed |
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| More UXOs |
Just incase you are like me and did not know your Lao history, it is the most bombed country per capita in the world! There are more then 80 million unexploded ordnances in Laos alone and cause almost one death a day in the country. The ordnances include bomies (cluster bombs), grenades, munitions and land mines. Most of the ordnances are in areas that could be rich in agriculture to improve the local economy but there is great danger in trying to farm. Many of the ordnance are found by children and lead to significant injury and cost to the family/community. We were surprised when we found the map of unexploded ordnances how many in this area have been found. According to the museum, with the current staff of just over 1K, it will take 100 years to clear all the UXOs from Laos.
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| Just incase you forget how to place |
We had thought about hiking up into the mountains but todays history lesson has nixed that idea and encouraged me to do a little more reading into Laos history.
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