Adventures in "the Other Theater"

The bomb casing lay split open in front of me, od green paint and white stenciled instructions still visible: "TO BE DISPENSED FROM AIRCRAFT", or something like that. It lay horizontaly, proped up on stilts like the hut behind it, with flowers blooming along the ordinance's 6 foot length. A bomb converted into a flower planter; the perfect meataphor for Laos. Knowing a little of the countries violent past makes it hard to fathom what a peaceful and unspoiled place it is today. The peolple have little and have lost more but they cary on, always with that ever present Laos smile.
The recylced ordinance we saw and many pieces like it came courtesey of the U.S and it's allies as a side show to what was happening in Viet Nam. Between 1964 and 1973, 588,944 illeagle and covert bombing sorties where flown over Laos, or "the Other Theater" as it was refered to. That's one planeload of bombs being droped every 8 minutes 24 hours a day for 9 years, giving Laos the distinction of being the most heavily bombed country ever. 1.5 million metric tons of ordinance. A half ton for every man, woman and child living in Laos. Like I said...in light of this we've been amazed by the beauty this country has shown us interms of it's people and natural majesty.
We've just returned from the village of Muang Ngoi situated in the North, along the Nam Au River and surrounded by lush green mountains punctuated with limestone faces. There is no electricity, no vehicles (save for bikes) and no rush. The village is only reachable via a harowing ride in a long, narow, wooden boat up river through whitewater and "minor" rapids. It took us about 8 hours from Luang Prabang. Radka, Tom, Ursi and I found side by side wooden huts, complete with hamock, perched right along side the river for $2 (the local Kip being all but worthless at K10,300 to $1). Here we spent 6 blissful days unwinding, venturing out of our hamocks occasinaly to explore caves, swim in electic blue lagoons or to cannoe up river to our private island. Mellow.
Sadly, Tom and Ursi have split off now heading back to Thailand and we've started making our way back down south back to Vientiene to get Radka a Thai visa. Now we are in Vang Vieng, a chilled out backpacker town were we first rendezvoused with Tom and Ursi. It's been nice to come back as we rushed through it a bit the first time. Today was spent inertubing down river with frequent stops for rope swings and Beer Laos at makeshift floating bars and tomorrow we'll rent some bikes to explore a cave featuring a reclining Budha statue.
Relaxation therapy with the ever present educational aspect have made our travels through Laos an enriching surprise.