Landmines and goodbyes

Seven hundred kilos of explosives per person were dropped on Laos during the sixties and seventies. Seven hundred bags of sugar worth of explosive material for every man, woman and child. Put another way, a full plane load of explosives was dropped on Laos every eight minutes, round the clock for nine years. Partly it seems these were dropped to stop the spread of communism, partly to unload planes to make them safer to land. And the incidents of accidents are apparently increasing.

Mind blowing.

Apparently most of the mines are around the size of baseballs. Kids play with them, adults have to move them in order to free the land for farming. They explode, people are killed, limbs are lost.

I’ve been in touch with a landmine charity – No More Landmines Trust. They have active projects in Vietnam and Cambodia, and have given me some contact details for a further charity in Laos that might help me arrange some trips to projects out there. So now just waiting to hear back from them.

Hopefully I’ll be able to take some interesting photographs that I can give to the charities to use.

When I first arrive in Laos there is a long festival near the hotel. I’ve spent half the house proceeds on extra camera equipment (or at least more money than I’d intended) but I now have a wide angle and macro lens, decent flash and some more memory, so hopefully I’ll get some good photos there.

In the meantime, I’m in the midst of something I regret – the saying goodbye thing.

It’s emotionally blasting to go to one friend after another, drink too much alcohol, then have to say goodbye to them till some unspecified time in the future. Said goodbye to Than Tun yesterday – that wasn’t easy. And still another week of goodbyes to go (intermingled unfortunately with doing Tax Return for light relief!).

It’ll be good to be on the plane.

It's all happening

Well, the house is sold, the possessions given away or trashed, the debts paid off and the flight booked.

I'm heading straight for Laos at the end of the month, then see what way the wind blows!

There's a ridiculous flight plan to get there - flying from London to Delhi, Delhi to Mumbai, Mumbai back to Delhi, then on to Bangkok and Vientiane. The travel agent has no idea why I have to do the superfluous trip to Mumbai, but we decided that I was better doing as shown on the ticket than risking getting left behind in Delhi by Indian efficiency. And Delhi airport is memorable but not for any good reasons. So two unnecessary flights, global warming be damned!

I've sussed which hotel to stay at to start off. I'm going to book in for a month and see what happens from then. There is a festival in Vientiane just after I arrive - perfect!

Just on a round Britain tour now. Seeing favourite lovely people before the trip. Heading today to Manchester from Sheffield, then on down to Gloucester, Bristol, Oxford, London then Brighton.

Then flying hooray.