Laos to Cambodia and Back to Thailand

The road from Luang Prabang to Phonsavan is a marvel; it sinuously winds through low-slung mountains, carves red embankments into steep green slopes and races through unassuming farming villages before finally straightening out and arriving in Xieng Khuang Province. The province is known for two things: the mysterious six foot high, stone cups that dot the so-called Plain of Jars and the amount of munitions dropped on it during the Indochinese, AKA Vietnam, War.

A tour of the jars is funto visit but is invariably made more interesting when bomb disposal experts are in the next field over diligently passing metal detectors over every inch of farm land. Laos, with the possible exception of Afghanistan, has the dubious distinction of being the most heavily bombed country in the history of the world. This nugget of information is made all the more disturbing by the fact that Laos wasn't actually at war with anyone when it happened. To try and prevent operations along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the United States relentlessly bombed Laos. One of the major weapons they used was the cluster bomb. During my time in Laos I became quite familiar with them to the point of being able tell anyone willing listen how many bombies were inside each type of cluster bomb unit (CPU), how the CPUs opened and released their caches of bombies, how the bombies spiraled as they fell in order to arm themselves, then exploded en masse showering the ground with hundreds of small ball bearings, each moving at twice the speed of a bullet. It is estimated that 10% to 30% of the bombies didn't explode for a variety of reason. Up to 10,000,000 of them are thought to be alive and active somewhere in Laos. Apparently, they are everywhere and it is not uncommon for people to be killed or maimed by them. Vast swatches of land are still considered unsafe for farming even though it is over thirty years since the cessation of hostilities. Fortunately there are organizations that are trying to help clean up this mess. If you'd like to donate some money to a worthwhile cause you can send it to these guys - MAG - they're the ones clearing the area around the Plain of Jars. If you'd like to know more about the cluster bombs and the devastating long term effects of them visit itvs.org - WARNING - ITVS is not pulling punches; on the page I've linked to there is a really gruesome picture of a child killed by a bombie.

The prevalence of bombs became a constant theme for the rest of my time in Laos. I ended up in one village being given a tour of the bomb craters. Around Paksong in southern Laos I went for a walk in the country with a man from Holland and remember casually warning him to stay on the path because of the bombs. It didn't register, until after the words had slipped from my mouth, what an odd thing it was to have to say and do.

After three weeks in Laos I had a handle on how the Laotian language was working. It did get a bit strange at times when tone patterns shifted slightly in the different dialects; for example the word "elephant" adopted a different tone in one of the southern dialects and became "engineer". This was an instant a source of amusement for the local population when I said I'd like to go for a ride on one. Nonetheless, they understood what I was trying to say and before long I was loping through the jungle on the back of an elephant.

I deliberately hadn't made a Phrasemaker for Khmer because I wanted to be sure that I wasn't deluding myself into thinking that they were doing more than they were actually capable of.

From Laos I crossed the border into Cambodia. I'd added it to my itinerary as a final testing ground for the Phrasemakers. I'd been in three countries already, Thailand, Burma and Laos and spoken the language in each of them, now I would find out whether or not I'd just been deluding myself. The difference was that I didn't have a Phrasemaker for Khmer, the principle language of the country. How quickly would I be able to pick up the language? What would it be like to enter Cambodia without knowing a single word of the language and having absolutely no resources to help me communicate beyond signs and gestures? It sucked! I sat next to the driver for four hours all the way from Stung Treng to Krateau and couldn't say word one in Khmer. It was like being struck dumb. When we arrived in Krateau I immediately tracked down a foreigner with a guidebook then sat in a restaurant for the next couple of hours deciphering and rewriting the limited Khmer it possessed into a more usable system. Despite that fact that there wasn't nearly enough data to work with I was still able to concoct a variety of template sentences. At the end of the session I ordered a pack of cigarettes and the bill in Khmer.

The make-shift phrasemaker was certainly useful. In Phnom Penh the next day I went somewhere on a motor-bike taxi. At the end of the ride I asked the driver in Khmer if had change for a 5000 rial note. He did and gave it to me. The American friend I'd come to visit was amazed. "They always say they don't have any change," he said shaking his head. Speaking a little of the language always helps.

The amount of information I'd been able to glean from the guidebook quickly ran out of steam. I hadn't been able to properly format it and was missing vast quantities of words and vital information. It didn't have the potency the actual phrasemakers have. For this reason I'm heading back to Cambodia next week along with a copy of the Phrasemaker that I made when I returned home. It's only three-quarters ready but it should still pack a punch. I looking forward to seeing how well it works.

I only stayed in Cambodia for a single week, which gave me just enough time to visit the gut-wrenching hell of Tuol Sleng Prison Museum, where 17,000 of the Khmer Rouge's victims were starved and tortured before being executed, and after that see the incomparable remains of Angkor Wat. From Angkor before heading back to Thailand. In Thailand I picked up Thai again for the last day and a half, then flew home.

The journey had been a great success. I left with three Phrasemakers in three different languages and each one in its turn had proved to be exactly what I'd hoped it would be. What made the experience even better was the knowledge that whenever I go back to any of these countries I will be able to pick up my Phrasemaker and jump right back in. It may be a dilettante's approach and I never will learn any of these languages fluently but I have spoken them and I understand how they are constructed. Through them I have had a special glimpse inside the various cultures I visited and gathered an understanding of how people interact with one another verbally. It's a strange and wonderful place to have been.

Now I'm readying myself to take off on another journey. I will be visiting Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Japan. In Cambodia I will speak Khmer, in Vietnam I will try out both the northern and southern dialects of Vietnamese (I finished the beta version of Vietnamese two days ago), in China I will speak Mandarin Chinese, and once I get to Japan I will have finished the outline for the Japanese version. It is going to be a very interesting journey and I will be keeping up this blog to describe how everything proceeds.

Watch this blog; this is going to be good!