During our around the world adventures Cesca and I visited some of the most important Buddhist monuments and temples that exist in Asia. We visited many places including Bihar the birthplace of Buddhism and the tree of enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, Tibetan temples in Shangri la, Mountain temples in Thailand, Vietnamese temples deep within caves, classic monuments in Laos and Cambodia, the Zen gardens of Japan, the old Buddhism that still exists in China and witnessed amazing artworks in India, including the final resting place of the Buddha’s remains.

From a grand collection of over 50 thousand photos we have selected our favourites converted into three sizes: 1600 x 1000, 1200 x 900 and 1000 x 700.

You are welcome to download these images for free, right now at the bottom on this page

But, before you get to the goodies, please consider this small plea…

While visiting Cambodia, Cesca and I spent a day visiting an orphanage called the New Cambodian Children’s Life Association. I blogged about our visit here: Cambodia devils and angels

The New Cambodian Children’s Life Association (NCCLA) is an orphanage in the heart of the city. It was setup by a survivor of the Khmer Rouge who has dedicated his life and the profits of his two business to making a difference in the rebuilding of Cambodia. We got chatting to one of his managers when visiting Camory Foods, which is a bakery and cafe a short walk from the main bus stand. Cesca quickly got us invited to have a personal visit. We walked about half a mile along the strip, past multitudes of restaurants and cafe’s and then turned down a side street.

The children here are amazing. Bright, wide eyed and full of hope.

About twenty children were being taught English and we sat quietly at the back and were very impressed by the quality of teaching. After this another class started up, this one was teaching Japanese. We quietly left them to it.

Most of these kids are victims of things such as extreme poverty and the AIDS virus rather than the Khmer Rouge, but it is all indirectly connected. While we hung out with some of the older kids, I did some much needed maintenance on the computers. Two were a write off and kept electrocuting me, but the third could be sorted out.

I want to help these little ones in my own way. The state of their computers are atrocious. I spent a few hours doing what I could with them, but they are basically an electronic write off. I am going to buy them some Linux netbooks and send them as a gift and I need your help in doing so.

If you download these wallpapers, if you distribute them and if you like them please consider a donation to the fund I am setting up. This is perfectly voluntary. The downloads contain no locks or watermarks. Only high quality wallpapers. But I ask you again to help me help these children live a better life.

You know what’s right.

£2 would be good, £4 would be better, £10 would be great! It’s all going to them!

UPDATE! Current donations as of March 2011 stand at £59.25!
Please help us raise more!

You can donate in the following ways:

Click the donate button and give via Paypal:

OR

Donate via our AMAZON WISH LIST

OR

If you don’t want to go through us, please donate direct to the orphanage! www.ncclaorphanage.org/

All donators who wish may leave a message to be posted in this page may either attach one to the paypal, email me directly or post in the comments.

Now, on with the show!

What do you get for your donation?

You get the following:

1. 

   The ancient cave Buddhist of Ellora lived alongside the Hindu’s of Maharashtra, India.  This is home to the some of the very oldest temples literally carved out of the living rocks.  A visit here is to step further back in time each temple you walk into.

2. 

   A Thai temple in Sarnath, India was opened by the priest just for us.  Inside was a modern suite of sculptures, all very well realised and clearly loved.  This one was artfully strewn with petals.

3. 

   Vientiane, the capital of Laos, has many impressive temples. This Buddha watches serenely over the car park!

4. 

   Luang Pra Bang is one of the highlights to any visit to Laos and the ancient Wat Xieng Thong temple is a must see.  These paintings are all over the inner walls, bathed in light.

5. 

   The final resting place of the majority of the Buddha’s remains are found in the museum of Delhi in India.  It is almost forgotten and ignored by the Indians, who mostly walk straight past it sitting in the corner.  A few years ago, the Thai government paid for this plinth to be built for it.

6. 

   Sarnath, India is one of the most important sites on the Buddhist trail.  It is where the Buddha first proclaimed his philosophy to the world.  Nearby a museum hosts a veritable horde of Buddhist statues.  This may be Maitreya rather than The Buddha, but it is a beautiful piece.

7. 

   This wall painting adorns the walls of a temple in the north of Chiang Mai, Thailand.  It shows the Buddha under the Bodhi Tree.  Notice the use of a halo, something the Christians and the Buddhist took from the Hindu’s.

8. 

   Doi Suthep, Chaing Mai, Thailand is one of the richest and most resplendent temples we visited.  It has hundreds of golden Buddhas festooned around the walls. While over touristed, the temples does offer live in courses and monk chats.  It is the first we visited with a Cafe!

9. 

   More from Doi Suthep, Chaing Mai.  This is from the inner courtyard.  It is in a row of carvings all flaking away.

10. 

    The giant seated Buddha of Nha Trang is often neglected by Westerners visiting here.  It is my personal favourite of my entire journey.  Over 30ft tall, the graceful and peaceful expression is one of the very best.  It is quiet and surrounded by playing children from the nearby shanty.

11. 

    On the way up the hill to the Nha Trang seated Buddha is a large and very impressive carving showing his final moments.  This is the Buddha on his death bed.  It is, again, enormous and wonderfully carved.

12. 

    More from Doi Suthep, Chaing Mai.  This candle is in the shape of a lotus.

13. 

    More from Doi Suthep, Chaing Mai.  Many Buddhist temples have hundreds of statues in the inner sanctum.

14. 

    Tibetan Buddhism is the prevailing sect in the high mountains of Shangrila, China.  These prayer flags mark the top of the Old City temple.  After an exhausting walk up infinite stairs in the bright sun (a sure mark of Tibetan Buddhism), you are rewarded with an amazing view.

15. 

    Gaya, India is birthplace of Buddhism.  The place of his enlightenment.  Many many temples from all sects have sprung up nearby.  This is from the Tibetan temple, always clear from the bright colours.

16. 

    Shangrila, China has an enormous Tibetan temple covering one end of the mountainous valley.  Although expensive to visit, it is well worth it.  Very run down, it typifies the effect of the secular culture on the Tibetans.  This lion head stand guard over one of the three main temples inside.

17. 

    Gotta’ catch them all?  Tibetan Buddhism has lots of art depicting the ownership and collection of small balls.  It is a theme all over the walls of such temples.  This painting is from Gaya, India.

18. 

    One of the young priests in Shangrila, China rushes past the tourists.

19. 

    The great Zen gardens of Kyoto, Japan are wondrously amazing.  The Rinzai Zen temple in the south of the city has my favourite.  A place of real peace and quiet.  The standard garden is created using moss rather than grass, and setup by a Zen Master.

20. 

    The Ashoka Pillar in Sarnath, India has the laws of Dharma first set down in written form.  These are the Buddhist “10 commandments”, although being Buddhist they don’t “command” anything.  The great Emperor Ashoka was the high point of Buddhism in its home country before the emergence of Hinduism.

21. 

    The core temple of Buddhism is in Gaya, India.  It gives shelter to the great “tree of enlightenment”.  Hundreds of pilgrims arrive here hourly.  We spent the morning here while it was quiet.

22. 

    One of the greatest Buddhists, and my personal hero, is Bodhidharma. popularly identified as the first Zen patriarch to visit outside India and the man who taught Kung Fu to the Chinese!  Many legends exist of this great man, who once spent 7 year meditating in a cave facing the wall.  This is a statue in a museum in Delhi, India.

23. 

    Cambodian Buddhist priests shelter from the sun as they visit a temple in Phnom Penh.

24. 

    Bangkok, Thailand is home to some very impressive temples.  This giant Buddha lays in the peace of an enlightened death.  It is almost impossible to photograph as the building is very small.

25. 

    It is hard to find proper Buddhist sculptures in China, but we managed it.  This was taken from a very minor road as we swung past.

26. 

    In Gaya, India the local temples pooled their resources to create a giant seated Buddha.  This enormous sculpture, something like 30ft high, draws thousands of visitors a day.

That’s 26 high quality computer wallpapers, for nothing!

Downloads

DOWNLOAD size 16×10

DOWNLOAD size 12×9

DOWNLOAD size 10×7

Enjoy, and please don’t forget to donate!

PLEASE NOTE:
The Outside Context Buddhist Wallpaper Collection by Basho and Cesca Bell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License for computer use ONLY. You may not print these files. If you are interested in large prints please send in an email.

So, after checking out of our amazing Christmas Day hotel, we went back to normal levels of accommodation across the river and away from the main tourist areas.  The Babel Guest house, Siem Reap turned out to be the very best room I had in the whole of South East Asia.  A very well appointed, large room, with a comfortable bed was only the start.  The building was constructed in an elegant, modern style, and more than welcoming.  On our first day there we had much blogging and work to do and so headed down the Singing Tree, which was something of a travellers institution.  There we enjoyed free WIFI, great food and drink while we caught up with things online such as the Credit card bills.  As the night fell the cafe regularly put on a show and today’s performance was by a disabled acting troop.  The story was about an aspect of their suffering I had not yet considered.  Sure, the government leaves them to themselves, but I had not realised that loosing a limb, or being naturally disabled, carried a massive social stigma here.

The disabled acting troop in Siem Reap

The play ended and I had one of those moments one often gets in the cinema – when you suddenly snap out of the movie and become aware of all the people around you.  I was suddenly aware of where I was, that all around me rich tourists sat and watched these unfortunates’ act.  I was struck by the disparity between the two groups and my place firmly in the richer.  After watching this play I could on longer simply be another blind tourist.  I needed to understand this country and this set the tone for the rest of our journey.

Our first step was to visit the famous Siem Reap night market, which has a small cinema showing a film about Cambodia and its recent history.  We were very early and so sat at a local open air bar and chatted to the barman who taught us a few very cool bar tricks.  Then we entered the cinema, which was really a projector mounted in a dark room made of metal sheets.  The film was a simple homemade documentary, obviously a labour of love for the creator, it was short and mostly a collection of news clips with PowerPoint text over the top.  Its message, however, was unmistakable.

It spoke about the Khmer Rouge.

The Red Devils

The KR flag

The Khmer Rouge took control of the country after two main events gave their insurgency/armed-revolution enough popular support to win the war.  The first was the disposing of the king Sihanouk and his exile to China.  From there he was impressed by the Mao revolution and aligned himself with the Khmer Rouge.  This led to many people supporting the communists in order, they thought, to restore Sihanouk.  However, this was something that Pol Pot had no intention of letting happen.

The second event was the American carpet bombing of Cambodian sites, mainly villages. This led to a massive anti-American feeling that played straight into the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

Eventually they won the war and gained power, but then what they did with it shocked the world.  In power, the Khmer Rouge carried out a radical program that included isolating the country from foreign influence, closing schools, hospitals and factories, abolishing banking, finance and currency, outlawing all religions, confiscating all private property and relocating people from urban areas to collective farms where forced labour was widespread. The purpose of this policy was to turn Cambodians into “Old People” through agricultural labour. These actions resulted in massive deaths through executions, work exhaustion, illness, and starvation.

Anyone who argued, spoke up, looked smart, or even had nostalgic feelings for the old regime was murdered.  Eventually, when city folk displayed a singular lack of ability at farming, Pol Pot started murdering people who were committing “economic sabotage” by not meeting the quotas he set.  This murder claimed the lives of 1.7 million people.  Either by working them to death in the fields, shooting them for minor crimes in the camps or taking them to the centre of horror – S21 and torturing them mercilessly before taking them out to the killing fields and bashing their heads in.

Anyone over 35 in Cambodia has survived the Khmer Rouge, and it was this that we could see in their eyes.

The film stopped and Cesca and I exchanged looks.  That such things have happened to these charming people was almost beyond belief.

New Year 2009

The next day we caught another bus down to the south coast to be able to celebrate New Year’s Eve in style.  We travelled along the north south road and the countryside was simply beautiful.  Green palms and rice paddies; just like your imagination conjures up.  Eventually we passed south of the capital and into the Sihanoukville region.

Arranged around a number of beaches, Sihanoukville is the holiday capital of the country.  We aimed for the cheapest and most touristed beach of Serendipity.  The Lonely Planet warned of dangers in that area, but we had little choice as we knew that rooms would be in short supply this close to the New Years. On arrival we found that rooms were actually in exceedingly short supply and we had to spend half a day hunting one down.  We passed by many other couples trying the same thing, and most hotels simply laughed at us and said that we were the umpteenth couple trying for a room that day.  However, luck was with us and we found a room in a mainly Cambodian hotel right on Serendipity beach.

The Serendipity beach in a quieter moment

We checked in and checked out the beach.  A four mile strip of sand was entirely developed with seemingly endless cafe’s and bars all right next to each other.  Not an inch of sand lacked a deckchair or table and we walked for only a short while before finding some sun loungers and relaxing with a cold coffee.  This was the cue for the touts.  Touting in Cambodian beaches is legendary, and mostly the remit of small groups of girls selling bracelets.  Cesca purchased a number of these and had a great time chatting to the youngsters.  In a little over a hour we had been touted and sold at by over fifty passing children and ladies.  This, combined with the multitude of legless beggars miserably crawling across the sand, takes a special sort of person to overcome.  You either just ignore them, or you feel terrible for ignoring them.  Actually buying something or gifting a dollar to a beggar incites a veritable hoard of the afflicted to descend upon you.

If this sounds like it was ruining the relaxation, it didn’t.  All in all that day on the beach was a lot of fun.  Cesca even talked me into having my back hairs pulled out by cotton.  A technique that, in all my travels, has only been surpassed in pain by my one (and only) Thai massage.

That night we prepared for the party.  We were expecting a Western invasion of the beach, but in actual fact the Cambodians had got there first.  All the Westerners were blockaded down one end of the beach by the absolute throng of Cambodian families having what must be a yearly picnic.  I wish my childhood picnics had been like this one!  It seemed as if every single Cambodian man women and child, a number approaching 20 thousand easy, had a hand-held firework.  The night sky was aflame with bright coloured stars being shot into the sea in unimaginable numbers.  It looked for all the world like Cambodia was trying to bring down some aircraft by barrage.  I have never seen anything quite like it.

The amount of fireworks is amazing (-ly dangerous)!

We wanted an authentic experience and so made our way along the Cambodian throng looking for a westerners friendly spot, but trying to get through the fireworks was not easy.  In fact the sensible part of my soul, the part that senses danger, was desperately trying to get my attention with two infallible facts,

• 1) I am very tall and having to duck under all these fireworks.
• 2) Cambodian emergency rooms on New Years eve are probably packed already.

After another rocket missed my face by inches, Cesca and I pulled back and reluctantly joined the Westerners in the tourist bars at one end of the beach.  There we danced, drank and on the stroke of midnight went for a swim in the sea – it was one hell of a night, lit constantly by fireworks for the entire time.  That was the end of 2008, one of the most interesting years I have spent on this planet.  2009 beckoned.

A few days, and a few more hotels in quieter beach areas later, we left Sihanoukville for the capital Phnom Penh.

Buddhist sights abound in the Cambodian capital city

The capital of Cambodia has the most mixed history of the country.  Host to the Khmer Rouge’s famous S-21 prison and torture facility, while at the same time containing some of the worlds greatest Buddhist monarchs’ palaces.  We spent our first day in the city getting to know this history.

WARNING If you don’t like hearing this horrible stuff skip ahead now.

The horror of S-21 is belied by the simplicity of the buildings themselves.  We arrived at the gate and hired a guide to take us around.  I was glad that we did as he explained at length what had happened in each of the now bare rooms.  The entire site reminded me of a disused flat block from the 60’s.  This is close to the truth as the site was originally a middle school.  The bloodiness of the murdering here is almost beyond belief.  The young killers were all chosen for their age and the ability of the Khmer to influence their minds.  Acts committed here include rape, burning, hammering, starvation, beatings, simulated drowning, hanging by the limbs for hours, and being clamped in painful positions.  The victim was photographed before and after and then dragged out of town to the Killing Fields and beaten around the head until dead (to save on ammo.)

The torture room and some of the victims.

The guide explained all this to us with a laziness of a man who does this twenty times a day.  At one point we passed a sign:

The sign at S-21

I asked what it meant.  He said that it was a sign telling the visitors not to laugh.  I wondered how anyone could find this funny.  He then introduced us to one of the very few survivors of the horror.  This old man smiled and shook my hand.  He was also a tour guide.  I suppose that in coming here everyday he is excising his demons and indeed I saw no pain behind his eyes.

After the guide left we went upstairs to the photo exhibition.  This was a collection of images by a European journalist who had visited Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.  He had been a sympathiser for the Khmer and a communist himself.  Under each photo was two little bits of text, one written at the time, and one written with the full weight of hindsight.  It was not pretty.  It was clear that the Khmer Rouge had stage managed his entire visit from start to end.  I looked at the faces of the smiling Cambodians working in the fields.  I remember thinking that most of these are now dead.  It really brought it home to me.

The photo gallery

The next gallery was photos and text provided by families of those who went to war for the Khmer and helped run the country after their victory.  This gallery spoke of the deeper truth in the story.  Many of the people worked for the Khmer gladly and thought the government a good thing.  It was only the fact that most are missing presumed dead that spoke of a greater truth.  How many Cambodians simply “got on with it” in small jobs?  How many woke up to the what they were doing to their country?

How many have yet to wake up?

I left S-21 with a low heart and couldn’t face going to see the Killing Fields themselves, instead we decided to visit something positive.

The New Cambodian Children’s Life Association (NCCLA) is an orphanage in the heart of the city.  It was setup by a survivor of the Khmer Rouge who has dedicated his life and the profits of his two business to making a difference in the rebuilding of Cambodia.  We got chatting to one of his managers when visiting Camory Foods, which is a bakery and cafe a short walk from the main bus stand.  Cesca quickly got us invited to have a personal visit.  We walked about half a mile along the strip, past multitudes of restaurants and cafe’s and then turned down a side street.

Cesca has a natural gift with children

Here we met many of the people involved; they were making the children’s lunches.  Many hellos were exchanged and smiles and Cesca snapped off a few images, then we were led down a succession of increasingly grim alleyways.  These were the sort of alleys that any normal person would avoid, especially in Cambodia, but we went anyway.  At the end a non-descript staircase led up to the orphanage proper.  Built over three levels the setup was a tight fit for all the inhabitants.  At first you had the separate boys and girls dorms, then a classroom with three very old computers in it that led out onto a large oblong balcony overlooking the city.  Above this we found another room with a class in progress.  About twenty children were being taught English and we sat quietly at the back and were very impressed by the quality of teaching.  After this another class started up, this one was teaching Japanese.  We quietly left them to it.

Learning is good

Most of these kids are victims of things such as extreme poverty and the AIDS virus rather than the Khmer Rouge, but it is all indirectly connected.  While we hung out with some of the older kids, I did some much needed maintenance on the computers.  Two were a write off and kept electrocuting me, but the third could be sorted out.

I have spent much time since trying to think of a way I may help more, and have come up with something a little special.  I am going to make a series of high quality computer wallpapers and sell them on this website at $1 a set.  Then all the money will go to these poor kids.  Stay tuned for the announcement.

We left the little hordes as they were piled into a small bus to take them to another lesson.  I felt the entire experience had been one of hope and it quite made up for the history of S-21.  This country needs to forget the past horrors and look to the future.

Places like the NCCLA are doing just that.

Regards,

Basho.

Introduction

They say the better part of travelling is meeting the people from the countries you visit.  They do not say how much that meeting will affect you, neither how heartbreaking such encounters can be.  The first time I met a one legged man in Laos, while visiting COPE – the charity for the war injured, I asked him how he lost his leg?

“The American’s took it,” he replied.

What can one say to that? 

Such emotionally confronting sights are common in South East Asia if you let yourself see them.  Too many of the people who come here simply gloss over the lives of the people they encounter.  Too many go home and say, “Oh South East Asia is alright, beautiful countryside… but so many beggars!”  Without giving any thought to what this means and what causes people to beg on the streets.  Beg, not because they want money for a drug addiction, simply because there is no governmental help for the war-wounded and having no legs, fingers or arms is a lifelong barrier to entry to almost anywhere.

We have spent the last three months travelling all over SEA with our eyes wide open.  In fact, we decided to go all the way and visited all the disabled workshops, children’s orphanages and museums that we could.  We have met with Cambodians missing limbs, Children Orphaned by AID’s, Vietnamese who fought against the US and Laotians struggling to come to terms with their ravaged country.  Along the way, we have visited many of the actual areas attacked by or affected by the war, spoken with war photographers who captured the images that define the war and run our hands over the pockmarked remains of war equipment.  This is not very hard to do.  Simply visit Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam and you cannot help but see if you only look.

However, the results are not pretty.

Read more by clicking here:

Through all this I have held off commenting on the war, known to those in Vietnam as “The American War,” until I actually left the area.  This is because millions of people in South East Asia are still feeling the effects of the conflict everyday and by being there I was in danger of missing perspective on the big-picture.  I wanted to be far enough away from it all to be able to get some context before I commented.

That is why this blog entry exists.  We left the area in February, bound for India, and after much discussion between us, I feel I can properly write about the American War.

Historical Outline

Everyone knows about the war in Vietnam, right?  Wrong.  Before coming here, 90% of the information I had about the Vietnam War was created by the US movie industry.  I grew up watching Platoon, Hamburger Hill and The Deer Hunter.  To me the Vietnamese were slant-eyed nightmares who charged the noble US grunts fighting for freedom in the jungle.  Before I left home, I had neither any idea where Laos was nor had I known the tragic history of Cambodia (all I knew was that it didn’t look like Kansas).

If you are in the same situation, here is a quick outline of what actually happened in easy to understand steps. 

Caveat.

Please keep in mind that while I do have some qualifications as a historian, I have not attempted to be definitive here in any sense other than intentions. Some of the numbers happened at the same time and some may be out of order.  I have linked all my sources in the endnotes of the article.

The War

1. The French took over a lot of SEA apart from Malaysia, which was British owned thanks to a British adventurer who had his balls shot off.

2. The Japanese invaded in WWII and “kicked them all out”.

3. The British, US (via sea), Australasians’ and free people of SEA defeated the Japanese.

4. The French tried to get their empire back.

The French landing back in SEA were confident of victory

5. They were defeated by the Vietnamese in battle.

 

A soldier begs for the end to battle

6. Meanwhile the Chinese went communist.

7. The US invented the idea that since China was next to the USSR and SEA was next to China, a dangerous “Domino Effect” might spread Communism as far south as taking over Australia.  This shows a mighty misunderstanding of the Australian temperament.

8. Ho Chi Min declares his country separate and his view communist.

Ho Chi Min (Centre in white)

9. The King of Cambodia declares his leanings communist after a long visit to China.

10. All parties agreed to avoid war or get involved.

11. All parties ignored this agreement and the US started “advising” South Vietnam.

12. The South Vietnam regime is blood thirsty and even uses the guillotine. Much like the reports of the North then.

The guillotine of Deim

13. The South Vietnam leader is assassinated, which shocked Kennedy.

Kennedy and US Defence Secretary Robert Mcnamara

14. Kennedy is assassinated.

15. The US either engineer, or allows to happen, the Gulf of Tonkin incident securing a declaration of war.

16. The US strategy in the war is similar to the “Shock and Awe” tactic used in the 2nd Gulf War.  They believe that the communists will eventually quit.  Thus, it becomes a war of attrition.  This later proved a wrong move (see endnotes).

A US base comes under attack

17. The Vietnamese do not give up and build a very long road that weaves in and out of Vietnam and Laos, which allows them to go around the north/south divide in Vietnam.  This is known as the “Ho Chi Min Trail.”

 

When the trail was blown up the VC simply carried their equipment

18. The Laos army tries to stop this and the Vietnamese start a revolution/uprising/civil-war in Laos.

19. Laos’ king asks the US to help after being left somewhat in the lurch by the French.  They start a secret CIA led war in Laos by using the highland Hmong tribes as soldiers supported by the US airforce (directed by the famous Ravens). This war is against the Pathet Lao communists supplied by the Vietnamese.

One of the Raven spotter planes

20. The US uses most of their airforce in Laos to bomb the HCM Trail.  In fact, the bomb they crap out of it with cluster bombs, high explosives, soap and anything else they can think of.  Nothing works to stem the flow and many of the bombs do not explode.  The rest they use against the Pathet Lao around the Plain of Jars.

Bombing runs in Vietnam

21. The US government says to the people that the war will soon be won; the communists are weakened and cannot fight anymore.

 

The US president Johnson talks the talk

22. In reality the communists threaten the Khe San base to such an extent the US commanders plan on using short range nukes to defend it.

23. The Khe San offensive turns out to be a ruse by the Vietnamese and they have been secretly digging tunnels to Saigon (the Cu Chi tunnels).  On the eve of the Tet celebrations (New Year – around mid Jan) the Vietnamese attack everywhere from these tunnels.

A US soldier orders up help during the Tet offensive

24. These resulting battles are all won by the US, but the public realise that they have been lied to and the US have to pull out.

 

Nixon describes the pull out of troops

25. Without US support Vietnam falls to the HCM forces.

26. Laos falls to the Pathet Lao and the Hmong are all killed or flee around the world.  Many now live in the US.  Some, amazingly, still live in the Laos hills avoiding the Laotian army.

27. Cambodia is in civil war at this point and the communist Khmer Rouge win the conflict in many ways thanks to the king (who is still in China) publically supporting them.

28. The Thai / Cambodian border is mined.  A lot.

29. The Khmer Rouge move into the capital of Cambodia amid celebrations, but they have another agenda.  They announce that all the people must leave the city immediately.  Anyone who argues is shot on the spot.  Those hiding in the French embassy are forced to leave and shot.

30. The Khmer Rouge forces the people of the cities of Cambodia to work in the fields as farmers.  Anyone who argues is shot.

31. The Khmer Rouge leader starts rounding up people who do not fit his plans, basically educated people.  Has them all seriously tortured and then taken out to fields and beaten around the head until dead.  This is a staggering amount of people.

32. The Khmer Rouge then tries to take over Southern Vietnam.

33. The Vietnamese invade Cambodia, knock over the Khmer Rouge in two weeks and turn Cambodia into a vassal state only allowed to buy products from the Vietnamese (much like Laos then).

34. Thousands of Laotians start to die from Unexploded US Ordinances (UXO’s) every year.

35. Thousands of Cambodians step on land mines every year.

36. Thousands of Vietnamese start developing strange symptoms and having children with very serious birth defects.  This is traced to “Agent Orange” that the US dropped on the jungles of Vietnam.  “Agent Orange” contains some of the worst ingredients imaginable. Top of the list is Dioxin – look it up.  Its claimed effect was to defoliate the areas hiding VC troops (Chu Chi for example), but the ingredients basically kill all life, not just trees.

37. Australia does not become communist.

That is the basics.  There is much more to it than that, but this is enough for you to be going on with.  What is clear from the history of the area is that the US hates Communism.  Hates it to such an extent that they almost nuked the country they were trying to defend to stop it.  That’s some hate.

Why?

What is so wrong with Communism?

Well, nothing in particular, but it is essentially a people supposedly without rich and poor.  Equality.  Which doesn’t seem so bad until you realise how screwed up some of the attempts to implement the idea have been. 

Take Cambodia.  There, the Khmer Rouge were inspired by Maoist Communism and yet decided that it was not going far enough.  They tried to force the entire Cambodian people back into a simple farming life, a basic existence, by shooting anyone who said anything against it. 

Alternatively, take Laos, the Pathet Lao won the war and changed the country forever.  Consequently, Laos is one of the world’s poorest countries; it has elections but only one party is on the ballot. 

The issue is not so much that a share-alike egalitarian culture is a bad idea, only that it has not been successfully implemented yet (Kerala in India not withstanding- it’s only a state).  To the US though, it is more than this.  The US is essentially designed as a country that rewards striving for wealth.  The idea that a man is due the full value of his work in the pursuit of happiness.  This is the “American Dream.”  What it leads to is a country split between those who have and those who have not.  Those who have: have a lot, and those who have not: have bugger all. 

The government is highly influenced by those who have and they were not about to give it all up to those who have not, right!?  Bingo.  The people who have won the “American Dream” deeply fear to lose their cut of the world’s profit.  This fear underpins almost all US aggression around the world.  The rest is just marketing; the picking of a bogyman and sticking it to him.

The Aftermath

The aftermath of the American War is the greater tragedy. 

Cambodia

The Khmer Rouge was one of the most bloodthirsty murdering governments in history.  One really has to get Biblical to match them.  Would such a group have prevailed if not for the war?  This is perhaps something that no one could have predicted.  However, their legacy is still with us today; anyone over 35 in Cambodia lived through the Khmer Rouge government.  That in itself is an achievement and the scars are everywhere.  There is honestly something in the eyes, something in the attitude of Cambodians, which is not yet healed; the entire country is still emotionally broken.  Mostly, this is due to the lack of justice done on the Khmer leaders.  Pol Pot died under house arrest escaping a trial, and even the man who ran the Tuol Sleng Centre (also known as S-21) has not been tried yet.  The ringleaders of the Khmer Rouge are all dying of old age before being judged.  Its not that putting octogenarians into jail is going to protect anyone, but the country needs to judge these people as wrong.  Only then can the healing begin. 

The horror of S-21 and the Killing Fields

So what’s stopping it?  The Khmer Rouge have simply faded into a new skin: that of the Communist Party.  The trials are therefore all being held up and so justice and healing for the Cambodian people is still a long way off.

When visiting Cambodia, a number of things tug at your heartstrings.  That is, after they are through tugging your arms.  The whole country is awash with children who are forced to work.  In many cases this is a genuine need for the family to supplement its income, but it does not change the fact that these children are everywhere.  Everywhere but school.

Child workers sell theirs wares and services to a
Western Lady

The second thing also tugs at you.  At your ankles.  So many people have lost limbs through stepping on mines, or though the war, that you encounter them all the time.  In certain places you will encounter one every ten minutes.  Cesca and I went to a performance by an invalided acting troop in Siem Reap and saw firsthand the mental effects and stigma of having such injuries in a country without a social service.  Begging becomes their only hope.

The disabled acting troop in Siem Reap

Thus, the cycle perpetuates itself.  In fact, for the children at least, selling bracelets, massages and themselves on the beaches of Cambodia is a real career choice.  I remember Cesca asking one little girl what she wanted to do when she was grown up.  “Doctor!” came the reply.  Cesca was moved enough to buy the proffered item; why not to help a girl in her ambitions?  Twenty minutes later another girl came up and she wanted to be a doctor as well.  So did the next one after that.  It seems that “becoming a doctor” means more sales because Western people respect doctors a lot.

Small things like that work on you.  They gnaw.  Cambodians are great people- friendly, helpful and smart.  They need a break, but for now, they are broken.

Laos

The US really wanted to save Laos. I say that now because this is the only redeeming quality for what they did to this country.  It was akin to saving a man from robbery by shooting him in the head.  In addition, official history has not been kind to them on this score- the Pathet Lao, now the government, has very subtly changed the version of events in its official histories.  As far as they are concerned the US were fighting against the Laotians, not for them.  Such a dichotomy partially explains the over-bombing of Laos, making it the most bombed country in the world, when in fact the truth is far worse. 

The US bombed the hell out of Laos to try to save it.

Of all the countries to suffer from the American War, Laos is the one left with the longest legacy.  The entire eastern side of the country is littered with unexploded bombs of all types.  Even monstrously large B52 bombs are regularly dug up. On one video we watched they found two in the road between two schools.  Both armed, both ready to blow if knocked.  Aside from the big stuff, Laos was cluster bombed to hell and back.  Cluster munitions, called bombies by the children of Laos, are small cricket ball sized bombs of varying types. 

A collection of deactivate cluster bombs (bombies) made into an art exhibition at COPE

The idea is that the cluster container opens and disperses these bombies over a large area.  The problem is that they often did not explode; in order to prime the basic type requires a number of rotations.  If they hit a paddy field before the required count or snag a tree and stop spinning then they will often not explode.  That is until picked up or disturbed by a local.  Then they will blast out 200 red-hot ball bearings in all directions.  Mixed in with such devices were all sorts of ‘special’ bombies.  Some are smaller, some are meaner, but by far the most terrifying is the Spider Mine.  On landing, this bombie shoots out trip wires in four directions and blows up the first thing that crosses them-

Usually a child.

You see, Laos is so poor that scrap metal is worth serious money.  Little children all want to get the bounty on scrap and so regularly hunt for Bombies.  This is too often a tale with the most tragic ending imaginable.  I cannot think of anything worse than children blown to bits by cluster bombs dropped by an ally in order to protect their culture. 

That is exactly what happens every day here.

Laos was the country that stole our hearts in SEA.  It has an innocence about it that belies the fact that a fair percentage of the population is living with the threat of being blown to bits every single time they step out their door.  It is testament to their innocence that they do not realise that this is not normal.

Perhaps they are waking up.  The government of Laos is a classic Eastern Block Communism but now with capitalist overtones.  The opening of the country to international trade has started a chain reaction that will eventually lead to change, even if that change is violent.  Necessity will drive it.  For now Laos is a wondrous mix of countryside Asia unchanged for 100 years and French inspired food and drink.  The beer in Laos is one of the very best in the entire world and in the capital you can get a brilliant steak dinner for pocket change. 

The simple Mekong Life – how long will it last?

The visitor numbers are increasing and it will not be long before this travel trade, properly directed, will make a real difference.  Much of the conversation held between backpackers is on the subject of the travel trade in Laos.  The question is, “will the money made from travel affect Laos in a good or bad way?”  Already the town of Vang Vieng is given over to supplying tourists with drink, drugs, endless episodes of Friends and riverfront clubbing.

Lao T-Shirts, great but only for tourists.

To those harmed by bombs it is already too late, but organisations such as MAG (Mine Action Group) are trying to de-bomb Laos by 2012.  On our visit to their headquarters, they showed us a computer drawn map of the amount of Unexploded Ordinance in Laos.  Each bomb sortie was a red dot.  The entire eastern side of the country was red with so many dots that they all blended together.  You can see the data yourself online using Google Earth.  We donated all we could to MAG and hope they achieve their projected clear date as each year adds more misery to this already burdened country.

Downtime in Vang Vieng

Vietnam

Vietnam’s issue is not with UXO’s – although they do exist and like Cambodia, you should never walk off the path, nor is it to do with societal mental damage.  In Vietnam, they have sorted through the American War and put the blood very firmly on the hands of the US.  In Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) there is a very good museum to the war that pulls no punches to tell you what the US did to these people.  However, it did not break them.  The Vietnamese are proud of their achievements.  Proud to have won what, was from their point of view, a war of independence.  I could not help but be impressed by both their attitude to it and indeed their industrious attitude to the future.  So, what is the damage here?

Basho considers facing one of these monster US tanks in battle – they are scary enough when decommissioned.

Two things. Firstly, one man you meet fought against the US, the next fought for them.  This has a dividing effect on the country and while the north/south border has physically gone, the mental border is still there.  Still, that is no worse than in England.  The second, and far worse thing, is the way the world see’s Vietnam is through US war movies.  I watched Rambo cut down multitudes of evil VC in the Rambo: Part 2 movie.  I saw Platoon portray the VC as simple targets.  I have seen them dehumanised repeatedly.  Even the films that try and “apologise” for the war, like The Deer Hunter, shows the VC in a way that would be scorned if it were – say – the Japanese.

I have seen a man in Ho Chi Min take his children for a walk to the same park every day.  Feed them breakfast on the grass, play with them and watch over them.  He did not fit a stereotype I was force fed all my life, he was simply a good father.

This Hollywood movie misrepresentation leaves the Vietnamese with a lot of catching up to do even today.  I lost count of the number of people who warned me against the Vietnamese culture.  Many said that they were rude, hostile and not friendly.  This malignment was quickly banished on arrival.  I have to say that the Vietnamese are some of the nicest people we have yet met on our journey and all through the country the same smiling faces greeted us.  We felt very welcome, even when chatting to a man who had lost his arm during the war.  They are proud of the war.  Such wounds are worn with pride here.

 

The modern Tet celebration has a real buz about it.  It is everyone’s birthday, the New Year and the “surge that changed the war” all rolled into one. Great fireworks.

Conclusion

In 50 years time, will we be writing posts like this about Iraq?  The amount chaos left in South East Asia is truly tragic.  Death and destruction to prevent a theory, a theory that said if SEA falls to the “commies” that “western” people may be next.  The real fear the US had was a fear of about its own societal core, it is after all a very young country and such upheavals always seem more possible.  It is no gratification that the US even turned on its own people to flush out possible communists with the advent of the “Reds under the bed” and McCarthyism.  It is, I guess, just another part of the tragedy of the American War in South East Asia.

Regards,

Basho

Endnotes:

Where the note is marked “(WIKI)”, it is linked to Wikipedia.  Note that this brilliant website is not the be all and end all of factual information on anything.  It is, however, a very good place to start.