June 19, 2008 - Vieng Xai, Laos

Today we visited the caves that were used as hideouts during the war by the leaders of the Pathet Lao (the Lao communist party, 5 of whose 7 leaders at the time have ended up serving terms as president of Lao since). The caves were pretty neat. Due to the excessive bombing in Laos during the war, the leaders, along with 2300 civilians, hid out in these caves in North-eastern Laos for a total of 9 years, much to the Americans’ dismay. Villagers would farm at night, cooking would be done with gas inside the caves if American planes were spotted outside, and generally an entire community was sustained within these limestone cliffs. There was even a massive cave that had been turned into a theatre, complete with cement orchestra pit. Pretty crazy.
At the moment only the caves in which the leaders stayed are open to the public, as well as the theatre cave, but eventually I think they hope to open the ones used by civilians as well.
You really realize at sights like this, which are only just beginning to come together, what a lot of infrastructure goes into making a tourist attraction actually tourist friendly. Here it ranges from the basic stuff (like having signs, explanatory displays, etc.) to potentially life-saving stuff (like clearing tourist sites of unexploded ordnance left over from the war…). They’re making progress, but it’ll be a while yet before the sites here are fully up to westernized expectations. From what we’ve seen so far though, it’ll be worth the wait.