Plain of Jars

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We arrived in Phonsavan in the afternoon and looked around a few guesthouses before settling on somewhere. Some of our minibus group also stayed there while a couple of the others stayed at a place round the corner. Another Brit couple were already staying there and we all decided as a group to book a jars tour for the following morning.

We headed out for some food and had drinks with the group at a bar called ‘craters’ which is surrounded by huge bomb shells.

Next morning we left around 8.30am to visit jar site number 3, an old Russian tank and then jar site number 2. After a lunch of noodle soup we went on to site number 1 before visiting the ‘bomb village’ where the locals have used bomb shells as fences, BBQs and as stilts for their houses!! Laos is the most bombed country per person in history and this province was the worst hit. 1 person in Laos dies every day from an unexploded bomb – luckily the areas around the jars have been cleared although there are still markers to show you which areas have been declared safe to walk an and which have not.

Arriving back in town around 6pm we crossed the road to watch a documentary about MAG, an organisation that aims to remove the UXO’s from Laos. We didn’t really know much about ‘the secret war’ in Laos and were stunned at what happened here and how it still affects people in Laos every day. Locals cannot farm in many areas because of buried bombs, and children risk their lives every day by digging around in the ground looking for metal to sell for food.

After the film we all went together for some food before heading back over to Craters for some Beer Lao and a shot of ‘snake gecko drink’ (some kind of Lao whisky with dead snakes and geckos in it). Phonsavan is a quiet place and by 10pm pretty much everything is closed. We managed to find a ‘pub’ where there were only a couple of locals. Angelo requested some Michael Jackson and the DJ started playing something that vaguely resembled ‘Beat it’ on his keyboard. This place was not even a karaoke bar but hey – Angelo gave it a good go! Eventually we decided we should probably go to bed, waking the hotel staff up at around 2.45am to open the door 😊

We managed to get up around 6am and make it over the road for some greasy breakfast before our taxi came to pick us up from the train station. In fact after that we felt better than ever and the bus journey seemed to fly by despite the flat tyre! Other passengers included a German speaking monk puffing away on his cigarettes and an old Lao lady who had teamed her traditional skirt with an ‘I Love Bangkok’ t-shirt. Love it.

Deb & Ang

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