Blogs from Phonsavan, East, Laos, Asia
May 21st 2012
Known amongst travelors for its 4 day scooter loop, including the famous 7km Kong Lo Cave, we hired some scooters for a couple of days to take on the incredibly bumpy roads and amazing scenery. However after discovering a really awesome german rockclimbing resort just outside of thakeak in between karsts cliffs, we quickly ditched that idea and stayed there instead. We went rockclimbing and swam in a beautiful pool that trickled through this huge cave into a quiet river on the other side. We set out on the scooter and visited caves and swimming holes near by, scooting past amazing scenery of farms and karsts cliffs before watching the sunset on the river. The morning I left on the scooter with my all my stuff, the sky was black with clouds. It wasnt long before ... read more
The Plain of Jars: A View From the Streets of Phonsavan
Published: May 6th 2012Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan
May 4th 2012
One misjudgement after another is how this trip began. After several days of Pee Mai Laos (The Annual Water Festival), I bought an overnight bus ticket to the Plain of Jars in the mountainous Xieng Khouang province in the northern part of Laos near Vietnam. For some reason, I decided to walk to the bus station, some 10km outside of town. I arrived nearly an hour late for my bus, the last one of the evening. I would have to buy a new ticket and wait for the next bus at 6:30am. So I decided to sleep in the bus station for kicks on a bench like a number of other bus station employees seemed required to do for lack of better arrangements. I figured the cost of new bus ticket would be the same or ... read more
February 6th 2012
Hello, Since the last blog we’ve done the Plain of Jars and Vang Vieng. I’m writing this from our room in Luang Prabang where we came to escape the midday heat – just roasting out there! The Plain of Jars is located outside of the city of Phonesavan. This area in eastern Laos not only has the Plain of Jars but was also heavily bombed by the US during The Secret War. I personally had no idea that this war ever happened and I still only have a tiny bit of information to share on it, but it’s all very interesting and very sad. So here is my version of the story. Laos was a monarchy for most of its history but during the mid 20th century the people started to rebel and the Pathet Lao ... read more
August 10th 2011
The other day in Phnom Penh I went to a fortune teller, they foretold that I had a dark secret that I hadn't told my family and similarly they had one that they hadn't told me. I entered a deep meditation on the subject as I entered the vacuum of one's own mind to its furthest reaches to find what could I possibly have kept secret from my family. And then on a humid night as I watched the rain scatter over the tubes of Vang Vieng it struck me, at about the same time as the lao whiskey shots did. - It must be Flash. My motorbike, my dear Flash, aptly named due to the electrics not working. It all started out one sunny day in the middle of March. We had just swung out ... read more
July 24th 2011
As I mentioned in my previous blog, we left Luang Prabang by express bus for Phonsavan - an eight hour journey down highway 13 and then onto highway 7. Both highways are now paved which made the journey a little less life threatening. We were lucky to have a half empty bus. There were only seven of us foreigners on the bus - and we had all been on the same slow boat to Luang Prabang. The rest of the bus was half full of Laos people. We were able to take two seats each to ourselves, which was going to make for better sleeping. At least, we THOUGHT we would sleep. It is pretty hard to sleep when the road makes a roller coaster feel tame. The road wound through mountains, following the countour of ... read more
June 10th 2011
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 ... read more
May 17th 2011
Wake early, half four. Finish baguette and suffer stomach cramps (from the baguette or from the night before?). Don't get much more sleep. edit: The real reason I'm going to be rushing out of town shortly is that when I get in the shower I find (human) teeth marks on the end of my foreskin and I have no memory of how they got there. Get out of bed around eight. Shower and head out for breakfast. See that the bus for Phonsavanh leaves at nine and on the off chance ask if it's possible to still get it. The guy in the guest house reception says yes, but I'll have to hurry. What have I got to lose? I buy a ticket and go to pack my bag. It's gone half eight. Stuff bag with ... read more
April 11th 2011
After leaving the beautiful Luang Prabang, we took a horrendous 6 hour journey (which felt like the world's worst rollercoaster) to a gritty town called Phonsavan. We found out that until a month before we arrived they didn't have streetlamps, and so tourists would often hurt themselves walking back to their hotel at night! During the Vietnam war, the CIA conducted a secret war in Laos, as it bordered Vietnam. During the 15 years it is estimated that the CIA flew a bombing mission over Laos every 9 minutes! This meant that over the bombed areas 12 tonnes of bombs were dropped per square kilometre. There were also lots of CIA officers in Laos, the most famous of which was Colonel Tony Poe, who used to cut off his enemies ears and staple them to reports ... read more
December 29th 2010
A postscript to Phonsavan and the Plain of Jars. In a change to our schedule we crammed in the visits to the three main “jar” sites into Tuesday to free up Wednesday morning. Having learned something of the Secret War, I asked Phonsy if there was anywhere we could visit to learn about the UXO removal plan. He said that this was sometimes possible since he had a friend who worked at the regional centre. After a couple of phone calls we got permission to visit the following morning. This meant a fairly early start and a chilly ride out to the regional office on the edge of town for 8 o’clock. We were met by the regional coordinator and given a detailed run through of the various regional centres and the different tasks that they ... read more
December 28th 2010
As I said (briefly) yesterday we’re in North East Laos now, close to the Plain of Jars. This region is well known for two reasons, the jars themselves and the so-called Hidden War. The jars are the subject of much debate and truth is, no-one really knows their history. They range in size from 1m to over 2m high, with a diameter of between 50cm and 1m. The material appears to be limestone and each one has been hollowed out using (presumably) a harder stone. The age? Well, certainly thousands of years but no-one can say for sure. The first theory is that they were used for fermenting alcohol from rice, to be used for celebrations, That would tie in nicely with current day Laos. However in the 1930’s a French archaeologist found human ashes under ... read more
