Learning about secret war

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The bus to Vieng Xay was short and sweet, we arrived early and headed off to find a hotel and settled on somewhere cheap but a little grotty. The scenery outside our window, however, made up for this.

As we only planned to spend a day here we found somewhere to eat before heading to the caves. These caves are where the Pathet Lao hid during the secret war and the area was bombed hard. People had to stay in the caves during the day and farm and travel at night to avoid being seen. We heard about some truly horrible things the Americans’ did here, but were amazed at how the Lao people had created a ‘cave town’ here. We cycled round the caves with our guide who spoke little English but was nice enough – an audio tour was included in the price. While we were inside the first cave it started to pour down with rain! Uh-oh. We waited for it to get a little lighter but did get rather wet before the sun reappeared.

By the time we were finished it was around 4pm so we went back to the guesthouse then out for dinner at the same restaurant as earlier where we had a choice of noodle soup or noodle soup. Vieng Xay is a small village so doesn’t come with a huge choice in restaurants! We had an early night as we were truly knackered and had an early start in the morning.

We made it to the bus stop down the hill by 7ish and before long the bus came and picked us up, along with another French couple, and drove us to Na Meow where we were to cross the border into Vietnam.

Deb & Ang

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Photos

Local children
were waving frantically at us!

Victory Statue..
Standing on a USA bomb!!