Blogs from East, Laos, Asia - page 16

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan June 16th 2007

Saturday June 16, 2007 Laos Motorbike Trip - Day 4 (Luang Prabang to Phonsavan) 266Km Covered After some jet fuel-like Lao coffee and a baguette we were back on the bikes early. We had to backtrack south to the fork in the road where route 13 and route 7 meet. By 10:30am we were eating tuna sandwiches at the same place with the monkey. We bought a few extra sandwiches for the ride and strapped them onto the bikes. An hour later we turned west from route 13 onto route 7 at Muang Phu Khuon. We needed to stop and rest, but Muang Phu Khuon wasn’t the most inviting town. We pressed on and stopped a few Kms up the road. It was here we saw a horrific car accident. We passed in amazement as ... read more

Phonsavan, Plain of Jars

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan May 21st 2007

The biggest jar, about 6 tons

Hoover

Phonsavan, Plain of Jars __________________________ D: Hallo mal wieder! Momentan haenge ich seit ueber einer Woche in Vang Vieng rum und hab' einen Riesenspass mit im Wasser planschen und faulenzen (naechstes Kapitel). Daher bin ich ein bischen hinterher mit dem Blog. Also hab' ich meinen Aufenthalt um einen Tag verlaengert um die relativ milde Temperatur auszunutzen und mal wieder das Reistagebuch auf einen neueren Stand zu bringen. Also, von Luang Prabang gings dann los nach Phonsavan. 8 Stunden mit dem oeffentlichen Bus: kein Aircon (brauch auch kei' Sau wenn man ja die Fenster aufhaben kann, kein extra Stauraum fuer Gepaeck (aber dafuer gibts ja die hinteren Sitze,) und ein bischen weniger Beinfreiheit (was mir auch nix macht, da ich ja nicht der allerlaengste bin). Dafuer ein bischen billiger (aba nett viel). Und dann natuerlich ist man ... read more

Luang Prabang to Phonsavan

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan May 6th 2007

Dels

Hi all - I'm still alive and kicking, thanks for all the emails checking! Internet access was not fantastic in Laos, and where it has been available it has been painfully slow, with poor computers. We have also been extremelly busy doing stuff, so haven't had so much time to spend telling everyone else about it...I hope I can remember everything! OK, so where do I start...Luang Prabang is where I last finished off. We spent the last 3 days of our time in Luang Prabang at a silk weaving course. It was excellent. We learnt all about the whole silk extraction process, chose some colours, and got dying. All the dyes we used were natural, I had green, pink and yellow. The green was from an indigo bush. I had to pound a whole lot ... read more

Plain of Jars

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan May 3rd 2007

Mysterious Jars

ORourkesaroundaus

Luang Prabang - PhonsavanJason & Kirstyn O Spent one more night in Luang Prabang before heading south east to Phonsavan. The bus ride was an easy eight hours on a rickety old bus, but luckily not too many people aboard so we were able to stretch our legs. It was a very windy road on the way there through the mountains passing lots of hilltribe villages on the way. A lovely trip! From Phonsavan we based ourselves for a few days to explore the Plane of Jars. Booked a tour with a man who was extremely passionate about the area and spoke excellent english, so was very very informative. No one really knows for sure how old (thought to be 2000 BC) or why the plane of jars exists, but the most believable story so far ... read more

Laos Laos Whisky shot from bullet casing

A Wild Ride

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan April 18th 2007

Giant Sawgteaw

emmypie

Phonsavan to Pakse This is what I call “The journey that took 5 years off my life”. It’s right up there with the ride from Manali to Leh in India. Trying to find my way from Phonsavan to Paksen without having to go back to Vientiene, I decided to go against the Lonely Planet’s suggestion of not taking the direct route. I booked my ticket at a local travel agent in Phonsavan. I should have known when he laughed as I put in my order. He told me the trip should take between 7-9 hours. When I asked him what sort of transport I could expect he told me “Sometimes bus, sometimes sawgteaw”. The next morning I was picked up in front of my guesthouse at 8:00. I was happy to see the French couple, ... read more

Phonsavan, Plain of Jars and UXOs

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan April 12th 2007

Plain of Jars

emmypie

Phonsavan is an unassuming town east of the capital, Vientiene. Although it may not look like much from the window of a bus, it has a lot of history. It is known for two famous things. The first being that it is home to the Plain of Jars, five sites of huge sandstone jars dating 2500-3000 years old. They are not quite sure what they were used for, but most agree they were for their dead, a kind of cemetery. The people of this time must have had to drag the sandstone boulders from many miles away and then carve them into shape. Most of them had lost their tops and only two have carvings of figures on them. You have to go on a tour to see the jars because, the other reason Phonsavan ... read more

Come unfriendly bombs and fall on Laos

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan March 7th 2007

Jar site 1

Jabe

The bus to Phonsavan possessed that rarest of qualities - it never filled up. This was enough to raise the spirits after countless crowded journeys without the luxury of space. I was sufficiently boosted by this that even the drawbacks of the guesthouse in Phonsavan - a flexible wooden floor that nipped the skin of one's feet painfully and a hot shower that only lived up to its name if the flow was a trickle - seemed inconsequential. Phonsavan is the main base for exploring the Plain of Jars. This stretch of rolling hills takes its name from the clusters of stone containers dotted around it. The jars themselves are about 2,000 years old and the consensus is that they're funerary urns, though local legend states that they're fermentation vessels constructed by a race of giants ... read more

A plague of sabai dees

Asia » Laos » East » Sam Neua March 5th 2007

Motorbike in the aisle

Jabe

Viang Thong - Xam Nua proved to be the most gruelling songthaew journey yet, requiring nearly 7.5 hours to cover 150km. Yes, that's an average of 20 km/h. This was partly due to the nature of the terrain, being all hills and escarpments, and partly due to a problem with the songthaew (or the driver) that required all downhill sections to be conducted in 1st gear. From a time efficiency point of view, the night bus would have been a better bet. At least we had our friends from the LoEME to keep us company. Almost making up for this tortoise-like pace were the contents of the songthaew. Mention of rice sacks is almost unnecessary as they are a standard feature on these vehicles. Of more interest were several buckets of frogs, covered with mesh to ... read more

A classier pair of trekking shoes you'll never see

Titusind Elefanter, Hvid Parasol

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan February 17th 2007

Uhygge!

The Sausage Society of Leopold

Vores sidste blog var allerede da vi skrev den lidt outdated, for vi var allerede over en uge inde i vores ophold i Laos, saa nu kommer der en ny rejsefortaelling.... YAY :I Vi tog en af vores ynglings nattoge, med en ekstra ladning kakkelakker, til Laos' graense, hvor vi ved rent held mooedte nogle super flinke folk. Bl.a. Daniel, en supersoed australier som vi endte med at dele vaerelse med. Vi var i Vientiane, Laos' hyggelige & afslappede hovedstad, i godt tre dage og noed det til fulde. Foerste dag lejede vi cykler og tog paa sightseeing. Her saa vi bl.a. That Luang, som er Laos' forgyldte nationalsymbol (den optraeder ogsaa paa alle deres pengesedler) og Patuxai, AKA den vertikale landingsbane (kaldet saaledes fordi at de under konstruktionen loeb toer for cement og derfor selvfoelgelig ... read more

Phonsavanh & the Plain of Jars

Asia » Laos » East » Phonsavan January 26th 2007

Me in a one ton bomb crater

ehayward1981

We arrived in Phonsavanh on Wednesday at about 4pm, the public bus wasn't as bad as I had expected although there was a man with a rooster & several sacks of rice down the aisle. We got a lift to a guest house with a local man called Mr. Kong, (the guesthouse owner), along with several other people from the bus. We met Giles who is originally from Birmingham but now lives in South Wales, his accent drifted between Brummie & Welsh; it was quite funny as I could mimic both. Mr. Kong swore like a trooper in English, although it was funny & he was a very intelligent man. In the evening we sat around a fire in a six foot long bomb shell & he told us about the secret war against Laos by ... read more

Brief history of Laos

Laos was under the control of Siam (Thailand) from the late 18th century until the late 19th century when it became part of French Indochina. The Franco-Siamese Treaty of 1907 defined the current Lao border with Thailand. In 1975, the Communist Pathe...more history

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