Laos - Like travelling, but slower...

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So, now we find ourselves in land-locked Laos. One of the poorest countries in the region, home to over 100 ethnic groups, many thousands of temples and orange-clad monks, and previously part of French Indochina evidenced by colonial architecture and croissants and baguettes on every corner.

Having made the 10 minute journey across the river from Chiang Khong, Thailand, we arrived in the not-so-friendly town of Huay Xai. Got to love border towns and all attempts made there to offload your cash. Fortunately, we managed to give the rip off merchants a wide berth and Laos got better there on in.

We boarded the rather cramped slow boat in the morning and made our way from Huay Xai down the Mekong river with Thailand to the right of us and Laos to the left, stopping off occasionally to drop off and pick up locals. We stayed the night in the Laos town of Pak Beng, comprising just one street with a load of eateries, a pier and some guesthouses. With not a lot else to do, we had another late night playing cards over a few beers, before continuing the journey the next day, eventually arriving in Luang Prabang on Sunday evening. Hurrah!

Well worth the journey, Luang Prabang is a relaxed town occupying a peninusula where the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers divide. Unfortunately, we're not on the right budget for the beautiful boutique hotels and guest houses in the town, however we made the best of things. Luang Prabang is one of those places that needs to be seen slowly, not just because of the heat and humidity, but also just to fit in with the Laotian pace of life. Wats are plentiful and monks even more so. We spent time dipping in and out of the temples, cafes and markets. The night market in particular was awesome with a huge variety of foods including veggie buffet, crepes, cakes, french pastries and barbequed meats. Definitely not the place to diet. Special mention has to be made of the Luang Prabang sausage - something of a local delicacy. Chris recommends the 'buffalo sausage'.

Whilst in Luang Prabang, we thought there would be no better way to relax than to have a massage. However, as it happens, we were wrong. Somewhere between physical assault and a rehearsal for a circus troupe, said Laotian massage left us sore for days afterwards. It turns out that having someone walk up and down your back whilst clinging onto your ankles does more for causing lumbago than it does for sorting one's Chi.

From the delights of Luang Prabang, we were feeling a bit too old to indulge in the hedonistic delights of Viang Vieng downriver, where teens and 20 somethings party the night away and all too frequently drown in the Mekong, and instead, headed northeast, to the slightly more serious Phonsavanh.

On the surface, Laos seems like a peaceful place where you can travel around without too much bother. Particularly out of the main tourist areas, adults and small children alike actually seem interested in you and will smile and greet you. It's hard to imagine that this is also one of the most bombed countries in history with more bombs per capita being dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973 than has occurred in any other country, ever. Phonsavanh and the surrounding region was one of the worst areas affected during the 'Secret War'. Whilst fighting was happening in Vietnam, the US was recruiting large numbers of the Hmong tribe in the north of Laos to join their anticommunist fight and spent millions of dollars carpet bombing large stretches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos in an attempt to quash the communist government and prevent passage of Vietnamese on the trail.

In Phonsavanh the legacy of the war was all too apparent. The creative among the Laotians are using empty shells to decorate the outside of their houses. On second glance, you realise that a plant feeder or pillar is actually an empty missile, with other ordnance devices put to other new and interesting uses. Our first evening, we had a private screening of a documentary about the Secret War and chatted to a local man who's father, like many, had taken refuge in a cave for several years during the bombing, and who featured in the documentary alongside some other Laotians and US military giving first-hand accounts of the war. Some 30% bombs dropped on Laos remain unexploded and so we also visited the Phonsavanh NGO office and found out a bit about regional efforts to shift the unexploded devices from the countryside.

Ignoring the monsoon rain, the next day we hired mountain bikes, which was an interesting experience in itself given that one had no gears, the other no brakes, and both seemed to have made the seats out of concrete. We pedalled our way through the surrounding countryside, which is still littered with bomb craters, some of which have been turned into duckponds, but others remain as permanent dents in the fields and hills. Perhaps more striking was our exploration of a cave that we passed, which had an older woman sobbing loudly inside, accompanied by a younger relative. Sadly some of the caves that were used by Laotians to escape the bombing had grenades thrown into them, killing large numbers. There is still a sense of sadness and loss around this area of Laos and like the unexploded devices being shifted by NGOs, it'll probably take a long time for that to get better.

This part of the world is also famous for the Plains of Jars. Several sites of hundreds of stone jars cover parts of the countryside around Phonsovan. Those that survived the bombing are quite impressive, with Stonehenge-esque questions aplenty about what they were for (funeral urns?) and how the ancients shifted them. We cycled to one of the sites, messing around in the jars in the pouring rain - it was fun, honest! With the weather brightening, we stopped off on our way back at a cemetery overlooking the town which had a wide range of Chinese, Buddhist and Laotian Tribe monuments to compare and contrast - that was if you could get past all the cows tethered around the tombs to keep the grass short.

From Phonsavanh, we continued our journey Northeast by bus, to the lesser visited Sam Neua. Traditionally a logging town, it's set in beautiful scenery surrounded by mountains and green paddy fields. The town itself is a bit rough around the edges, but the markets were interesting, the dry market selling all manner of woven skirts and cloth, and the food market selling all, erm, breeds of dog! Despite our best efforts to find a nice place to stay (there were a few to choose from), there were features to suggest that our hotel possibly also doubled up as a brothel, which I suppose was a change from the usual backpacker haunts....

Having eventually escaped our lodgings in the morning (the main door padlocked from the inside, with no sign of a key or owner in sight), we went off exploring the very pretty nearby town of Vieng Xai, which had a large network of caves, converted into makeshift lodgings which housed people from the surrounding area, government officials, and the president and his family for several years. It was really interesting and, we imagine, likely to become more of a tourist destination in years to come, but at present, it remains a little off the beaten path. Although we had managed to get the bus there, and hired a couple of rickety bikes to cycle round the town and caves, getting back proved to be somewhat more difficult. Sitting in the 'bus station' (c.f. small yard) for two hours and not seeing anything resembling a ticket office, a timetable, or indeed a bus, we thought we'd go up to the main road and try our luck hitchhiking whilst hoping that a bus might come along. Two hours and four unwilling trucks later, our luck was out. We were just about to call it quits and try and bribe a local to drive us back to Sam Neua, when a bus filled with sacks, boxes and a few workers went by in our direction. Seeming slightly surprised by the two westerners flagging them down and climbing on, they let us join them but seemed even more bemused, when on returning to Sam Neua, we offered them some money! All's well that ends well it turns out.

From Sam Neua, we were, on paper at least, pretty close to Vietnam and so thought that this would be a good time to make the crossing and get across to Hanoi. It turns out that roads on a map can be deceptive and that which appears a straightforward countryside jolly, can be a winding, treacherous mountain road, not helped by the driver who seemed offended every time there was a vehicle in front of him (travelling in either direction), and routinely put his footdown and went for the overtake regardless of space to do so/sharp corners in the road and steep ravine to the side. And he was our driver for 12 of the 16 hour journey! The locals on the bus, perhaps less used to long distance journeys, let alone those that incorporate a rally driver with a death wish, periodically took turns to throw up throughout the journey. And so it continued, another seemingly never-ending journey, but this time to Vietnam, and the next chapter.

Tallies:

Landslides encountered on Laos Roads >20

Percentage of foreigners who have hired motorbikes and fallen off them with some degree of injury - 95%!<(MISSING)br>
Unidentifiable foods consumed:

Chris: 17

Emma: 1 (some kind of fungus or pondweed we think)

Bob: 0 (resolutely sticking to a diet of grass, chocolate cake and pringles as is his way)

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