Phonsavan

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The first hiccup occurred when we arrived at the bus terminal to catch our bus to Phonsavan. There was no public bus that day, which we had bought tickets for, and were told that we had to pay another 10,000 Kip (50p) to get the VIP bus instead. To be honest we were all pretty relieved as an 8 hour journey with headrests was a lot more appealing than one on a Forrest Gump schoolbus style bus. We were allocated our seats, and told it was reserved seating, so we went and got some breakfast for half an hour, after all, there's no point in sitting on the bus any longer than necessary.

With 10 minutes before the bus was due to leave we boarded only to find Laos people in our seats. We also found out that 4 people all had tickets for seat 16, and there were only 41 seats on the bus, as opposed to 44 on the public bus. It took about half an hour for the bus driver to realise what was going on, again, it seemed this was the first time he had ever been on a bus, let alone driven one. The other employees at the bus company weren't much help either, with the organisational skills of a hamster between them. Trying to reason/argue with a Laos person is not easy. In the U.K. or anywhere else in the western world we probably would have been offered a free night's accommodation and a ticket the next day, or the bus company should have paid for a taxi or a minivan, but in Laos, for 10,000 Kip extra, we got plastic stools on which to perch in the middle of the aisle, for 8 hours, on the most windy, hilliest bus journey of my life. Needless to say from now on I will be getting on all buses immediately in the future, reserved seating or not.

Arriving in Phonsovan we checked into the Kong Keo guesthouse which was much better value for money than the other vendors at the bus terminal, and had been recommended to us by some of Will's mates from South America because of the tour, which we booked for the next day. That evening we watched a documentary about Laos's involvement in the Vietnam war and how Laos is the most bombed country in the world per head of population, something we didn't realise until we started planning the trip here. Basically the US staged a secret war against Laos during the Vietnam war where they bombed the hell out of many of the towns, in particular the Xieng Khuang region, of which Phonsavan is the capital. Something like one plane load of bombs were dropped on Laos every 8 minutes for 9 years! And the worst part is that about 30% of the bombs failed to explode, which had lead to Laos people inadvertently setting off 'bombies' and injuring or even killing themselves. There has been an initiative, funded by international aid organisations, to find and deactivate these 'bombies' (unexploded cluster bombs) but their work is far from complete.

We went to see one of the heavily bombed areas, which is an area of farmland littered with bomb craters, which can no longer be used for farming. We were even shown a couple of live bombies that the UXO organisation hadn't got round to clearing yet! You can imaginbe what would happen to a farmer who connects with one whilst working his fields.

A lot of bombie accidents occur with children who don't understand the dangers of bombies, and use them as toys! Fortunately, UXO safety is how being drummed home in schools across Laos.

We then headed to a waterfall where we had lunch that we had bought in Phonsavan market earlier. The waterfall was an absolute mission to get down to, it was as if the pathway hadn't been trodden in weeks. When we finally got to the waterfall I noticed that I was being eaten alive by a leech on my leg. Rather than burn it off or wait til it had finished, our guide went against everything I thought I knew about leeches and got a rock and scraped it off. Luckily it didn't bleed for long, could have been a lot worse (Stand By Me - ouch). After lunch, which was sticky rice and some bamboo dish, we headed back up a different way, practically climbing up the waterfall, which was much more fun than the way down.

Our last stop of the day was at one of the famous Plains of Jars. This is basicaly a field with a load of huge stone pots, some up to 2 metres tall, in it. Noone is really sure how they got there as the stone they are made from is not found in the area. One likely theory is that the pots (not really jars) were used as urns to store the remains of important members of society, whilst Laos legend suggests that the pots were used by giants to store Laos-Laos whisky in them.

The next day we caught the bus down to Vang Vieng, where we managed this time to secure proper seats for the 8 hour journey.

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