Blogs from Phonsavan, East, Laos, Asia - page 2

February 25, 2013 Phansavan was a whole new experience then anything I’ve explored so far. This place is raw. The landscape is a lot like central Oregon and the high dessert. The air is colder, enough to need shoes and a sweater. Layers of dust are now mixed in with the usual exhaust that coats your lungs. We are 3 of maybe 30 falangs (foreigners) in the whole city which is a new experience compared to all the touristy places in SE Asia. That’s exactly what I wanted but it’s a new feeling having every person you walk by stare at you. Phansavan filled me with so many different emotions its hard to know exactly what I’m feeling. What drew us to this city were ‘The plain of jars’. All three of us were intrigued by ... read more

Rano som vypadol uz o 7/45,dal tuniakovu bagetu a cakal na odvoz. Mal byt o 8/30,dosol klasicky z meskanim,teda o 9/00. Najskor vyzdvihli ludi do Liang Prabang, potom Vientianem a nakonec konecne moja destinacia. Tuk tuk bol napraskany. Cakal tam aj jeden nemec s kupenou dievcinou,hruza teda. Na bus stanici sme presadli do minivanov. Boli tu dva. Ja som vyfasoval minivan s pomalym vodicom a starsou osadkou, laosania,korejec,anglani. Jeden anglan vystupil v 3/4 cesty. Cesta hruza,samy vymol,neskor pribudlo stupanie a same serpentiny. Obed pauza bola uz po 1,5 hod. Som sa konecne mohol poriadne natiahnut,bo som sedel vzadu. Najhorsie na tom sedeni bolo,ze sem dnu prenikali vyfukove plyny. Som bol trochu priotraveny. Dalsia pauza bola na kopci. To som s radostou vyuzil a vyprazdnil mechur. Okolie bolo famozne,neskutocne krasne hory,dedinky popri ceste,policka. Vacsina domov stal... read more

And it doesn't feel especially great. They say you should try everything once, but I can assure you, this is something you don't need to try even once. So, six buses of varying quality, over a period of six days, over dubiously winding roads through the Vietnamese and Laotian highlands. Starting in Sapa and eventually ending in Bangkok, from where I am writing you this blog. Yes, I know it says it was written in Phonsavan, but that is basically a lie. The blog is going to be about Phonsavan, but the actually typing is being done in a little internet cafe in Bangkok. How did it all happen? Well, theoretically I could have gone to Bangkok in a much more direct and relaxed way. It would still have involved 4 bus journeys, but I could ... read more

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

Geo: 19.4811, 103.13Phonsovans Plain of Jars may not be as well known as Stone Henge, but the same mystery applies. It's not really understood how they got there and what the were used for. We got to Phonsavan from Don Det at the very bottom of Laos.The whole trip took 32 hours by catching a longtail boat to the mainland, mini van to Pakse, waiting in Pakse for 6 hours, an overnight bus with minimal sleep to Vientiane, transfer from the southern bus terminal to the northern terminal and then straight away catching a 10 hour local bus on bumpy, dusty, noisy and windy roads. It was very tiring!, although looking back it wasn't really worth the detour.Phonsavan wasn't really a nice town in terms of attractiveness and friendliness with more of a police presence, but ... read more