Blogs from Phonsavan, East, Laos, Asia - page 4

Uz nekolikrat jsme se pokouseli pridat na nas blog nejake fotky z poslednich etap, ale bohuzel rychlost / pomalost mistniho internetu nam to nedovoluje. Budeme to dal zkouset. Pondeli jsme opet stravili v autobuse na presunu mezi Luang Prabangem a Phonsavanem. Tato cesta spise pripominala horskou drahu, ale videli jsme, podle Lonely Planet, nejake omracujici scenerie. Phonsavan sam o sobe neni vubec nicim zajimavy, ale v jeho okoli se nachazeji tzv. Plane dzbanu. Jak jiz nazev napovida, jedna se o plane s desitkami kamennych dzbanu, z nichz nejvetsi vazi asi tunu. Kvuli absenci jakehokoliv organickeho materialu {tudiz radioaktivniho uhliku} je pomerne obtizne urcit jejich stari. Odhaduje se, ze jsou stare zhruba 3000 let a puvodne slouzily k pohrebnim ucelum. Ale mistni legenda pravi jinak: rika se, ze kdysi davno je nechal vyrobit mistni kral a na ... read more

Friday, 01/29/10 When the sun finally came up and chased the vampires away I got up, took a lukewarm shower and we hightailed it out of Kong Keo. We found a very nice guesthouse on the main street, aptly named The Nice Guesthouse, and dropped off our things before finding the van for our day tour to the Plain of Jars. The jars are funerary urns, some nearly 2000 years old and are scattered all over the region. The most concentrated and popular areas to visit are simply called Site 1, Site 2, and Site 3. The previous night we had booked a tour that would take us to all three, plus to visit a Russian tank and (yippee!) another whiskey making village. There were several other people on our tour including the two Indian girls ... read more

Our stay in Phonsavan was going to be brief, and we had to carefully decide which sites to visit so as to make the most of our trip. After arriving at about 9 in the evening after an unfortunate minivan breakdown, we put up at Nice Guesthouse. Yes, it's true that our place of lodging was called Nice Guesthouse and I'm pleased to say that the place, for it's low price of 80,000kip a night, does live up to its name. The aforementioned breakdown presented us with the opportunity to be acquainted with Kati, a most cordial Swiss lady, who was also on her way to Phonsavan in our minivan with her husband Erwin. While waiting for the vehicle to be repaired, Erwin decided to give Phonsavan a miss and head straight to Vientiane with a ... read more

A tuk-tuk arrived to take us to the bus station at the appointed time, but we still waited around once we got there for the driver to lash our bags to the top of the mini-van we would be taking across the country. Seeing crowds of people approaching we got some sensible seats, but in retrospect they were not the greatest choice for me due to the lack of leg room. We eventually left and headed straight up into the mountains. The scenery was pretty amazing, but I couldn’t see much of it due to the low windows. The road curved around hills and went through several mountain villages where highland Lao eked out an existence. After a few hours of twists and turns we reached a small town where we stopped for a break. There ... read more

So last Monday (18th) we finally made it up in time to get our early bus, another long one about 6 hours, once again all through the tiny windy roads in the mountains, beautiful but uncomfortable. We arrived in Phonsavan late afternoon. Now we had only really come to this town because there is a sight thats meant to be amazing called the Plain of Jars, most people we met weren't bothering to go out of the way to come see it but Ste and I decided we would seen as weren't going to do south laos we wanted to see some more in the north. So after arriving in this pretty much deserted sleepy town (another one) we wandered around once again trying to find a nice guesthouse for us and finally settled down for ... read more