Hello from Vientiane

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Hallo from Vientiane,

thanks first for all the messages and comments, we know that we have not been the busiest writers for the last months!! After Vieng Xai we went to Phongsavan, also a historically interesting place in northern Laos. The bus rides through these areas are always a great thing - fantastic sceneries in the mountains, passing small villages with outstanding friendly people along the way.

In Phongsavan we visited the archaeological site "plain of jars" - used 300 B.C. till 300 A.C. very sure for funeral reasons, but there is still a lot of things to find out about these mysterious big jars standing in a nice area. Also very interesting was the MAG work, that is a organasation that disarms the bombs still laying around in hundreds of thousands in this area. Laos, and we didn't know that too, was the heaviest bombed country ever in the world, and they still suffer from dangerous unexploded bombs, killing lots of people every year. (Bombies, Secret War In Laos, Bomb Harvest are very good documentaries about that all). So for us it is a wonder that Laos leds in tourists and treats them really nice!!

Then we took another very scenic busride to Luang Prabang. The city still has it's relaxing charme despite a lot of tourists. We went on a nice boatride on the Mekkong river to the Nam Ou caves, that are filled with thousands of Buddhas, after we went to the Kuang Si Waterfalls, nice cascades with turquoise swimming pools in a great forested area!! And of course we saw the monks walking in hundreds early in the morning to get their alms from the people!!

After we have taken lots of pictures we went on to Vientiane 12 hours by bus from Luang Prabang! The french influence in architecture and food is most obvious still today in the capital of Laos!!

Tomorrow we are heading to central Laos, we are very courious, what awaits us there!!

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