Maly Hotel Phonsavan

We arrived in Phonsovan around 3pm and checked into a guest house in the center of town for 60,000 kip incl breakfast. The 'attraction' at Phonsovan is the Plain of Jars which is a series of ancient stone jars dotted around the outskirts of the town that nobody seems to know much about. The best guess at the moment is that they were used as burial urns but the legend has it that they were wine vats used to celebrate a great victory in battle by one of ...

... Phonsavan. There was a really cute family sitting at this house. I have a picture of the mother weaving a trim for a skirt on the porch. We're weaving experts now! I could recognise it anywhere!

Next on our tour was the Buddha cave which we both loved! We spent about 40 mins picking our way through the cave with our driver and our guide. It was fascinating stuff although they both took the oppurtunity to step up the flirting a bit!! The cave was also used as ...

... The whole setting create an odd vibe. One we’ve felt since arriving. One of those vibes that you can’t really put a finger on but it’s lurking everywhere you go. An inescapable grunginess. I realize that this vibe could be the product of having lived in a paradise for the last month. So I cast away initial negative thoughts of the place, but not until now I feel like it’s not just me. True, it’s much different than Luang Prabang. This place ...

... though and our guide was Mr Kong Keo the very well-traveled hostel owner who amongst other things used to be a climbing guide in the Swiss Alps! He brought his 2 kids along and we all had fun playing tunes on blades of grass and making them into things at the end of the day!

The following day we were up really early to get the local bus on to Vang Vieng. We didn't quite realise what we were in for but when the plastic bags were handed out (3 per person) we began to have an ...

... a paved road. It was started in 1996, but first they had to clear all the bombs shells and check for bombies so they didn’t start paving until 2001, 5 years later. Crazy.

We then went to a small village where many of the locals had remnants of bombs on display. From there we traveled to one of the caves where Laotian people hid during the air raids from US. This cave has significant meaning because this cave was hit by US bombs and killed 374 ...

... in the courtyard from the bombing campaign - mortars, shells, grenades, missiles, mines. Pretty scary stuff that they're still pulling these out of the ground, and its not uncommon in this region to get farmers or children playing in the fields die from UXO explosions.

We headed to the first site, 10km north of town, in the minibus. Our guide was friendly enough and told us as much as he knew about the mysterious jars - not much. I could've given the talk. He was very ...

... guide was funny however and it was more interesting listening to his stories. After lunch we wnet down the bumpiest track ever to visit a local village where they make lao lao or rice whisky which is very important to laos people. It is not made by companies only locals so that was good. We met a lady who showed us how to make it and then we got to have a shot of it each. It was nice to start with bu then burnt a lot, they call it whisky but it tasted like vodka to us.