Auberge Plaine Jarres Hotel Phonsavan

... problem which affects the lives and livelihoods of so many innocent people. Various organisations, most notably MAG a british based non-profit job are working on excavating the area, but it's basically a decades long job, which requires so much care and organisation. As well as the fact that many 'bombies' are under houses and schools and in fields for farming, and even have been lodged in seedlings of young trees which have grown up and are now in the branches. Very haunting.<br>So ...

... about the Vietnam war and the killing fields in Cambodia but not this.<br><br>The next day we went to see the Plain of Jars which was not impressive at all, we got some nice pictures because the hills surrounding us were beautiful. We then got taken to see some huge bomb crators which the countryside is full of followed by a Hmong village where the residence use shrapnel and bomb casings to improve their homes. The children ...

... believe they were burial jars, but no one really knows. It was very similar to Stonehenge, but with barely any tourists and you could walk around the jars freely.<br>Our guide spoke only a little English, so at each site he left us to our own devises which suited us fine. Tom was wrapped up in his photography as usual and I was doing my best to avoid the killer bees, which still seemed to chase me where ever I went! We found a cave ...

... they can be transferred to farmers who badly need it to grow crops and to Tham Piu cave &#8211; where almost 400 civilians were killed when a US rocket was fired into the cave in 1969. It's an infuriating story to listen to &#8211; how 40 years later people are kept in poverty because they can't get safe land to farm, or worse still where people are taking chances in order to survive and end up with being losing arms/legs/eyes or even dying because they ...

... of jars tomorrow which is what we had come to see. We drank some<br>beer and played cards for the remainder of the evening back at our<br>guest house before watching a film and going to bed.<br><br>20th September<br>(Firstly apologies for being so far behind, I am now in Australia but trying to catch up with this!)<br>Today we visited the plain of jars but first we went to the visitor centre for UXO's (unexploded ordnance) to warn us of the risks of staying ...

... around we were back on the road and off to see the oldest temple in Laos (I think!). In the pictures you can see the old temple in front of the brightly-coloured one which was built only last year. Took some pictures of a strange tree there and some huge bamboo! We stopped to see an old CIA base after that but we couldn't go anywhere near it as there's still a danger of unexploded landmines in this area. <br><br>Lastly on the tour we went to the Plain of Jars ...

... 8217;s the carnival in it&#8217;s entirety and at it&#8217;s prime. There&#8217;s a structure that has bumper cars in it. It has two panda bear looking animals painted on the back wall accompanied by the word "COBRA". In front is a small train/rollercoaster. And when I say small I mean you ride 10 yards and turn the corner to go back 10 yards to the beginning of the thrill ride. It&#8217;s ambiguous whether or not it&#8217;s supposed to be a train or a rollercoaster because ...

... That makes Laos one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world. They still have problems with the amount of unexploded ordinance littering the rural landscape and every year there are fatalities because of it. We were quite shocked to learn all of this and even more shocked to hear how much work still has to be done to clear the countryside. They've mostly cleared toe schools, tourist sites and area around peoples homes but that's about it! Apparently there are a lot of ...

... Sousath, who knows all about the area, helped open the Plain of Jars up to tourists. He also lived in a cave nearby during the Vietnam war and used to dismantle unexploded bombs to use the explosive to catch fish (more info here).<br> <br>We had come to see the Plain of Jars, but the real story here is UXO, unexploded ordanance dropped over the whole of Laos by the Americans during the Vietnam war - it's called the Indochina war here and those bombs ...

... bombs were dropped in or around Phonsavan. No-one knows how many people died, but one-third of the population of 2.1 million became internal refugees. When the ceasefire was signed in 1973, Hmong casualty have been put between 12,000 dead and 30,000 more wounded, but could well have been higher. This secret was kept from the US people until 1970 when it was made public. Even though the Vietnam War was to fight against communism in Vietnam, Laos got involved ...