Phu Phadaeng Hotel Phonsavan

After a glorious 8 or 9 days in Luang Prabang, slowly becoming a sort of Mary Poppins of the east I have arrived in Phonsavan. Luang Prabang is a beautiful town, full of flowers and butterflies and monks and temples, and lovely people and lots of fellow travellers to meet. <br>Phonsavan is a slightly strange town after Luang Prabang. Slightly Hicksville and lacks the charm of LPB, but very few places will live up to the charm of LPB. There are basically two main tourist attractions in ...

... with a frog!! They did not serve any drinks other than Beer Lao but they did put on the Bombies film for us to watch. We learnt that Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world, they have had more bombs dropped here than Germany had in both world wars. People are still getting killed from unexploded bombs, the locals are scared to farm their ground incase they hit a bomb and they cannot develop their roads ...

... trip and to organized our bus to Hanoi. At the bus station (20 minutes outside of town) we were told that the bus to Hanoi only leaves on Mondays. We were planning on going to see the jars on Monday so we decided to get the Tuesday bus to Vinh, a city 8 hours south of Hanoi. We booked our Jars tour with a local man who ran a shop on the main street. The guide book explained that the tour is expensive ($50) and the local tour companies ...

... still left today is potentially millions of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO's) lying in the countryside of the region. These UXO's are killing and maiming people still to this day. One estimate has it that 260 million bombies (tennis ball size bombs full of ball bearings) were dropped during that time and up to 30% of them did not explode. <br><br>When we got there on the first day we booked a tour through Kong Keo's guesthouse (on recommendations from ...

... you bang your fist on them they make a sound like a Buddhist drum. We're tried to do it but we were ****. Probably because we're girls!<br><br>Near the Buddha cave is the Hospital cave. That cave is full of rocks that fell from the roof during some bombings but inside there are hundreds of tiny medicine bottles left over from when the cave was in use. There are also leftovers from cooking fires in the cave.<br><br>We had a little break after climbing to the ...

<br> Dark clouds loom overhead as a plastic bag skips across the ground in the wind. On a street that resembles a scene from an old Western film. 2 cars and 7 mopeds make their way along the main street of Phonsavanh. This place seems like a ghost town. Luke and I have set out to find information on bus times and prices and hopefully find some information on a day trip out to the Plain of Jars tomorrow. We find a city map and as I study it I find that I&#8217;ve had my ...

After Luang Prabang we headed for the town of Phonsavan which was a days bus journey away. It was a nice enough journey tough as we made our way east in Laos crossing amongst the jungly hills and dramatic scenery. Phonsavan is on a plain and is actually quite cool, so it was really nice to arrive there and felt great to have to put on a jumper again. It's strange the things you miss.....<br>We got ourselves a room in Kong Keo's guesthouse and Mark, a swiss guy who was very quiet ...

... put my ipod on shuffle (trying to get the battery to last as long as possible) and ate oreo cookies and pringles in an attempt to not feel sick (it works for me).<br> <br>When we got to Phonsavan were picked up and transfered to the Maly Hotel for free - we'd booked ahead. We got talking to two nice Englsh girls on the bus and they didn't know where to stay - it still surprises us that most people we meet find accomodation when they arrive, maybe ...

... was also on the break of having a civil war against two political groups in Laos. Without the US civilian knowledge, In 1961 President John F. Kennedy gave the order to recruit a force of 11,000 Hmong villagers to help fight this war. They were trained by several hundred US and Thai Special Forces and over the next 12 year the Hmong "secret army" fought to keep Plain of Jars non-communist from North Vietnam. As the war dragged on, so many Hmong were killed ...

As we got onto our bus at some ungodly hour (probably 8am), our big bags were chucked into the back of the bus, with all sorts of wood and building materials and we were pointed towards some food stalls. We were pretty hungry, so I got a tuna sandwich (bad choice, but chicken was out) which ended up stinking out the whole bus. Played hide and seek with the kid in the shop who was laughing his head off. Then Pete looks at me and mouths P-a-e-d-o. I quickly exited the shop.<br><br>The bus ...