JOURNEY IN LAOS PART 3

Sam Neua was going to be the highlight of our journey, but to get there was another 11 hour journey on the local bus through the mountains. The journey could have been shorter if the driver hadn't stopped along the way to chop down banana trees and collect wood logs in the jungle to bring with us. But overall the journey went smoothly with no break-downs and no rain that sometimes makes it very difficulttotraveltrough the jungle. We arrived safely and found a nice little place to stay by the river and next to the market. 

JOURNEY IN LAOS PART 2

We started with a 12 -hour journey on the local bus that took us to Xieng Khouang Province, home of the Hmong people. We wanted to see the 2000-year-old mystery Plains of Jars. There were as mysterious as they had been made out to be. Giant in size, each of the 7 jar sites has about 30 to 100 stone jars. it is still unexplained how they got there or what they were used for. 4 of the sites had still not been cleared of U.X.O left over from the 1960's Vietnam war. The current main income for the people is to search for the bombs located just below ground. They can be dismantled and kept intact at the same time. They sell the metal on to the Vietnamese.

We found some spoons made locally using the aluminium from inside the bomb casings

They are hand-beaten which gives the spoons a nice aspect.

The main town, Phonsavan, has nothing to offer except the charm of its people and a good selection of small restaurants, Lao, Chinese,

Vietnamese and Indian. That was enough for us to enjoy the place. We had river eel in a soup and baked, as well as some delicious frogs. 

Unlike in France where they use only the legs, here they serve the whole frog.

JOURNEY IN LAOS PART 1

We left most of our belongings in Bangkok and set off to go wandering around Laos. We took the overnight train from BKK to the Lao border and continued on to Vientiane, the capital were we stayed for a couple of days. After checking the buses routes we roughly mapped out our 5 week trip. We have been to Laos many times but mostly to the tourist areas. This time we wanted to discover the real Laos. Most of the areas we planned to visit have only recently been opened up to foreigners, mainly because of unexploded ordinance left over from the Secret War. (There is still a lot of land to clear.)