Sunday July 24th Early start at 6:30 AM. Arrived in Laos after crossing the border with Thailand at Huay Xai and going through immigration. A quick tuk tuk ride to the slow boat that was going to be our base for the next 2 days. The boat could fit about 20 people, but we had the whole thing to ourselves. We spent the day traveling down the Mekong River enjoying the scenery and relaxing, talking and playing cards. The weather was around 90 degrees and was mostly sunny. However like most of IndoChina during this season, harsh rains would appear suddenly and then vanished just as quickly. The Laos government only allows certain stopping points. For the night we stayed in the very small and remote and government approved town of Pak Beng. In the evening walked around the market and visited the local Wat (Buddha temple). I finally got a good rest and went to sleep early. Well, did not have a choice, the town closed at sundown. Monday July 25th Quick facts on Laos: There is about 10,000 Laos Kip = $US 1. The population is about 6 million. The country was ruled by the French for a little bit, but is now a communist state as are the next two countries going to - Vietnam and Cambodia. The Ho Chi Minh trail, a supply chain used by the Vietnamese Communists, runs through the country. Laos is very cheap and most meals are so tasty costing about 2-3 dollars. One of Laos specialties is sticky rice. You pick up the sticky rice in your hands and use it to pick up the other food. I like using my fingers to eat. Well, I do it normally anyway, but at least now it is considered proper. Awoke at 5:30 AM and went to the local market. They sold mostly vegetables and strange cuts of meat. The most memorable is a large bowl of what looked like red jello with fruit punch on the bottom. They were actually congealed pig blood cubes that were put in plastic bags and used for cooking. Hmmmmm. We then boarded the boat for our 2nd day journey down the Mekong river. We stopped at a local village to see the handicrafts. It was like Old MacDonald's farm because it was full of animals and they were all really talkative, with a bok bok here, and a bahhhhh there, here a moooo, there a meow, everywhere a gooble gooble.. We then boarded the boat and after a few hours stopped at the Pak Ou caves. The caves are filled with over a thousand budda statues. The top caves also has some nice stalagtites and stalagmites. Some of the structures had names and if you scrint your eyes enough, you could see the resemblances of some of the rock formation such as a rooster, a frog, a Buddha (of course). We arrived at the old capital of laos, Luang Prabang, around late afternoon. The town certainly has quite a French influence both in the food and the buildings. Our hotel, the Thong Bay, was like a scene from Paradise island. (Or maybe it appeared that way after coming from the previous night's arrangements) Headed for dinner at a local eatery called Little Elephant. I tried the local specialty coconut curry and the rice wine was very nice! We then went to one of the many local bakeries for coffee and chocolate cake. Tuesday 26th July A very nice relaxing morning enjoying breakfast on the balcony I woke when the hotel staff arrived with my breakfast. I then enjoyed banana crepes and a strong Laos tea. Around noon caught a tuk tuk (a local taxi) and headed to town. The first stop was the local Red Cross office for a traditional Laos / Swedish massage. It was so relaxing. Found a very good bakery for lunch called Joma Bakery. It is run by a man from Northern Canada and a lot of backpackers go there. Carrot cake to die for! In the evening we visited the local night market where I bought quite a few scarves. We had dinner in a restaurant over looking the Mekong River. Drinks again at the Hive bar with lots of other travellers and enjoying some hive cocktails including my favorite Beer Lao! All the bars close at 11 PM so we left the bar and called it a night. Wednesday 27th July Travelled to Kwang Si Waterfalls and went for a swim. Fun but pretty chilly, think the water pressure was good for getting my circulation going though! After lunch we visited a tiger called Pet. We then visited and fed some cute endangered monkeys who simply went bananas when we arrived. They are adorable especially some of the baby ones. We then took a tuk-tuk (taxi that is a cross between a motorbike and a car) back to our hotel. At night, met for a BBQ dinner, it was all western food and it was a welcome treat. Tonight was also the one week anniversary when we all met. So the boys all got the girls a rose to say thanks for a good week so far. Maybe the hive cocktails from the tonight before had gone to their heads! Thursday 28th July Another early start, but not as early as those who had gone to see the monks collecting alms! Caught a tuktuk to the Royal Palace, now the National Museum, which was built in 1904 and used by the royal family until the communists took over in 1975. It was interesting to see how the royal family had lived and why the people had felt cause to fight a revolution to dispose them. Remember though starting to understand the word propaganda now more than ever! Before heading on the road felt needed to have a western food fix and so visited Joma bakery for a carrot cake, yummy! We then had a very long bus journey to the town of Phonsavan and arrived early evening. Dinner and then watched a documentary of Laos and the US intervention in the 60s and 70s. The short story is that the US and communist governments signed a Geneva agreement in the 1960s that Laos would be a neutral country. However the North Vietnamese broke the treaty and established the Ho Chi Minh trail through Laos to Southern Vietnam. After learning this, the US started bombing the trail, but did it covertly under the leadership of the CIA. To try to not break the treaty, atleast overtly, all the soldiers fighting in the Laos war had to change their names and swear an oath to secrecy. These soldiers were called the Ravens. The American strategy in Laos was pretty simple, find the supply lines and bomb the hell out of them. It is hard to get exact numbers, but according to some sources, more explosives were dropped on Laos then on Germany during WWII and over 1 million of the 3-4 million people in Laos were killed in the war. The areas in Laos that contained the communist supply line are still littered with debris from the war. Phonsavan is one of the cities that was heavily bombed. The Americans also heavily used cluster bombs which are small mini bombs that break out of a huge bomb. The problem is that 20% of these bombs failed to immediately detonate. That means of the 100,000 clusters bombs that were dropped, 20,000 have not exploded yet. Even now 30 years after the war, there are hundreds of peasants and farmers who die every year from accidentally trigger the hidden explosives. It is a slow process. Rough calculations were will take 90 years to clear all the unexploded bombs in Laos. The owner of the hotel we were staying in was the guide in the documentary. Interesting to learn about what happened to Laos as to be honest I had no idea. Everyone hears about Vietnam but Laos had a story to tell too. Friday 29th July The previous night, we watched some videos of secret Laos war but Phonsavan is also known for its Plain of Jars. There are these huge stone jars roughly 2000 years old of unknown origin mostly weighing between 1-2 tons, however the biggest weighs 6 tons. All of the jars are now empty. We visited three sites, Site 1 was the biggest with over 250 jars, Site 2 had 90 jars and Site 3 had over 150 jars. The jars were amazing in their own right, mainly in the way no one has yet properly explained how and why they came to be there. Some are huge, all carved out of stone, one even still had an intact lid. Dozens of the jars were destroyed by the fighting. We walked along the path very carefully because the path there were UXOs all over the place and only the path we were walking had been declared safe. We also saw an exploded US tank and a fallen plane. There are still pieces of the planes all of the place. We then headed back to Phonsavan and walked around the town itself which did make me feel like I was almost in a remote wild west town. Tuktuk back and an early night ... why, because the town closes at 8-9 PM!