Hello all

So we arrived in Phonsavan on Saturday 10th July with the main purpose of seeing the Plain of Jars; 160 individual Jar sites (>4,000 Jars in total) which are large limestone containers - many believe they may be funerary urns. Phonsavan is the closest town to the Plain of Jars. The transfer required a 6-hour minivan journey through some wonderful terrain. The journey was pretty hellish as the driver insisted on opening the windows rendering the aircon worthless. The guys at the back of the vehicle got out at the midway break and looked like they had just come out from a fully clothed shower!!! Thankfully we were nearer the limited window openings and fared slightly better.

Unfortunately, having being spoilt by the beauty of Luang Prabang, we were left really disappointed by the town of Phonsavan. An Irish girl summed it up perfectly when she referred to it as “soulless”. Look for Phonsavan in the dictionary and we are sure it will say “bland beyond belief”. It appeared that the town consisted mainly of one lone street with poor guest houses although a couple of nice ones did exist (so did a couple of new hotels). Ironically, we stayed in the “Nice Guest House”, which was the most inappropriate name for the place. It should have been called the “Just About Acceptable Guest House” but then again it was one of the better places and, at just 40,000Kip/£3.30 per night, we couldn’t complain.

The time in the town consisted of sitting in one cafe and visiting the internet cafe across the road. There wasn’t really much more to report than saying that we met a few new friends and decided to work together to negotiate what proved to be a fantastic deal for a Plain of Jars tour (110,000kip each; about £9).

This consisted of a visit to Jar site 3, which is described in our guide book as “the most impressive and atmospheric”. Before that, we went to a field that had been heavily bombed by the Americans during the war with Vietnam between 1964 and 1973, as Laos had been a supply and escape route out of Vietnam for the Viet Cong militia. As a result, the valley passage (known as part of the “Ho Chi Minh trail”) we visited had been targeted by the Americans. Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world with a bomb dropped on average of once every 8 minutes during the war. The US dropped more ordinance on Laos than it did on Germany in World War II, which resulted in a third of the Laos people being internally displaced. The Jars were actually a little bit of an anticlimax after the first part of the tour.

We had started with a visit to a site on the Ho Chi Minh trail that was littered with bomb craters. It wasn’t until you stood in one that you realised how large they were and the devastation and panic the bombs must have caused as they fell. As we walked around the site, one of our party came across a small round object. It was an unexploded cluster bomb shell which is capable of firing shrapnel up to 1 km. The guide, who was UNESCO registered, duly told us to step away. We therefore gave it a wide berth but not before taking a quick photo!! Apparently, in Laos >300 people are killed or maimed by unexploded bombs each year. It all became very real.

Our next stop was a traditional village to see how the local Hmong tribe live. We had already been to a similar village in North Thailand but there was something different about this one. Perhaps it was the large number of children (probably aged 3 to 10) in grubby clothes, with dirty skin and hair and no footwear playing outside their wooden huts. It was so sad to see that one of the female travellers in our party was brought to tears. The kids were so lovely that we all felt guilty that we didn’t have anything to give them. After a search of his backpack, Mark found a small tape measure (why, oh, why was this ever packed!!), which he gave to two of the little girls to play with. Their faces lit up and they started to follow us round the village wanting nothing more than to smile. Mark then made a paper aeroplane out of an A4 hotel receipt. A number of the children were really intrigued and started throwing the plane in the air. At the end of the visit, we passed one of the girls who sat eating dinner with her mum. One hand on the bowl the other on the paper aeroplane. It was very touching.

This visit will leave a lasting memory forever and made us think about things we could do to help. We suggested to others in the party that we pool our photos and send a photo book to the village so they can see themselves (they don’t have mirrors). A donation to a supporting charity also sprang to mind. If anyone reading this blog visits the Plain of Jars, please try to take in this village. You will then understand and appreciate the remarks above.

Next was a stop at a small weaving outlet. The girl weaving was mute but had one of the sweetest smiles that could light up a room. The machinery was reasonably basic and manually intensive although, that said, the end results were pretty impressive. The final stop before the Jars involved a walk across the edge of many rice fields to get to a cave. In the war with the Vietnamese, the Americans received intelligence that the Viet Cong were hiding in the Lao cave and duly sent a bomb through the entrance and in doing so killed 374 men, women and children (only some were Viet Cong). We went to a small exhibition which showed the weapons and bomb casings that were retrieved along pictures of horrific injuries that were sustained. There was also a skull from one of the dead. We all left a little cold but glad that we had visited and learnt about the history. People really need to understand what the Laos people went through.

The trip was tremendous value and we will be posting a 5 out of 5 post on www.TripAdvisor.com shortly. We had soon forgotten the drabness of the main town as we boarded a minivan the next day at 4am (after the World Cup final). The faces of the villagers we had met were still fresh in our minds. The journey along route 13 to Vang Vieng in the early hours is nothing short of spectacular. If only we could stop and jump out to take photos......a missed opportunity for us but others should consider this (perhaps on a motorbike) as the journey has the “wow” factor.

We are now on our way to Vang Vieng, Laos. Watch out for the update soon.