Hi all,

Phonsavanh - the heaviest bombed place in the whole world, ever (!).

It was a fairly long journey and we arrived at around 3pm and found a nice little guest house to stay in. The only reason one would go to Phonsavanh, is to view 'The Plain of Jars'. What are they?! Well..I wish I could tell you, but no one knows. The Plain of Jars consists of 3 separate sites across the Phonsavanh area and on each of these sites sits hundreds of 'Jars' - varying in size and shape, from little rectangular ones, to circular ones as tall as myself. There is plenty of speculation as to what these jars are, but as they have been there for over 2500 years, there isn't a lot to go by in the way of facts. It is presumed that they were either used by the locals as food stores, were for brewing Lao Lao Whisky (they would have been a bunch of alcoholics if the latter was true!) or, which I think is more likely, they were burial sites and the jars themselves acted as coffins/tombs.

Back to the 'Most Bombed Place in the World'. During the Vietnam War (1965-1975), Laos was often used as a crossing point for the North Vietnamese to get to the South - due to the divide in North and South Vietnam (Viet Khong/American/North Vietnam armies), they were not allowed to cross the border and so had to go across to Laos and through Cambodia to get back to the South of Vietnam. The Americans knew this and so Western Laos was bombed solidly for 10 years and during this time, they were spending 2.2million dollars a day on bombing this area and flew over half a million different missions, which, as you can imagine, quite easily put Laos out there as the most bombed place in the world - ever! Whilst we were looking at the jars, there was evidence of bomb craters in several places. I jumped down into one so that you can appreciate the size of it - see pics! Amazingly, many of the jars survived, but there is a current excavation project running which hopes to unfold further jar sites across Phonsavanh.

We enjoyed a noodle soup lunch in a local village on the excursion and listened with interest to the stories the guide had to tell about local life. One of his sayings was, 'If it moves, it goes in a pot!' When I noticed puppies running around the hut, I carefully inspected the 'chicken' that I was supposedly eating...... we found out at the end of the day it was attachually duck!!

On the trip we also visited a 69 year old whisky maker, lovely drop it was and I had another stomach gurgling situation. You just never get use to running into the jungle with your pants down....!!

Back to the 'If it moves, it goes in a pot!' fact was in fact backed up later on in the day. We visited the local market where we'd been the previous day to get some pineapple. I had to cut the pineapple up myself with one of the old women's maschettes - and so we thought we'd go back for some more entertainment. We were strolling through the back of the market when we turned and saw what looked like a badger being skinned. The woman was pulling its fur bit-by-bit off of its back. We got the camera out and noticed that right in front of the badger, was a rat's head! Just as we'd zoomed in on the appropriate shot, one of the market women saw us and started shouting to the woman skinning the badger - she quickly hid the badger and started muttering at us. Whether or not what they were doing was legal, I don't know, but they certainly didn't want it on film. We decided to leave - without pineapple.

In Phonsavanh, there is absolutely nothing to do - and I mean, nothing. We'd gotten back from the jar tour at around 2pm and so spent the afternoon planning our escape to the next place. After dinner, we got chatting to a French guy (the claw!) and he told us about his plans to go to Vietnam the following day. The journey involved a $13, 9hr bus trip to Vinh, on the West coast of Nam. This would be perfect. However, a slight problem. The date the following day was the 9th February and our visa for Vietnam didn't start until the 10th, which meant we had to wait for another day - but, the next bus wasn't until 11th and there was no way we were going to spend another 2 days in Phonsavanh. So, after much umming and ahhing, we decided to go for it, take the risk and try and cross the border a day early.

We packed the bags and at 6am the next morning, found ourselves in the back of a tuk tuk, zipping along the road in the freezing cold to the bus station. We arrived and managed to get a Laughing Cow Baguette to take with us, before bundling into a packed out coach full of locals. After some pushing a shoving, we got our seats and before long, were on our way.

By 9am, we still didn't seem to have gotten that far. The reason being, we kept stopping off in each town to collect what I can only describe as 'twigs'. We were mystified as to why everyone had these huge blossom branches and even more so as to why they were strapping them to the roof of our bus, heading for Vietnam. It wasn't until we got off at the border crossing that I realised that our coach now resembled something more like a camouflage truck in the war than a local bus! I hoped that our bags were still somewhere up there. It wouldn't be until we reached Vietnam that I would find out the reason for the twigs....

The Border Crossing - Interesting. We got off the bus and headed for the customs office where we began a nice orderly queue, a la British style. Bash! Boof! Spit! The locals followed us and before we could take another breath, were at the back of the 'queue'. All their passports got thrown to the front and so we thought we'd join them and pass ours forward too. Quite nerve wracking when you can't actually see if they've reached the desk or not. Before long though, we got called. I got shunted to the front and was told, 'NO! - Visa no start before 10'. Shi*! What were we going to do?? Around this deserted border crossing that hardly any 'farangs' use, there were no guest houses and no towns for a good 15km. Where would we stay? Just then, he followed his last words with 'Go to Vietnam crossing and see'. Somehow, I figured out that he meant we had to go down to the Vietnam entry point and see whether they would grant us entry a day early, so off we ran and managed to find a guard to talk to, almost immediately.

When he figured out what we wanted, his face changed from a happy smiling one, to a stern looking one. What with a military uniform on a gun strapped to his back, he didn't look like someone who wanted to be messed with. He looked at us and simply said, 'No'.

By this point, I had all sorts running through my head, not only wondering where we would be spending that night, but what about the following day and night too? The next bus wasn't passing through until 11th. At that point, 'Sweet Talk Bex' jumped into action. "Please!" she begged, and I started to say, "Where can we stay?". The guards look shifted ever so slightly and he started to explain that if he was to let us in the country early, then he would be in the wrong. To be honest, I really didn't care - I just wanted to get in. He began asking us our professions and what our business in Vietnam was to be. He wasn't looking happy.

After a short time of disappearing and obviously speaking to someone else, he came back and asked us a few more questions, before finally buckling and saying OK. Thank God! With the excitement and relief, we suddenly realised that all the locals were now arriving at the Vietnam entrance. We still had to go back to the Laos side and be stamped out before they'd stamp us in this side and so once again, we ran to the customs office up the hill. Sure enough, it was OK and we raced back to the Nam side in time to be stamped in and get to our bus before it left again.

However, the saga wasn't over. The guard then suddenly started shouting at us that he wanted to search our luggage before he'd let us through. Slight problem there....the bags were hidden somewhere under the covering of twigs on the roof of the bus. It was only when the bus lady showed the guard the bus that he waved us off - certainly not happy about it - but at least it saved us some more time and hassle.

And so, by 1pm, after a close call, we'd made it into Vietnam. It hadn't been easy so far and it certainly wasn't over yet....

Bye for now

Miffy x x x