Sunday 21st October - Phonsavan

We caught our minibus at 7am and waved goodbye to Luang Prabang, and headed out on the winding roads to the Plain of Jars at Phonsavanh. We stopped on the way at a Buddha Cave for lunch, where they put the generator on especially for us. We were guided around the caves and took in the various buddhas, even the stalagmites that were used as 'buddha gongs' as they had good pitch when tapped. I did a good job at scaring everyone by screaming and falling over after banging my head on an errant bit of cave ceiling, now more or less having established a reputation as being accident prone during this trip.

One headache and a couple of baguettes later, we were off to the Plain of Jars... which was pretty much exactly what it sounds like - a plain with about 300 huge jars half buried in it - some of the jars were two metres across. We had to be careful to stay on the path because of the number of UXO's (unexploded ordinances - bombs) that were still potentially around... and there was an old bomb crater the size of a Ford Escort next to one of the paths to prove it.

We walked around one of the three sites, then headed to a nearby cave to have a look... although we made a hasty retreat when we looked up to see that the loud buzzing noise we could hear was being made by at least five large nests of bees above our heads, although our dash back to the bus was slowed by two arriving coachloads of keen bean, yellow baseball capped, Thai tourists.

Back on the bus, we had arranged a stopover in Phonsavanh, a town nearby. There wasn't much going on here, but the hotel we stayed in had the most comfortable bed and pillows we've had since home, and a lovely clean bath with lots of hot water! Definitely a treat.

The next morning, we would be heading out to Vang Vieng, a backpacker hot spot and a halfway stop on the way to Vientiane...