We arrived in Luang Prabang in early evening, after being dropped off at the bus terminal well outside the city, as usual. We think the bus terminals are positioned thus to provide business for the many tuk-tuk drivers who swarm on you as soon as you get off the bus. However, with Luang Prabang, there is a small wooden bridge to enter the old city, which only mopeds and tuk-tuks can cross. We went to a cheap guesthouse, dropped our bags and headed off for some food. After discovering that the only ATM we could find was "out of service" (a very common event in Laos) we had to find a restaurant which would accept card payments. Fortunately, in fa-rang heavy Luang Prabang, this was no problem, and we had our first western meal in weeks: jaegerschnitzel and french fries!!! along with the obligatory Beerlao.
The next day, we decided to change guesthouse as Luang Prabang appeared to be a lovely city and we wanted some luxury for a few days. For the princely sum of 28 pounds/night, we had the largest hotel room either of us had experienced. The hotel was lovely and our room was set apart from the others and so was quiet (with no chickens) and pretty luxurious.....John even got the bath he'd been after for weeks (luckily for Sarah!!). JH...not fair, I had been showering! Talking of showers, our bathroom had three!
We had a few very relaxing days lunching by the Mekong river, and enjoying the ambience of the city. In the evening we would wander through the night market and enjoy the restaurants, which looked beautiful all lit up with lanterns. One evening we decided to visit the local nightclub, just outside the centre of the old town. We arrived to groups of teenage Lao girls wearing outfits that would not look out of place in Woking on a Friday night! We wondered what we had let ourselves in for! However, once inside, there was a mixture of age groups, although we were very obviously the only westerners. There was a live band playing a mixture of Lao country/rock/synth/pop fusion (!) and the Lao people entertained themselves by respectfully linedancing. We drank Beerlao and watched!
Whilst travellig through SE Asia, Sarah's hair had got longer and drier and was starting to seriously annoy her. So she decided to have it washed, cut and coloured at the only hair salon we could find in the old city. The lady spoke no English but with gestures and a customer who could interpret slightly, she conveyed what she wanted done. Alarmingly, her hair was not cut with scissors but with a razor! However, this has turned out much better than she expected and her hair is now 4 inches shorter and darker (also covering up the smattering of grey hairs I now have thanks to doing a PhD!!). All this for 8 pounds.
After thoroughly chilling out in Luang Prabang, we decided to head to the town of Phonsavan, famous for it's proximity to the Plain of Jars and also for being in the most heavily bombed province of Laos. This time we decided to try the "luxury" of a minibus instead of taking the local bus. This was somewhat of a mistake as we had the craziest Lao driver we have yet come across. This time we were navigating windy mountain roads on the wrong side of the road, but this time at an average speed of 100km/hour (well, it felt like it!). There were 7 of us on board, plus all our rucksacks on the roof, and no-body managed to sit in their seat without hanging onto the grab rails for at least some of the journey.
The day after we arrived in Phonsavan, we headed out to see the Plain of Jars, a vast area littered with stone jars some of which weigh up to 6 tonnes. They are thought to have been placed there about 2000 years ago and were possibly used as funeral urns, although some people have suggested they were storage jars for lao-lao (rice whisky!). A bit like stonehenge, no-one knows quite how they managed to get them there. Our tuk-tuk driver dropped us off and waited for us in the car park and we were allowed to just wander amongst the jars. However, we did have to keep to fairly specific routes due to significant risk of UXO (unexploded ordanance) in this area. An organisation called the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) has trained local people as bomb-disposal experts, and they have cleared some of the Plain of Jars sites. However, there are white bricks on the ground warning you to stay within certain areas.
MAG also have a small information centre in Phonsavan, which we visited that evening. During the Vietnam war, Laos was declared as a neutral country, and as such officially did not participate in the war. However, America conducted a bombing campaign because of communist sympathisers within the country and the movement of provisions and troops through the country (Ho Chi Minh trail). This became known as the secret war. American bombs fell by the plane-load on Laos every 8 minutes for 9 years. Many of these were cluster bombs, 30% of which did not explode and are left behind today as UXO. If disturbed by farmers in their rice paddies, children foraging or playing in the forest or by the many fires the villagers make to cook, they can still explode, even today. Many people in Laos have been killed or maimed by these "bombies" as they call them. Acess to medical care over here is almost non-existent for remote villagers and by the time they reach a hospital, often many hours after the accident, there may be no supplies of blood or oxygen, and therefore nothing the doctors can do.
Whilst we were in Phonsavan, it was apparant that there was some sort of festival going on. This turned out to be a Hmong festival (one of the local hilltribes) and unfortunately consisted not of the cultural and ethnic traditions of that tribe, but more of a chav-tastic funfair and market selling cheap tat! To further add to our disappointment, the festival was at the back of our hotel and that night, fuelled by Beerlao and rice whisky, firecrackers were set off on a regular basis until dawn.
Phonsavan was not as lovely as Luang Prabang so we decided to make a hasty exit and head on to Viantiane, the capital of Laos, the following day.
