Phonsavan, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
June 06, 2014
The trip to Phonsavan was another early start. On the bus by 8am which gave us no time for breakfast but I did manage a quick gulp of coffee thanks to another English couple on the bus Sophie and Gavin who shared some of their heavy-duty caffeine they had brought with them.
We settled in for another 7 hour bus journey, North West out of Vang Vieng and up to Phonsavan and the plain of jars. The ride this time was much better than the trip down from Luang Prabang. Thanks mainly to the fact that the driver this time obviously valued his life a little more than the previous driver. The route up followed the same road back towards Luang Prabang before it split in the mountains and headed East. There is very little infrastructure in Laos so at times you have to back track a little to get somewhere different. I didn’t mind though as the first few hours was the same stunning mountain landscape that we had passed before but this time I could take it in better without feeling dizzy. Half way there we stopped at a tiny village for a bite to eat and bumped into an elderly chap from England who was cycling round Laos. This guy was pushing seventy and he was riding his aging Specialized mountain bike with panniers up and down some serious mountain roads. It put our adventures to shame really to see this guy grafting it out while we sat on our nice little bus, unbelievable but very inspiring to see.
Eventually the mountains were left behind and rolling farm land unfolded before us. Beautiful rice fields that stretched for miles with farmers going about their daily business. We rolled into the small bus station at Phonsavan and were greeted by the usual van drivers all with some friends guesthouse that they knew about. We hadn’t done any reading about where to stay there so we hopped into a van along with Sophie and Gavin and headed to this dudes place. At the least it would be a free lift to where the places to stay were so not a bad a thing. After checking out a couple of places we settled on one that was the cheapest and also the cleanest.
Our Van driver was a guy named Mr Lee, or at least that was the English version of his name, and he was keen to drum up some more business for the next day by guiding us around the three ‘Jar’ sites that are located in the area. We got a price but said we would check elsewhere and headed out to grab some food and check what was around.
Phonsavan is a bit ghost town. Nothing here at all really other than a few streets, a market and the well know fields of stone ‘Jars’ that we had come to see. As we ambled around the place it was that quiet that we could not find any other drivers or tours that would take us to see the Jars for a reasonable price so back to Mr Lee it was and we booked up for the next day along with Sophie and Gavin. As we wandered around we saw so many places that had old American bombs and grenades sat out the front. Restaurants, bars, guesthouses, anywhere really. It was a bizarre sight so we did some more reading into it once we got back.
What I had not realised until I read up on it was that Laos is the most bombed country in the history of the world. I knew it had been bombed by the Americans for various reasons but not to the extent that it was. The Americans based themselves in Thailand at times during the Vietnam war and if the bombers still had any bombs left in their load they used to disperse them over Laos on the way back from Vietnam as the planes would not land with bombs still on board.
They also bombed it again when the Vietnamese retreated over the Laos border during the war to take cover but what I did not know was what something that is called the secret war. The Americans supported the Royal Laos government during a civil war and helped destroy the Ho Chi Minh trail which was a prime traffic route into Vietnam. Between 1964 and 1973 the Americans performed over 580,000 bombing missions over Laos dropping bombs at a ridiculous rate. The raids were the equivalent of a B-52 dropping a full payload every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day for 9 years. 9 years. What a horrific fact that is. What is worse is that almost one third of all the bombs dropped did not detonate and remained in the ground. Since those raids stopped in 1973, over 20,000 civilians have been killed by UXB’s. People still die in Laos to this day due to UXB’s at an average rate of one per day. I was gobsmacked and still am at how horrific this is. Now forty years later less than 1% of the bombs that did not detonate have been found and diffused, the remaining 99% have yet to be found and made safe making farming in Laos a very dangerous business. The Americans have since spent millions helping to try and clear it up but to put it in perspective what they have spent in clearing up in the past forty years is what they spent in only three days worth of bombing raids over the country. A little sickened I went to bed.
The next day we headed out with Mr Lee to see three different sites of these curious stone Jars that we had heard about. They date back to the iron age and the most likely explanation is that they were used as burial chambers at the time but nobody is sure for definite. An hour later and we arrived at the first site and parked up. Mr Lee was a really good guide and he talked us through various things one of which was how careful we needed to be when walking around and accessing the various sites. There are white markers placed at the sides of the paths that have been installed by a group named MAG, (Mines Advisory Group) these guys are bomb disposal and they have cleared set paths that are free from mines and bombs. You have to walk between the white markers as the land is clear there. Outside of the white markers and there is chance you may trigger a mine or bomb that has not been diffused yet.
Carefully we wandered up to the first site and indeed it was a field full of jars. Big jars made of stone. The fact they date back thousands of years and are carved from stone is quite impressive as some of these jars are massive, over 8ft tall. It must have taken some skill and effort back then to create such things and the fact they still stand today is an amazing feat. After we had wandered around the site we were taken to see an old destroyed Russian tank that is now home to a few chickens next to a farm. An old rusty shell now it sits on the side of hill, ugly and a reminder of what went on here.
The next two jar sites were a similar affair. Only walk between the white markers. The last in particular was impressive due to the sheer number of these stone jars that are strewn about the landscape. Literally hundreds of them dotted about all over. If they are old burial chambers then they must have been placed here over some considerable time as it is quite a sized grave yard. All jarred out we headed back to town and booked our bus ticket out of Laos and into Vietnam for the following day. What we didn’t realise was that the bus out to Nam the next day was early in the morning. 1:30am kind of early! Bah we may as well not have paid for another night and just sat around with our bags. So we chilled for a while and then got packed up ready and waited for our bus to arrive.
At around 2am the bus arrived, and what a bus it was. A sea of coloured neon pulled up outside. It was like some crazy Karaoke looking bus, ablaze with colour. I couldn’t imagine us getting much sleep on this, and we didn’t. It was an over night sleeper, and then some. 23 hours from Laos to Vietnam aboard the Wurlitzer of buses. All the seats were full recliners which was great I guess except we had the last two seats left at the back which had shorter leg room so we had to lie down with our knees up under our chins. We had to do this for 23 hours while sat above the engine in a hot country, great! We lay awake unable to sleep until at around 5am the bus ground to a halt on a mountain road near the border. A truck ahead had broken down so we could go no where for several hours. Apparently the truck had already been there for nearly a day and the queue of traffic sat about waiting was ridiculous. At least we got some time to stretch our legs and we lay down on the ground watching the fireflies flit around us as they danced their fiery dance in the night sky, beautiful.
Several hours later with the sun now up we got going again and crossed from Laos to Vietnam high up in the mountains among some stunning scenery. Another half a day and we would eventually reach Hanoi. It has to be the worst bus ride I have been on so far. A full day, with no toilet on board and half laying down with my knees bent up and wedged in by the seat in front, but at last we made it into Hanoi the following night in the dark wetness. A quick taxi ride later and we had found somewhere to stay in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Time for some sleep now, Vietnam can wait until morning.
