After the unforgettable Gibbon Experience we took a slow boat to Luang Prabang along the Mekong river. This took 2 days and was, on the whole, very enjoyable especially after the adrenaline driven last few days zipping around the canopy in the Bokeo reserve.
Luang Prabang was quite a sleepy town and we stayed at a very nice place along the Nam Khan river called “Cold River” hotel. It was far from cold. The family run hotel was very friendly and we bumped into the proprieter in town one day and he insisted we join him and his mates for lots of Lao Lao (rice whiskey) and snacks (very salty crispy seaweed with bbq pork). Very enjoyable, and it’s the first time I’ve seen Sandy drink anything so potent. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve had anything as potent - the Lao Lao was 50%!! As you might guess, we didnt do much for the rest of the day.
Just like Chiang Mai it would be all to easy to lose a couple of weeks chilling here but once again we had to move on. From here we went to see The Plane of jars in Phonsovan in the Xieng Khouang province. The journey was a really unpleasant one. By mini van the road was one long, twisting and turning mountainous route that on the whole took around 7 hours. For the first time since a child I was car sick. Infact several times along the way I was car sick. Luckily the driver had a stash of plastic bags to hand and by sheer luck I managed to hit the target everytime. It was such a relief when we finally arrived.
This whole tour was something of a mystery as no one can really say why, what or how the jars came to be. There are many folk tales and legends involving Giants and even Aliens, so we went with an open mind.
There were three main sites and at all of them were these massive stone jars that could have held Lao Lao (rice wine), rice or other such supplies, again no one can really say. Like most of Laos this province was subject to heavy U.S bombing during the “Secret war” (1955-1975) involving communist Vietnam (Northern Vietnam) and the communist Laos party (The Pathet Lao) versus “The Alliance” which included the U.S. (of course!), Thailand and The Royal Laotian party (the party in power in Laos). So my comrades it was all about, from the alliances point of view, stopping the spread of communism.
Due to the the lethal legacy of cluster bombs and other Unexploded Ordnace (UXO) left behind from this war, we could only walk in designated cleared “safe” areas that were marked by red (uncleared) and white (cleared) bricks. I must just say though that for the Laos people this is an everyday deadly reality. It was an interesting experience and a real wonder as to the real purpose and significance of the stone jars. Some were big enough for us to stand and sit in and there was no real pattern to the areas where they were clustered together. All in all a great experience that we’d recommend to see, and we were lucky with our small group of 4, whom we all got on great with.
Next up we headed for Vientiane by mini van but actually stopped off at Vang Vieng on the way. We stayed a night here which was quite pleasant but to be honest one night was enough. It’s all about tubing (riding down the river in a tyre tube) and bars with the town mainly filled with young falang (tourists) getting pissed. I’m sure there’s more to the town so I don’t want to do it an injustice, but we didnt really have time to explore the caves and limestone karsts and anyway I was kind of itching to get to Vientiane!
Vientiane, the capital of Laos, was more our thing. An old french colonial town that had some interesting architecture and a lovely charm about the place. We spent 3 nights here just chilling really and wandering aimlessly around the town.
Next up was Vietnam and after the torturous road down from Luang Prabang I decided to fly to Hanoi rather than take the 24 hour road trip. I guess it seems quite extravagant looking back but I just couldnt face another road trip so soon. For Sandra on the other hand, it was a no brainer - $18 for the 24 hour bus trip or $130 for the flight… she chose the bus! So the race was on 
I left Vientiane international airport at 5pm on the Saturday and arrived at the Little Hanoi Hotel around 2 hours later (Just in time to see Spurs lose away to Blackburn) and Sandra arrived like clockwork a full 24 hours later in need of a good shower and a proper meal.
Apologies for the brief update but it’s been a bit of a whirl wind since Laos and its hard to find time to update the blog as often as we’d like!
We’ve added our twitter tweets to the top of the side bar now and these should have a more “real time” account of where and what we’re upto for the next few weeks…
