Journey to Phonsavahn, North East Laos

After Luang Prabang and its gentrified cafes and restaurants, i wanted to get off the tourist trail and see the real Laos, before proceeding to the capital Vientiane.

From Luang Prabang, most of the younger backpackers go to a town called 'Vang Vieng' which is famous for its 'tubing'. This involves inserting yourself into a rubber vehicle inner tube and floating down the Mekong from bar to bar, getting slowly (or quickly) inhebriated. Although this sounds like fun, one or two travellers meet with fatal accidents every year - no joke...

..this sounded like carnage to me, so i decided to skip this and go to Phonsavahn.
Phonsavahn is well known for 2 things. The province in which it lies had one of the highest concentrations of ordinance dropped on it during the 'US Secret War'. It also has several sites of 2000 year old stone 'jars'. Lacking historical records, the reason for their existence is only guessed upon.

I booked a place on a minivan for the eight hour journey to this town. It's low season so there were actually only 4 of us in the van..me, this Kiwi guy (originally from the UK) Daniel and 2 local girls. The landscape was fairly mountainous (and beautiful) and the roads very windy and monotonous....
I fell asleep a few times (as did all the others) and i was amazed how the driver managed to keep from doing the same! I began to be thankful that i'd booked the journey during the day as otherwise we night have ended up off the side of a mountain..


Unfortunately, local Lao people engage in 'slash and burn' farming and felling of trees to build houses, so much of the primary forest near inhabited areas had disappeared :





When we arrived at the bus station, there was just one guy trying to tout a guest house.
The conversation went a like this..

Mr Vong (the tout and owner of InterLao Travel Agency) : "I have guest house, its nice guest house"

Me : "What's the name of the guest house ?"

Mr Vong : "It's nice guest house, i take you there for free in my van, very close"

Me : " Ok, but what's it called ?"

Mr Vong: " It's nice guest house..."

Me : "What do you think Daniel, should we take a look ?"

Daniel : "Yeah, ok, if we don't like it we can move on..."

When we got to the guest house we discovered it was simply called "Nice Guest House" ! Doh !
The rooms were nice, basic, clean with hot showers and cable TV for GBP 6.40 (whoohoo!) , so we checked in....