Khob Jai Lai Lai

Vang Vien turned out to be not so much my cup of tea. Although the backdrop to the town is beautiful the town itself has been consumed by the 'backpacker culture', made up mainly of bars and tour companies. The main attraction is 'tubing'. 'Tubing' involves floating down the river in rubber rings, stopping off at bars, getting drunk, rope swinging in to the river then continuing on to the next bar. Unfortunately, Laos is right nearing the end of the hot, dry season and the rivers are really low meaning that rocks are jutting out of the river in places. Call me boring, but I wasn't up for cracking my head open on a rock and floating un-noticed down in to Cambodia. Despite the danger side of it I was still suffering from food poisoning (and still am!) so I opted for floating down the river aimlessly laughing at the idiots in bikinis and body paint.

Thursday night's shower is worth a mention. I have had some eventful showers in my time- but this takes the biscuit. Has anyone seen the film Arachnophobia? The scene when she is in the shower and the turantula crawls down her face? This scene was played out on thursday night featuring me and a blinking huge Cockroach. I have come to the conclusion. COCKROACHES LIKE MY FACE.

After this traumatic experience I headed down to Vientienne. Suzie, the lovely lady I have been travelling with for a couple of weeks had a friend of a friend living in the city. So for the past few days I have officially been FLASHPACKING. Queen Size bed, House on the Mekong, it has been luxury.

I am leaving Laos this evening on an overnight train headed for Bangkok.

The Long & Winding Road

Me & My Jar



Unexploded Cluster bomb from 'The Secret War'

About 12 hours after I posted my last blog both me and my traveling buddy came down with some horrible food poisoning... Nevertheless we boarded the bus for Phonsovan the following morning and headed off to visit "The most dangerous archeological site in the world" - The Plain of Jars.

There were a few blips in the journey- not only were we both feeling green from the winding roads which went on bend after bend, but the minibus we were in broke down and we were hoarded on to a bus which smelt repulsive and was covered in old fruit peelings.

The Plain of Jars is Laos equivalent to Stonehenge in the way that there is no clue as to how these giant stone jars ended up in a field. Our guide told us he thought they were made for brewing LaoLao (Laos Moonshine)... it's one theory I suppose.

During the Vietnam War, America dropped a load of cluster bombs on Laos in what they call the 'Secret War', there were 2 tonne of bombs dropped for every Lao person, making it the most heavily bombed country in history... and you probably would never hear about it if you didn't visit. Just walking around the fields near the Jars you see unexploded bombs sitting in the grass so It is a little dodgy to say the least.

Phonsovan itself was a bit of a hole so we made a quick escape yesterday morning and headed down to Vang Vien.

Unfortunately, the food poisoning is a little more serious than we had hoped and after four days of the coca-cola diet we are starting to feel a little under the weather. It is a real shame because the food in Laos is incredible!