The Centre Of Laos

first things first - the irish lads turned up safe and sound - they hit a rock and had to wait to be found and brought down stream by another boat. we went out (dan, lucy and myself) with them to celebrate the night after the fact that we all made it and lucy's birthday.

i have started to do a little travelling with dan and lucy as we were basically doing the same thing in laos before everyone goes to do different things (dan is a helicopter pilot in the raf and has been based outside shrewsbury for the last year - random or what). its nice to travel with other people for a bit as it makes it alot easier - tickets etc and you dont have to do every little thing yourself.

since i last wrote i have moved south from luang prabang in two, eight hour journeys by laos public bus. the first being to phonosvan to see some 'massive jugs'. the journey was a bit of a nightmare as it was on a dangeours route through the centre of country. not sure if i was relieved or frighten by the sight of a 'guard' on the bus carrying a ak47 over his shoulder! this is due to hijack attempts and bombings by rebels in recent times, although not for a couple of years. i thought at one point that we would need it......... a load of local men got on the bus in camo gear and one sat next to me on the bus, we were pretty high up and driving through cloud so you couldnt see much, as we came round a corner there was a truck parked across the both sides of the road with men shouting and waving there arms. straight away all the men who had just got on stood up and moved towards the bus - i promptly had my heart in my mouth thinking that something bad was about to happen to us. anyway the guy had just broken down and the men standing up turned into a regular thing.

the route itself was very slow due to a unreasonable road surface and the fact that we were going into the mountains. the previous nights activities with the irish lads ( came back to are hostel and had a little party in a spare room ) came back to us all and made us feel ropey. by the time we got there it was again raining and pretty miserable and we went to the first hostel that offered us a room. it was pretty good and i had a bungalow to myself, very nice with a huge and i mean huge double bed in it. we arranged a trip the next day to see the attractions and they put a video on about the secret war in laos, to give us a little history. i didnt realise that the trail from the vietnam war came so far inside laos and the fact that the usa dropped more bombs on laos than they did in the first and second world wars combined, crazy. the problem being that millions of tonnes of bombs that didnt go off are in the fields and surrounding countryside - killing thousands of locals a year. although the locals use the disarmed bombs for all sorts of things - signposts, fencing, ash trays and hanging baskets to name a few.

the trip was good. we went to visit a field of bomb craters, a russian made vietcong tank and then the plain of jars. this is three different sites of massive stone jars, which no one knows how they got there or what they are for. it was pretty impressive and the largest one was 600 tonnes. went out for an indian meal before an early night as they was a curfew in place on the town at 10.00 crazy or what. started to pack my bag singing along to the ipod when the lad who lived in the hostel came in and offered me a beer free of charge, in return for me teaching him some english words. so i sat there for an hour or so getting drunk and teaching a kid english while he teached me laos.

this morning had to be up and at the bus station for 6.45 to catch the bus to vang vieng, i wasnt feeling to great after the nights antics. the bus was a bit better than the first although we had live animals in crates with us this time and a pyscho bus driver who loved to play his local music loud over the speaker system. all the locals were being sick out of the window and i thought when in rome...... so i did, twice and felt a whole let better for it. arrived at around 2ish and got a pretty good hostel at a bargain price of about 1 pound 50. this place is nice and chilled out and there seems plenty to do - mainly caving, tubing and hire motor bikes. all of which i reckon i will do in the next couple of days. unsure of my plans for the future - want to see southern laos but it will involve four 13 hour bus trips and i would only have 2 days there. so i might attempt to bring forward my vietnam visa a week and head across to hanoi and then visit southern laos when i am in cambodia in a couple of months.

hope everyone is fine and dandy wherever you may be

rob