Vieng Xai was absolutely beautiful. A tiny town with a wonderful lake, stunning hills and mountains (hence many caves) and lots of colourful fruit trees.
The caves, some natural and others formed using dynamite, were very well setup, each with bedrooms for the leader, his family and bodyguards, meeting rooms, kitchen and bathroom facilities, and an emergency room to protect the Pathet Lao from chemical attacks. The US knew the leaders were residing here and subjected the area to an incredible amount of aircraft bombs, but were unable to infiltrate the area by land and therefore all the leaders survived the war. The ‘feu’, noodle soup with meat or fish, was recommended by one of the locals in the village and was excellent.
It was well worth the 20 hour mission east, but it was time to head back west to Phonsavanh. The bus journey was much better, although I did have a really smelly farmer come sit next to me halfway through the trip, which gave me even more reason to continue admiring the stunning views out the window.
Not surprisingly, we were a few hours late (Laos time) in arriving. It was here that I bumped into Miriam and Hinesh, who I would spend the next week or so with.
Phonsavanh and the neighbouring area were hit hardest during the war, both from the air and on the ground. The town itself was small, but there was a fascinating place called MAG ‘Mining Advisory Group’. Sounded to me like banking, but it is a group who are funded by various foreign NGOs, and together with local people, are responsible for clearing the countless UXOs (unexploded bombs) in the area. The 90 minute video they showed was pretty scary and gave a very good sense of the current impact of these UXOs in the area, i.e. many people are injured and killed from these UXOs, often kids who are searching for scrap metal to sell, and it makes a lot of the land unusable.
I also visited the mysterious Plain of Jars. Huge stones in the middle of majestic fields amongst many UXOs but the restricted, tourist area has been cleared of them by MAG. There are a few explanations as to why they were made, the most ridiculous being as containers for rice wine and lao lao whisky.
The area around the jars was truly amazing, difficult to believe this area was battered during the war.
We also visited a local village as well as a Russian tank that had been there since the war.
It was now time to head to the very different town of Vang Vieng, famous for its ridiculously dangerous tubing. Don’t know what it is? You’ll have to wait a bit longer as I have run out of time. Many have died whilst doing it. I clearly didn’t, but have many scrapes and bruises from it!
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