The Two Faces of Traveller’s Laos

I was trying to figure out how to explain our trip after Luang Prabang, the jewel of Laos. I guess the short thing to say is that we then went off to Vang Vieng, spent two nights, and then continued on to Phonsavan. But that’s not the whole story, not even close.

I don’t really want to go too much into our time in Vang Vieng for a lot of reasons. The first is probably that I don’t want to encourage anybody to ever go there. (Side note, if you’ve never heard of this place or only know a little bit, check out this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/07/vang-vieng-laos-party-town) Did we have an entertaining time there? Sure. It’s pretty much like Spring Break in Laos. Did we float down the river, eat lots of hamburgers and drink lots of beer? Naturally. Was the scenery incredible? Yes. That was the main saving grace of Vang Vieng, the main thing that made it worthwhile to go there. Was it an accurate representation of anything Lao? Absolutely not.

I hesitate to even consider the place in Laos. Yes, it is in the national borders and there are a few Laotians that live and work there, but the place doesn’t seem like the rest of Laos in the slightest. I didn’t see one Lao restaurant or even one Laotian there for relaxation or any purpose other than working to entertain and feed drinks to the obnoxious foreigners. The main language of the place is definitely English first, French or German next, and then Lao a distant fourth.

The more I keep writing about Vang Vieng, however, the more I get disgusted with the place and everyone who goes there to support it. If you ever go to Laos, I suggest steering clear of this place, I guess this is how I can make amends for having gone there and supported this disrespectful side of travelling. Read the article I posted above if you want to know more, I’m just going to continue writing about what happened once we got on the bus to go to Phonsavan.

Well, we hopped on the bus after two nights in Vang Vieng and like everywhere else in Laos the scenery was amazing for much of the journey. Once we started getting closer to Phonsavan and onto the Plain the landscape began changing. There were fewer trees and it was a bit more arid. This reference may not help too many people, but it reminded me a lot of northern New Mexico but flatter. The bus ride took about six or seven hours to Phonsavan, capital of the Xieng Khuang province in Northeastern Laos. The city of Phonsavan itself isn’t anything special but it’s the history and what lies around it that made it the most special and important place to me throughout the trip. A little history lesson will follow. If you don’t want to read about one of the biggest (and least known) blotches in America’s foreign policy, skip the next paragraph.

Phonsavan is a relatively new provincial capital, having been created in the 1970’s following the US’s pullout from the secret war it led here alongside the much more public one in Vietnam. The formal provincial capital, located just down the road 20 km was leveled so completely by the Americans that it was deemed a better decision to just start a new town from scratch. You see, the CIA ran a secret guerilla and aerial war against the Pathet Lao (communists) and their North Vietnamese supporters. After the dust settled and the Americans were gone, a power vacuum emerged in their wake and was to be filled by the Communists. Then, some startling statistics began to emerge. Between 1964-1973 the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than on Germany and Japan during World War II, and much of it was focused on the Xieng Khuang province. On top of that, the number of bombing runs averages out to one bombing run every eight minutes, for 9 years. Laos is now, the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in history. If this isn’t bad enough, experts estimate that 30% of the bombs dropped never detonated and are still laying the fields, waiting to explode.

So we arrived in Phonsavan knowing a bit about this history but coming for what most people do: to see the Jars. Large stone jars are situated in many different sites in the area and their actual purpose isn’t clear. Some suspect they were originally funeral urns—albeit incredibly large ones—though I prefer the local myth: there once was a group of giants who ruled the area and after a large victory in battle the chief supplied copious amounts of lao-lao and these large stone jars were the containers.

Well, we got there and found the Kong Keo guesthouse. Unfortunately, Mr. Kong couldn’t support himself and his family just on the guesthouse business so he now lives and works in China and sends money back to his wife who currently runs the guesthouse. Well, we met a couple very nice Dutch girls who invited us to this Indian Restaurant in town. We decided to check it out and it was decent and not too pricey. That night, we sat around a little fire pit outside the guesthouse and got into a discussion with a few other foreigners there including some Swiss people.

The next day we got up and found some breakfast before trying to go about and find a way to do some exploring in the area. We failed trying to find motos (they were only manual) and ended up just booking a tour the next day through our guesthouse. The Indian food from the night before was also a bit too authentic as Paul and Patrick weren’t feeling too good and ended up resting up for most of the day. Later, Henry and I went to MAG’s (Mines Advisory Group) Phonsavan office to find out some more information about UXO (Unexploded Ordinances) clearance efforts in the area. This group seems to be a fantastic organization and if anything I said earlier about the bombings tugged on your heartstrings (or sense of shame if you’re American, like me, and couldn’t believe this had happened) you should really check out their website and some more information on them. We watched a couple videos there about the bombs and UXOs still left around and then went back to the guesthouse. We hit up a really good Lao restaurant that night, again with the Dutch girls who, strangely enough, didn’t seem that interested in exploring the Plain of Jars or seeing any of the impact of the secret war. They were content to just hang out and then slowly move on to the next place in a couple days time.

Well, Patrick was feeling pretty rough on our last day in Phonsavan so he stayed at the guesthouse and rested while the three of us joined up with a number of other travelers for the tour that our guesthouse was putting together. We first went out to a site where there was a huge crater left over from the war. Looking about the countryside, we could see the hills in the distance were pock-marked with similar craters. Also, we were instructed where we could and couldn’t walk due to little markers on the ground. One half of the marker was red the other half was white. Everything on the white side up until another marker had been cleared of UXO and was safe to walk on while the other side potentially contained UXO—and almost always did have some. Indeed, as we were walking back to the van we saw a bombie (small unexploded cluster bomb) laying on the ground in the uncleared side 15 feet from where we were walking.

We then moved on to the “bomb village” which was a village where many of the residents had used old bomb shells and other artifacts from the bombs to help construct their village. Sheet metal was used for roofs and bomb casings were used as flower and vegetable beds as well as stilts for the houses. Quite industrious. After this we went for a pretty decent hike/trek. We went down into a valley and to the bottom of a waterfall where we had lunch. After lunch we had a really cool hike up through the waterfall and back to the main road where we met up again with the van.

The last thing on the agenda was to see the Jars. We went to the biggest and closest Jar site, Site 1. The scenery around was pretty but nothing spectacular. Long yellow grass blowing in the wind and some rock outcroppings lying around. The jars were somewhat eerie and certainly puzzling. I had an idea of what to expect going into it which may have been to my disadvantage. I wasn’t underwhelmed or anything but Paul and Henry were much more taken impressed with them than I was. To me, they were a bunch of jars—some huge—sitting in a field and no matter what I theorized or people said, I wasn’t going to know what they were for. Very mysterious and somewhat confusing.

We didn’t get up to too much our last night in Laos. Paul ended up taking my dose of cypro and Patrick was still resting up for most of the night. Henry and I ended up playing cards with the Dutch girls and then sitting around the fire until late into the night.

We spent three nights in Phonsavan and yet the past two days were some of the most fulfilling for me of the whole trip. Did I do anything terribly constructive? Not really. But I learned a lot about the area, the people, the history, our government, and what made this country what it is today. I also learned a bit about myself and what’s important to me in this life. I thought a lot about my friends and family back home and in Cameroon and I missed them. I wanted to send some emails off to a few people but we didn’t have internet and I’m not entirely sure what I would have said if we did have it. This was the night of January 18^th and we only had 11 days left until we parted ways.