Laos #1: Finally Laos!

I absolutely had to visit Laos, which feels like a well-kept secret on the brink of being exposed. Finally managed to organize a trip with Clar, Sich, JH and Seok in Oct 2013.

Rejoiced at the direct flight from SIN to Vientiane via Lao Airline: the plane was new, with nice green leather seats. Economy class was almost empty, and business class was full of men in suits.

We stayed at the Heuang Chaleun Hotel. It's a bit out of the way. Perhaps not a good choice if you're going to be in Vientiane for a few days, but the room was the best we had in Laos, and breakfast is provided.

First order of business: Lao Massage! JH had done some research, so we found a tuktuk, haggled the price to $30k Kip, and made a beeline for the White Orchid Yoga & Massage. Traditional Lao Massage was $55k for 1hr. Our masseuses were joking with each other while they worked, and you're left wondering whether they're laughing at some deficiency in your physique.... but it really doesn't matter because you feel so goooood. It's like Thai massage (stretching and cracking) but with more acupressure.

Wonderfully languorous, we ambled towards the river in search of dinner. Had our first introduction to 'Mekong Weed' (salted and spiced riverweed, not the other kind of weed), and a Lao carnival/amusement park. It was an extensive carnival, with darts and airgun shooting games, food stalls hawking crepes, grilled meats and fetal duck eggs, and ferris wheel and bumper car rides.

Seok, JH and I convinced ourselves that we should take a ride on the bumper cars, which led to a hilarious and adrenalin-filled evening, made more enjoyable by a pair of girls who giggled and screamed in horror whenever they were bumped. I felt like we were hanging out with all the cool kids in Vientiane, with the flashing lights and pumping disco music at the bumper car arenas.

------------

Tubing in Vang Vieng (photo credit: Seok)

The next day, we were met by Xi, our driver. He brought us to some temples (Wat Si Satek), before we picked up Clar and Sich from the airport. Then it was off to Vang Vieng, backpacker and tubing capital of Laos. We took a boat ride upriver, passing many angmohs on their tubes, and riverside guesthouses advertising beer and happy hour. Vang Vieng is described in the guidebooks as a place to chill out, and it does have a cheap backpacker vibe. But Laos has so much more to offer than that!

Fishing village with fermented fish paste (photo credit: Seok)

After dinner of Korean hotpot, we spent the evening with Xi, drinking Beer Lao and snacking on fermented fish paste and pork skin. The fermented fish paste is slightly rubbery, sour and salty. Went well with beer and pork skin, and strangely I'm starting to salivate while writing this. But it was definitely right up against my comfort zone for foreign food, and required some willpower to silence the corner of my brain that was ringing alarm bells and blaring public service announcements.


-----------
Days 3 - 6: Phonsavan - Xam Neua - Nong Kiew. Much drive. Such cows. Very potholes.

photo credit: Seok

Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
6 hour drive to Phonsavan, and its Plain of Jars. The Plain consists of fields littered with hundreds of huge stone jars. Apparently some jars were also discovered in the surrounding forests. No one knows how they got there. No one knows what they were used for. It's a mystery as great as Stonehenge and the Nazca Lines.

Xi's story is that they were used to brew large vats of whisky after a victorious battle, but I think the burial jar theory is probably most likely.

Xi has a favorite restaurant in Phonsavan. He brought us there for lunch, dinner, then breakfast on day 4. We just took his word for it that there are no other acceptable eating establishments in Phonsavan.

photo credit: Seok

--------

Many caves are hidden in the cliffs

American Secret War: Of Caves and Craters

Laos is the most heavily bombed country (per capita) in the world. 260 million bombs were dropped on Laos, and an estimated 80 million failed to explode, posing an immense threat today.

Conflict between the French and independence-seeking Lao Issara (Free Lao) party after World War II, morphed into a war between the USA/Royal Lao Army and the Indochina Communist Party/Parthet Lao. The US Airforce were bombing trucks and troops along the Ho Chi Minh trail at the Vietnam-Lao border, pretty much from 1964 till the end of the Vietnam war in 1973.

Toilet

The Plain of Jars was decorated with multiple bomb craters, and we could see large white furrows on the surrounding hills, which Xi said were excavations for unexploded ordnances (UXOs).

We visited the Tham Piu Cave where 374 villagers were killed, and the Viengxay Caves, a vast network of limestone caves, 480+ of which were occupied by the Parthet Lao and supporting villagers. The audio tour is quite informative, and painted a vivid picture of life under constant threat of bombing raids: farming by night, cooking becoming a dangerous activity, planning a war.

Wall in Xam Neua (photo credit: Seok)

I'm glad that Laos is more peaceful now. The villages we drove through have sufficient chickens and cows to constantly cross the roads and impede traffic, so that must be a good sign, right?

Beautiful Lao countryside