Phonsavan
We arrived in Phonsavan and it was absolutely freezing. Fair enough, it was winter and we were in the mountains, but do you think we actually thought of that?
We made our way to the Maly Guesthouse and after reading about the great food this place has, I was too ill to actually eat that night. Damn those anti-malaria tablets taken without food on a windy bus trip! But Nicole did and it seemed to be good.
What wasn’t good was our room being the same temperature as outside. We slept in about five layers of clothing and two blankets after getting an extra one from the front desk! There was hot water, but even that’s only so pleasant when there’s cold air to confront afterwards.
The next day we went on a tour of the Plain of Jars. This was our only reason (well, this and the duck recommendation) for spending 8 hours on a bus so we were hoping it was good.
A black Russian jeep left over from the war pulled up out front and our guide introduced himself as Suen. By the end of the day he’d tell us the three stories of how the jars may have come into existence, as well as the fact he was born in a cave and his grandfather was once governor of the area.
The jeep was way more authentic than any Pajero so we were freezing all day because the air just came through all the gaps in the material roof. The first site was quite close and had the largest jar of them all. All around were huge craters made from bombs dropped during the Vietnam war. The area was one of the most bombed place during the war even though the war wasn’t supposed to be happening there.
Suen told us the three jar stories in the Russian jeep because it was even too cold for him to stay out any longer. I’ll summarise them for you. One is a Lao story that says the jars were used to making rice wine (lots of jars because they needed lots of wine). Another is that the jars were used as part of the burial ceremony. And then third… hm, if only I could remember.
Next we stopped by a village where the driver’s girlfriend lived. They were making rice noodles by cooking white liquid over a drum and then leaving them out on bamboo racks to dry. Nicole and I had a go but really weren’t very successful. They made some sauce for us to dip the hot fried mixture into and then we were back on the road. Suen told us that they leave at 4:30 every morning to go to the markets to sell their noodles. I couldn’t help but think of how very cold it would be at that hour.
The cold must’ve been affecting my memory because the second site has blurred into the first and third.
We stopped for some duck noodle soup at the third site before looking at the jars. To get to the jars we first crossed a bouncy (and fun) bamboo bridge, then wandered through some rice fields. While we looked around the jars we noticed some smoke coming from one of them – it was our guide and another guide starting a little fire to keep warm. Surely in no other country could one have so much freedom around such an important site! We joined them at the fire and I asked why there were no blocks marking the areas which had been cleared of mines as there were at sites one and two. The square blocks are white and magenta. The white side means there are definitely no mines, while the red site means someone has checked with their eyes for a distance of five meters. Anyway, turns out they haven’t got around to doing that at the third site, but no probs, just don’t go digging, says Suen.
On the way back to the guesthouse we stopped at the two markets in town – the dry and the wet. The wet market was full of all sorts of exciting produce, most of which we only wanted to photograph but not eat. Frogs anyone?
That night we had dinner with an English and American backpacker and then watched The Raven at the suggestion of the wife of the owner. The doco was all about a group of American soldiers coming back to Laos to relive their time in the war. Oh, and the guesthouse owner happened to be their tour guide and featured prominently in the film.