Water fight!

I took a six hour bus ride to Ponsavanah to see the Plain of Jars. It was a big V.I.P. bus that wasn’t very V.I.P. The driver would only turn on the AC when we were traveling on flat roads or downhill, otherwise the bus would overheat – so we got to overheat instead - awesome. It was on this bus I met John from Ireland (the jolliest Irishman I’ve ever met) and Ester from Switzerland.


The city of Ponsavanh looked like the Wild West of Laos. The city is literally made of up one big long street with not much on it or activity going on. It just needed some tumbleweeds rolling down the street and it would have been perfect. Needless to say, this is the kind of place you get in and out of!

The next day I joined a tour to visit the Plain of Jars. The Plain of Jars are these huge (some taller than me) stone jars, some carved from granite and others of sandstone, scattered through the countryside. I think there are 90 sites all together but only a few open to the public because of UXO (unexploded ordinence). They think they were used as tombs, but there's only some evidence which supports this. Local legend has it that they used to ferment rice wine in them (Laos people are big drinkers, so I could believe that!). But if you ask what they were used for they really don’t know. If you ask how they got there, they don’t know. If you ask who made them, they don’t know. Not the most enlightening tour I’ve ever been on. We visited three different sites, but to be honest once you’ve seen one jar, you’ve seen them all...[a Top Tip if you ever go to see them.]

There could be more sites but because the UXO the discovery has been a slow process. Even around the sites that can be visited there are stones that mark which side of the path is safe and which is not.

On our return we stopped at a local whiskey “factory” whose owner looked like he had had a liiiittle too much over the years. The local moonshine was in a barrel in a hut. Not overly impressive. The old man ladled some of the whiskey into a pop bottle with his very shaky hands in order to serve it to us.  It was painful to watch.  Then he passed around a single shot glass for the 11 of us to try it. It was disgusting, both the taste and the way in was served. God only knows how many people have actually drank out of this one shot glass. The Laos have a saying that if you only have one you can’t walk because you only have one leg, so you have to have another in order to use both legs. No thanks, I’ll hobble home.

We also stopped in at on a local’s house and where invited in to look around. It was big and empty. A little area for cooking with a fire pit in the open on the floor with no proper smoke ventilation. No furniture but they did have an unexploded grenade (without the pin) as decoration... it could technically go off. There were two very very small rooms that were where they slept. The woman was very sweet offering us bananas.

The stable where they kept the animals was supported by old bomb casings. This is supposedly common throughout rural Laos but where really the only ones I saw put to use and not just for decoration.

The next day I took a 4 hour minibus to Van Vieng. This has developed into the party town of Laos in the past four years. The typical thing to do here is to tube down the river and stop at all of the bars along the way – it could be up to a six hour excursion. I landed here with Avril and Yann, whom I met on the Plain of Jars tour.  A super fun couple from Ireland and France, respectively. We learned pretty quickly that Vang Vieng was not our scene. There are lots of drugs – you can pretty much get a “happy” meal anywhere. In the evening people were off their heads. I don’t know how the locals can stand it.

The first day I chilled at watched a Friends marathon (every other restaurant runs back-to-back episodes of either Friends or Family Guy) – surprisingly I didn’t need to be “happy” to do this but it made me very happy.  I caught up on some episodes I'd never seen.

The next day I rented a bike and rode to Tham Phu Kam or the Blue Lagoon for a swim. The Blue Lagoon was just that, blue blue blue and so refreshing. There was this big tree you could jump out of and into the water. So much fun. Yann and Avril met me there on their bikes and I joined them to complete a 33km West Vang Vieng loop. The bike ride was amazing. The roads were not amazing – super rocky but it made for a challenging ride which was fun. We rode through beautiful karsts and small villages. Always greeted by smiles and waves. I didn’t get a lot of pictures because we were on a bit of a time crunch needing to be back before sundown.


This route is suggested in the Lonely Planet. This is where the Lonely Planet can have a negative affect... the locals having become hip to the route and have put a few tolls in place in order to cross a river. This one bridge (if you could call it that) was so tiny and the guy woke up from his nap when he heard us and pulled a small rope across. We came across another bridge – a bigger one. Not sure if they charge locals (I doubt it) but we thought we’d show them and walk through the river. I took two steps into the river and lost both of my flip flops. Haha!  So much for showing them.  I had to laugh.  I caught one but one went sailing down the river. To make matters even funnier one of the kids from the bridge caught my show a few meters away... and of course wanted money for it. Yann retrieved my shoe at no cost.

The next morning Avril, Yann and I went kayaking down the Nam Song river. It was really nice but because the river is so low there were lots of rocks and very little current or rapids. But the scenery was stunning. Our guide rode with me and he was hung over (no surprise there) and turns out laid down and rested a few times while I did all of the work. Nice. LAZY.

The laziness still bothers me when I think about it now and I'm kind of getting irritated as I write this!  haha!  They really could care less if you are a paying customer or client.  A good example of this was the morning we went kayaking. I was checking out that day but wasn’t going to be back until about an hour or two after check-out. I asked if I could keep the room for just a couple of extra hours so I could shower before having to get on a bus... Nope. “There are people coming” they said. (Remember this off-season so it’s not busy and the hotel was far from full.) So I asked that the room is booked. The response “There are people coming. You can pay for an extra day.” "Just a couple of hours?" I ask. “Everyone in Vang Vieng check-out at this time.”  "I’d like to have a shower... " “You can have a shower in our bathroom” FYI this is an outdoor shower. Okay fine, I clearly wasn’t getting anywhere. I get back from kayaking and asked for a towel. “No, you can’t have a towel.” Mmmmk. “We only have enough towels for the rooms.” Ya riiiiiiight. Whatever. I shower in their personal outdoor attached bathroom. My bus is late to pick me up. The hotel sells bus tickets. Do you think you can phone the company to ask where they are? “Nope, we don’t have the number.” Sooooo lazy. Sooooo unhelpful. They were just going to lay there and watch TV.

The V.I.P. bus left late. Typical. The AC was “broken”. OMG. It was an oven. And of course they totally don't care.  We arrived in Vientianne hot and bothered (really bothered).  But it quickly got better.  Avril negotiated hard for us at a cute little boutique hotel.  Nice.  And we set out to prepare ourselves for Laos new year buying water guns!

For Laos new year they spend three days soaking people in the streets. There were five us all together: Avril, Yann, John (the guy we met in Phonsovanh) and Larkin or as we liked to call him "Texas".  We spent 12 hours armed with water guns roaming the city streets soaking people and getting soaked. Super fun! 

We jumped into the back of a local’s pick up truck and cruised down the main drag. I think we got more wet than the people on the streets. When we reached the end of the main drag we thought the locals were heading out of the city to get a refill of water for the big oil drum that was now empty. But we kept going and going... We ended up at the bus stop about 8km outside of the city. (At one point we were thinking we might not come back with our kidneys!) We pulled up to a huge bus and they motion us to get out. mmmmmk. They proceeded to lift this massive and dirty engine out from under the bus and put it in the pick up. We decided we should probably find our own way back at this point. But as we started walking away they called us to get back into the back of the pick up. Okay. We drove two minutes away and pulled into a garage or something only to learn (we think) that it’s the wrong engine. Okay NOW we definitely needed to find our own way back.  But they called us back into the truck again. Back to the bus station... Okay at this point we decided we REALLY needed to leave and the locals agreed so we said good-bye and went to find a tuk-tuck. This task shouldn’t be hard at the bus station. We approached this guy who seemed to be the tuk-tuk manager and we asked for a tuk-tuk. He said there are no tuk-tuks. Meanwhile he was standing in front of three of them. “What about those?” we asked. He said “Laos new year. Drivers drink BeerLaos.” We found alternate transportation. 

That night there was a big celebration and a main-stage set up in the center of the city. There was music, dancers, and some audience participation. The most hilarious thing was that there was this huge space cordoned off for a public foam party.  A constant stream of suds.  Awesome. We danced in the suds – so much fun!

We met some locals and they shared their Beerlaos with us. They would constantly yell “finish” encouraging us to chug back our drinks. They were a blast!



More soon...
xoxo