Xam Neua to Phonsavan

After the debacle that was the Na Meo border crossing, we decided to go a little bit more mainstream and touristy. We had read all about NE Laos and had decided long ago that we wanted to visit a place called the Plain of Jars. Located in the Xaing Khouang Province (just south of where we were staying in Xam Neua) we thought we could potentially rent motos and go there on a day trip, but that turned out to be completely unrealistic. So, instead of heading north (like we had planned), we opted to head south and stay in the province capital of Phonsavan which is centrally located to all of the Plain of Jars sites.

We scouted out the bus station on our way back from Vieng Xai, which at the time, seemed super straightforward; it was a straight shot from our guesthouse, up hill but manageable and only a little more than 1km away. That night we packed our stuff and went to bed early.

In order to catch the first bus out of town (which was leaving at 8:30a), we woke up at the crack of dawn. We were ready, checked out of our guesthouse, and on the road by 7:00a. Since we knew where we were going and since yesterdays journey had been super easy, we decided to take the free option and just walk from our guesthouse to the station. The road at first was easy, and when a tuk-tuk driver stopped to ask if we wanted a ride, we politely shook our heads no and continued on down the road. We walked for a few blocks, hungry and cranky, ready to move on to the next destination. By this point, we were already a few days behind in our itinerary, so missing the morning bus to Phonsavan would put us another half day back and we couldn't afford it. We hurried, hoping to get there in time to make reservations on the first bus.

As we rounded the corner...that's when we saw the base of Everest, or at least our Everest. The hill that had seemed so small on our motos now loomed large in the distance. What had seemed like an effortless journey less than 24 hours before now, on foot, was steeper then any temple we climbed at Angkor and more exhausting then the 1,000 step cave in Mai Chau.

About half way up is when we all realized how stupid we'd been; thoughts of “I might actually die” were followed by “why didn't we take a tuk-tuk?” and were interspersed with “I'm so glad we're not actually gonna hike in the Himalayas”. With every step we hoped for someone to ask us “Tuk-tuk?... Tuk-tuk?”, but everyone we passed was going down the hill, into town for work or school.

It took about 30 minutes to walk that 1km and by the time we reached the bus station we were all red faced, thirsty, cranky and most of all, really cranky. We dropped our stuff on a bench and went up to the ticket counter to purchase our tickets. Despite none of the signs being in English, we were able to figure out which bus we needed to take and purchase three tickets to Phonsavan (80,000kip each).

Once we got settled with seats on the bus, we went out to find snacks, go to the little girls room (that's the bog, for the benefit of our Scottish readers) and center ourselves before the 6-10 hour bus ride we had ahead of us. Thankfully, when we finally left the station, there were only 7 people on our bus (including ourselves), and were able to stretch out and get comfortable.

The bus journey was the most pleasurable one that we had; we each had our own row, the windows opened so we could get fresh air, and we were finally coming down out of the huge mountain range that we had been in since Mai Chau so the roads were straighter-ish. For the first time on our trip none of us felt or got sick (which unfortunately wasn't the case for the other four people on the bus, who spent the whole time loudly vomiting into small plastic bags and then chucking them out the window...eww!).

 

Enjoying snacks and legroom

Despite picking up a few people up on the way and taking a 30 min pit stop, we arrived in Phonsavan two hours earlier then we had anticipated.

Sticky rice in a bag...our favorite afternoon snack :)

The roads were straighter, but they were still bumpy! Note the scarf being used for extra support :)

The bus dropped us off around 3:30p at the central bus station in the middle of town, which was really just the gravel parking lot of the biggest market. We grabbed our bags, negotiated a tuk-tuk, and headed back the way we came to the most touristy part of town.

Since we hadn't made reservations in advance, we told our tuk-tuk driver to take us to one of the guesthouses we had read about called Kong Keo. It supposedly had bungalows with solar heated showers, a bamboo-hut restaurant, fires every night in a halved UXO bombshell and a view of something other then the main drag of town, so we decided to go there first and check it out.

On our first Laotian Tuk-tuk!

When we arrived at Kong Keo, we were greeted by the two people who were lounging in the restaurant. Once we established that we needed a room, they quickly showed us the first one they had available. We were led past the bamboo-hut they called a restaurant, down a stone staircase and around the corner, where we quickly realized-- this wasn't exactly what they had advertised-- By bungalow, they meant a single ground floor room with a western toilet (which had no toilet seat or tank cover). Restaurant, meant a hut with a refrigerator full of cold beverages. And by a nice view off the main strip of town, they meant you get to look at our neighbor's chicken coop instead of the road... After seeing the room, we looked at each other, then looked at the young man and said:

“We'll take two”.

Even though we never saw a fire, the roosters woke us up every morning and we only had running water two of the three days we were there, we thoroughly enjoyed staying at the Kong Keo guesthouse. 

Road leading up to our guesthouse

The "Restaurant"

Our fancy bungalows

The owner, Mr. Kong was more then hospitable, which made up for any shortcomings his guesthouse may have had. Our first night there he sat with us for hours, talking about his family's experience during the war, his feelings towards Americans and his hopes for the future of his county and for his children.

Mr. Kong Keo and his kids

He told us that everyday someone in Laos is either injured or killed by a previously unexploded American bomb. That during the war “Bombs fell more often then rain” and that today “We find bombies on our land as often as you find dirt under your shovel”. He talked about the impact of the war on the day-to-day lives of the people living in Laos, especially those whose livelihoods depend on farming the land. He explained that even a mundane task like tilling your field can prove to be deadly. That millions of tons of bombs were dropped during the '60s and '70s, of which 30% still litter the countryside. He explained that it only takes something simple like a child's touch, the contact of a shovel or a step in the wrong place to set off a bomb and which makes progress very difficult. The desire to remodel your house, build a new road or a school, or farm new land for your family means putting your life at risk as well as the life of those around you. “How do the Laotian people progress if we can't build the infrastructure to move into the future?” We had no answer to his question, only tears in our eyes.

He then talked about America and how it's difficult to forget what was done to his country. He said “I could kill you, I could drop bombs on your country and kill your family...but that would do nothing. Laos will still be covered in bombies and all of our children would suffer. We do not want anyone to suffer, we only want our country back the way it was... That is why we do not hate the people of America, we know you did not do this”.

He talked about the clean up effort, that at the current rate it will take anywhere from a few decades to hundreds of years to rid the country of all unexploded bombs (depending on international funding). He encouraged us to watch the documentaries 'Bombies' and 'The Most Secret Place on Earth' so that we could better understand what had happened and what is being done to remedy the situation.

In that moment, we decided to forgo our plan of visiting the Plain of Jars for the next day and instead visit the MAG center (the Mines Advisory Group); an organization that has done the majority of the clean up work in Laos and has an office in Phonsavan. They give free daily screenings of the documentaries and we were determined to be as informed as possible. We began discussing what we could do to make a difference, and how sorry we were that more was not being done.

We ended the night with him telling us “You think too much...you are only one person and one person cannot make a difference”

I kindly said “That is true...it is hard for one person to make a difference. I am one person, Sam is one person, Cait is one person, you are one person but together we are four people. And if each of us tells many people, and they tell many people... then together, maybe we can make a difference.” He smiled, nodded and we all went to bed with a sense of hope for the future.

 Please checkout the Mag Center's website.