Vang Vieng & Phonosavan
Packed and ready the next morning we were greeted by our
taxi to the bus depot. It was more of a tuk tuk vs flatbed truck with metal
seats in the back, but it was only for 20 mins or so as we went around the
hotels collecting people.
We then got into ok little minibus where I once again
blagged the front seat, so it was quite a comfortable 3.5hr journey. Around 2pm we arrived on a dusty main road and walked the 5mins to the Vang Vieng
homestay, which was on the slightly quieter edge of the town. We had 2 perfectly
clean and comfy rooms, although Jane did have a large 8-legged lodger, with private bathroom and A/C. The resort even had a pool
which we didn’t use but looked very inviting.
The town is surrounded by magnificent mountains and the
views are breath-taking. We found a couple of little bars (our fav one was
called Earth) that had seating areas overlooking the river with the mountains
as a backdrop, and this is where we could be found each night watching the sun
set with a cold beer or cider.
On the bus coming here I’d started to question why we, a
couple of lazy overweight older travellers, were going to a place so high on
the ‘active / adventure’ trail but when we got there even we were sucked in by
the posters and fun looking packages.
We spent a whole afternoon trying to
decide between a Hot air balloon ride, Buggy cars, Ziplines, Kayaking or Tubing
but with limited time and funds we finally decided to just do a morning of
Ziplines and then an hour or so tubing on the river.
Vang Vieng used to be infamous for its tubing scene, or
maybe just for the record amount of deaths they had 1 year, but they have
changed and cleaned up their act over the last few years plus we weren’t doing
the pub crawl tubing route. We organised our ziplines and the tubing through
the tour guide opposite our hotel and the two together plus transport cost
160,000 kip each, which is about £15.
Our day started at 8:30am where we all got
branded with the initials of our paid for activities then jumped in a TCK tour
marked truck. After a few more pickups and a 20 min drive out of town we
arrived at a river side building where a few other trucks full of people were
waiting.
The bold initials on our hands made it easy for the guides and
instructors to section people off for the various activities and it wasn’t long
before we and about 20 other people were harnessed up and ready to zip line.
We
had a brief demonstration where I volunteered to do a test zipline, just to
make sure I wouldn’t freeze up when we got to the high ones, and then we were
off onto a boat across the river. A truck takes you up the steep road to the
first zips and after a safety check and a short climb up a hill we were on our
first platform waiting to zoom through the trees.
The views were stunning, the instructors were brilliant; really professional and I had the best time, even when I was terrified and
started to have a mild panic attack when walking on some hanging logs and when
they ‘dropped’ me during the final abseil descent! The highlight of the morning
had been the young Asian girl that was so scared during the first few zips that
she screamed and had to be accompanied by the instructor, finally she got brave
enough to do them on her own but her final abseil, which Paul has tagged onto
the end of our video, had everyone in stitches.
When back at the riverside base we got a free lunch of BBQ
chicken, rice and bread plus a paid for beer before we were herded into a
waiting tuk tuk with 2 other girls for the tubing experience.
After a few km we
turned off down to the muddy riverside and we loaded all essentials into dry
bags which went in the guides kayak and we launched ourselves into the river in
rubber tubes. We had two guides with us in kayaks, not because you really
needed them, but they were on hand in case the rapids capsized you.
In actual
fact we handled the rapids perfectly in our tyres and just got a few mouthfuls
of river water but one of the guides went over in a kayak and got his phone and
belongings wreaked, luckily for us it wasn’t the one loaded with our shoes and
dry bags but I felt bad for him.
After an hour of drifting through amazing
scenery, which obviously we didn’t get on camera, we stopped at a restaurant /
bar for a quick rest before heading back to town for coffee and cake. We had a
lovely quiet night watching the sunset behind the mountains and drinking a few
beers before packing for our early bus to Phonosavan the next morning.
Morning brought with it a burst water valve, so our entire
hotel block had no running water for showers or toilets. Obviously, there was
nothing we could do so 3 slightly grumpy people got on the tuk tuk to the bus
depot at 8:40.
We arrived to find an already full and very battered blue minivan
that was supposed to be our transport down the windy 4 hr road to Phonosavan.
Our luggage was whisked away onto the roof rack before we could stop them and
we were urged to squeeze 14 people into a 12-seater minivan! There were 3 other
European backpackers plus ourselves that found this situation unappealing and I
honestly don’t recall who first started the grumble of discontent but it ended
up with Paul, Jane and myself refusing to travel in this van.
Obviously once
we’d been unloaded this meant there was enough seats for everyone else, so we
waved the clapped-out minivan off and started weighing up our other options.
The bus terminal said there was another van going to Luang Prabang and he could
drop us off at Phou Khoun, which is halfway and where the road splits off to
Phonosavan, from there we would wait for another van to take us to our destination.
It sounded good but there was a risk factor of missed connections, more
overbooked vehicles, motion sickness and we were still feeling pretty grumpy.
We worked out that it would only be about another 230,000 kip each to get our own
private a/c minivan and so after a quick conflab that’s what we did.
The van driver,
like many others in Asia, only knew how to drive at breakneck speed and we flew
along the windy roads, overtaking a battered blue minivan within the first
couple of hours and reaching our destination in 4 hours.
Phonosavan isn’t a pretty town, it’s one dusty main road
with a handful of scattered guesthouses and restaurants but it is where you
stay to visit the Plain of Jars which was a strange mysterious site we’d heard
of and a bucket list tick for Jane.
It isn’t just one site, there are over 40
but most them have not been cleared of UXO’s so it’s unsafe to visit, the 3
main sites have been cleared, or at least have marked paths that you stick too
when you visit.
At these sites you can find big and small stone pots, or jars
which no-one really knows how or why they got there as the local tribes have
all died out. One folklore story that captured my imagination says that a tribe
of giants lived here and these are the drinking cups left strewn about after a 6-month
celebration, science tends to lean towards them being some sort of burial or
cremation vessel….. I think you know which one I’m going with.
We were staying at a fairly new hotel about 5 mins walk from
the main market and café hub called Fananhmai. It was clean, had a/c and a
fridge in each room but the worst pillows of our entire 10-month trip.
After a
settle in we went out for a wander round the covered food market where we were
treated to the sights and sounds of live larva (couldn’t figure out if they
were bee larva) and bowls of maggots for sale as well as the now standard fried
insects, chicken feet and piles of bright veg.
There is a lot of war related sites around Phonsovan as well
but as we had already done much of this in Vietnam we just opted for a tour of
the 3 main jar sites, plus a quick trip to the old provincial capital of Muang
Khoun.
We booked through the café / tour guides at Bombies and it worked out as
160,000 kip each for a private a/c minivan with no guide. It might seem like 3
jar sites would be overkill but they are all quite different.
We started at
site 3 and after gate-crashing a local buffet lunch party in search of the
ticket booth, our driver pointed out a rough track through some rice paddies
and said go that way. So off we went on a thin muddy track round fields and over
stiles until we all got a fit of the giggles because we had no clue where we
were going and hadn’t seen any jars yet!
Spotting some MAG (Mines Advisory
Group) markers which denote the UXO cleared path to the jars we continued
through cattle fields until we got to a small fenced off wooded glade and
inside we could see many small to medium sized jars.
It’s a pretty little site
and apparently has the most concentrated number of jars but it didn’t give us
any clues as to what they might have been used for.
Next was site 2 which very close down another bumpy dusty
road. We stopped to buy tickets and it was then that our trusty minivan decided
to break down! We all tried to resurrect it but as it sounded terminal we left
the guide talking to his boss and we walked the final 10min to the jar site.
They have 2 groups of jars here but the prettiest one is to the right, set on
top of rolling green fields with a heard of cows all wearing cowbells grazing next
to you. It didn’t look like Asia at all.
The van although now working was not going to be trusted to
complete our day so a car and new driver was being sent from town to continue
the tour. Half hour later we were heading off towards the old capital Muang
Khoun.
This is even less of this town than Phonosavan but they do have an old
destroyed temple with a large war marked Buddha, an old ruined government building
plus two old stupas nearby. They ask for 10,000 kip entrance to both the Buddha
and Stupas, which seems a bit cheeky as you aren’t at either site for long, but
then you remember it’s not even a £1 and does contribute a bit of money to the upkeep.
Our final visit of the day was Plain of Jars site 1, which
is the largest of the 3 sites and hence has the largest jars. This site was
15,000 kip each to enter but they do provide a shuttle bus from the ticket booth
to the first group of jars, which saves you a 10 min walk one way, we couldn’t
figure out how you let them know you want to come back so just walked back.
Tired after a full day looking at stone jars we went back to
the hotel for a couple of hours before heading out to get a bus ticket to Luang
Prabang for the following morning.
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