LAO LAO this year, for the first time in many i totally missed chinese new year, and substituted lion dance in the lion city for the peace and quiet of laos. having spend a lot of time in the south on my last laos trip, i decided to explore the north east this time round. and with tigerairways flights to udon thani getting to vientiane is easy, fast and cheap. so on chinese new year eve i left singapore early in the morning for udon thani, grabbed a mini bus to the border and found myself in vientiane by 10am. so i decided to make use of the day and hopped on a bus to vang viang where i was to spend my first night in laos. coming from the city vang viang is quite nice an scenic, yet looking at the place after a few weeks in the real laos the town appears to be a circus. here, tourists ignore all social rules of the country and walk around town clad in bikini tops and mini skirts, while munching on burgers and happy pizza. but still, renting a motorbike and driving around the surrounding area is absolutely rewarding, and the sunset across the river and the karst mountains is hard to beat.

but two days was more than enough, so off i went to phonsavan, to see the famous plain of jars, a must for any archaeologist! after a heavy night with two venezuelans i needed a bit of a rest in phonsavan, but the next day i took a tour of the ancient capital xiang khouang and the plain of jars sites 2 and 3. our guide, a local hmong was totally lovely and invited us to his village and mother’s house on the way. it was real special to see the village and house, and to meet his mother and siblings in that personal way, but the impressive jar sites are even more memorable. here, overlooking the plain, we can feel the presence of long lost warriors or nobles, buried beneath a man sized stone jar holding the food and drink that was to nourish them in the otherworld. the sites speak of thousands of years of riches and culture, and stand in stark contrast with the entirely destroyed xiang khouang nearby. the old capital had been built right here in the land of ancient history, and grew to unspeakable beauty, featuring 62 golden stupas and numerable temples and palaces. the neighbouring thais and chinese loved xiang kouang riches and looted them repetitively, while the french loved its climate and added many colonial villas to its splendour. but it was the americans that wiped out the place, razed it, and bombed it into non-existence. with it they destroyed the local temple building tradition, and left only a single buddha image standing in the ruins of the one temple that has nothing but its foundations standing.

despite the fact laos was protected by the geneva conventions as a neutral country the american’s used the war in vietnam as an excuse to bomb laos "back into the neolithic" as they likes to call it. from 1964 till 1973 drop more bombs laos from 1964 till 1973 flew 580,944 sorties, an equivalent of 177 per day, dropping 2,093,100 tonnes of bombs, an equivalent of one plane load of bombs every 8 minutes around the clock for 9 years running on laos. tightly controlling the press america kept their illegal war in laos secret, while dropping more bombs on the country than on japan and germany during WWII. with the americans using huge amount of anti-personal bombs, or bombies, large areas of laos are still cluttered with millions of hockey ball sized bombies ready to explode under a farmers plough or in children’s hands, which they do on a daily basis. and with the americans happily dropping the bombs, but unwilling to pay for their clearance MAG is fighting a sisyphus battle against the more than 2 million tonnes of explosive steel dropped 40 years ago.

keeping this in mind it is hard to believe that the laotians are such warm and friendly people, the kindest people one can find anywhere in the world. and it is for that reason that i love the country so very much. and of course there is more than the people, there is the wonderfully diverse landscape, and the slowness of the place. being in laos, and specially being alone in laos means to slow down, internally and externally. and travelling in laos is a slow affair, where 200km can mean 12 hours on a bus, or a mere 16 hours for the 180km distance from phonsavan to xamnua. the reason for the latter was a minor accident on route, which left the bus driver who was going a mere 20km/h at the time arguing with the driver of the van who came shooting around a blind corner on a mountain road, hitting our bus, but blaming our driver for it. hmmmm well it seems to happen anywhere. so anyway, the accident happened at noon, at 4pm we were still sitting on top of the mountain surrounded by hmong kids waiting for the police to come from a town 60km/3 hours drive away. at 5pm i got a lift with 3 laotians down to the next village so we could get some food and wait for the bus in more comfort. at 9:30pm the bus came and at 10pm we set out to xam nua, where we arrived in the middle of the night. there othkham managed to wake the owners of the guesthouse in the bus station and got a wonderful room to finally rest for the reminder of the night. the next day i moved on to viang xai, a village 26km down the road that features the most wonderful karst mountains in a much more tranquil setting than vang viang, mainly because there are virtually no tourist there, and secondly because the inhabitants of viang xai are even more friendly than the already super friendly average laotian. i have never ever felt as welcome in a place as i have while wandering around the streets and lakes of viang xai.

back in xam nua i used to opportunity to buy one of the locally made sarongs for a very very good price in the local market and to eat home made noodles before going on another 13 hour bus ride along the highway #1, travelling on the roof of laos back to the west to nong khiaw. now last time that i was there i nearly froze to death, or at least if felt like it, yet this time the weather was much warmer, but still nong khiaw greeted us with a huge downpour when our bus pulled into the village at 9 o'clock at night. but the rain was fine as the temperatures were ok, and the following day brought a mixture of early morning mists, dazzling sunshine and heavy afternoon showers which helped to raise the water level in the nam ou. this then meant that the boat trip upriver to muang ngoi on the following day was not interlaced with little walks when the boat had to be pulled through some mega low waters. instead we cleared the rapids with gleeful smiles and gasps and arrived at the most peaceful muang ngoi an hour later. muang ngoi, depite its ever increasing stream of tourists, is still tranquil, as it has no road access and is therefore limited in access and traffic free. as such it is a perfect place to chill out and watch the sun set behind the spectacular mountains while one drinks a most delicious beer lao and munches on some salad lao or foe.

two days later i was ever so lucky to find a boat that was going back to muang khoua, another 5 hours further upstream on the nam ou. with more and more roads being built in laos these days this is luck indeed, and so i found myself feeling like a little princess sitting as the only passenger on the wooden boat when leaving the sandy shores in the morning. an hours later we picked up the first group of locals, 3 akkas who had about 5 teeth between them, and who were ever so happy to see me on board. the entire trip saw various groups of locals getting on and off the boat, fish being bought and collected from the river, kids catching little freshwater prawns, makeshift mini-generators – a laotian speciality – woman doing their laundry, and buffalo going for an afternoon swim. the landscape around the nam ou is as varied as its people and its waters, changing from calm mirror surfaces to foaming rapids within minutes, but the alert boatman got us all to muang khoua by the afternoon, leaving me enough time to go for a wonder around town in the afternoon before watching the sun go down from the terrace of the sabay sabay restaurant.

fastest bus journey, has to be the title of the following day, when the trip from muang khoua to oudomxai took a mere one and a half hours, which is virtually unheard of in laos. i could not believe it myself, but it was indeed true, so by 11am i was comfortably settled in my guesthouse when i bumped into noreen and shortly after ofer. we met, talked arranged to meet for dinner and then we followed our own pursuits, which for me meant going for my first lao sauna aka herbal steambath on this trip. and it was wonderful; i shedded about 1kg of dead skin and felt like a new born baby after it, ready to do new harm to my cleansed body in the form of the ever so delicious beer lao and an exquisitely yummy lab tofu. and as my trip was already two thirds over noreen and i were heading south to luang prabang the next day, where i was for the first time in two weeks hit by the arrogant and unconsidered behaviour of a certain type of tourist again. it was shocking to see how people mock local ritual, by shuffing cameras in monks faces during the morning alms giving, how they excessively use flashlights when posters all over the town ask them not to, and go even as far as to obstruct the path of the monks with a tripod so that they can zoom into the monks faces even closer – disgusting. such behaviour always makes feel guilty and ashamed, and in these moments i wish i was not one of them other farangs.

despite this luang prabang is still nice, the sheer number of temples in the town is overwhelming, and to thing that xiang khouang used to be just as culturally rich before the americans decided it might be a good idea to bomb every square centimetre in laos makes one feel the loss even more keenly. and the sauna in luang prabang is still one of the best, especially in its newly renovated form. all in all i enjoyed my 3 days there with noreen and was sorry to leave for vientiane, especially as this was to be my last bus journey in laos, marking the end of my stay. yet on the journey south i overlooked the baguette stalls girl's affinity for mayonnaise, and no amount of chilli sauce added managed to kill of the bacteria breeding in the stupid sauce, which meant that as soon as i checked into my room in vientiane i was violently sick. consequently i also had to spend the next day in bed, and it was only in the late afternoon that i ventured out to go for a quick ride to the golden symbol of vientiane, the that luang before returning to my bed. and the next morning, which saw me leaving the country, but not before i went to the temple for my blessings and my totally unexpectedly bumping into marie and pascual, whom i had not seen for nearly a year, and who i did not know to be in laos at all. it was the most wonderful coincidence, and a great farewell to laos, even though it would have been nice to spend more time with them. so on my direct aircon bus i went back across the same old friendship bridge border i had crossed 20 days previously and into udon thani where i found 2 of the three budget hotels had closed down, leaving me only the queen hotel as a most horrific option, but believe me when that huge cockroach looked me deep into the eye from the edge of my pillow at 2am i regretted not having whipped out my credit card to pay for the upmarket option in town. but we live to learn, so next time i know no mercy, as the queen hotel is surely one of the most dirtiest and run down places i have ever stayed in! yet the room in the hotel stood in stark contrast to the friendliness of the udon thani locals, who seemed ever so surprised to see a caucasian, and most overjoyed whenever i spoke a smithereen of thai to them. all in all, i had the most wonderful time, and i wowed to be back in laos next year.