Good-bye Laos...

Vaing Vieng
I didn't have much expectations from this little town. I was pleasantly surprised. It used to be a party town where drunk youngsters drunkenly tubed down the river. Town that never sleeps.
That changed. After 30 dead tourists last year and some 24 the year before, the government ordered to take the bars down. No more drinking and tubing . As for parties... the bed time for the town is at 11pm, when all the bars close.
The town is not anything spectacular, but the nature around for sure is! The river with karsts sticking out from behind it. What a setting! There are caves and climbing and kayaking, or you can just bike around or go for a hike.... Or it can just start raining and you can sit in the local bakery and eat chocolate cakes.

Phansovan. Plain of jars.
I took a nice long rest in Vang Vieang, It was needed. The minivan ride to Phansovan was a tough one. Laos is so hilly and the road has many curves, hundreds or thousands. it also has potholes and unpaved parts.
I am on the west of Laos, the land got flat and dry. Reminds me little of central Myanmar. This moder town is getting front position of the places I don't need to ever go back to. Nerveless, the local market was very local... and I only now got to see what Lao people eat.... frogs, birds, rats, squirrels.... you know ... all the yummy stuff.

I spent the evening in the company of my new Italian friends.

We rented bicycles for today to go see the jars the green way . The ride itself was not that much fun, what made it special were the local seeing us biking . They were smiling and waving and little kids staring at us. Just like in Burma.

The Plain of Jars was beautiful. There are about 250 of the jars at the side 1 and nobody really know what they were for, but most likely it was a fancy cemetery.  There are few craters from bombs there too from the  war. Wandering around is not recommended, as some unexploded bombs could  still be around.


I've noticed that local were picking up trash in front of their houses and was wondering why, and sure enough, soon bus with Vietnamese high officials arrived into the parking lot. I didn't want to miss a great photo opportunities and rushed my friends to go back to the jars.
There I was thinking I will snap pictures of uniformed man... well turned out little differently, when they started taking pictures with us. We even got filmed!

This should be my last night in Laos, if the bus that I already got ticket for will actually go tomorrow. It being a Laos....nobody knows for sure!