Phonsavan; The Plain of Jars

Our desire to go to Laos stemmed from the research we did when we were in Siem Reap, week #3 of living in Cambodia. Planning our multinational adventure consisted of googleing the top 10 things to do in the country and then figuring out how we could get there. Even though there were a few cool things we wanted to do Laos, the main reason we were going there was because we found a super cheap flight out of the capital of Vientiane to Katmandu, Nepal.

We had read that the most popular thing to do in Laos is the 'Flight of the Gibbon Experience', where you trek into the jungle, then use zip-lines to traverse the jungle canopy, stay in tree houses and essentially live like the native gibbon monkeys for 2 or 3 days. We were really excited about this, it was exactly the kind of thing we wanted to do...until we found out that it costs $500/person. So instead, we decided to do an equally exciting 'Mahout Training' just outside of Luang Prabang. It was an all-inclusive 2 day experience where you learn how to take care of elephants; you bath them, feed them and then learn to ride them on your own. It was the only thing we paid for in advance and the cost was singularly the most expensive thing we were doing on our whole trip.

By this point in our adventure, everything centered around getting to Luang Prabang in time to make our reservations and those reservations were in three days. We were still in Phonsavan and desperately still wanted to go to the Plain of Jars so we made the decision to stay an extra night-- cutting it really close. We all understood that if our luck of showing up an hour before the bus is supposed to leave and actually getting tickets ran out, we might miss our pickup and forfeit all of the money we had already spent to become Mahouts. Nevertheless, we wanted to see the megalithic, Iron Age Jars and also get some more practice riding moto's while still in the countryside.

When we returned to our guesthouse from the MAG center we found Mr. Kong relaxing in the bamboo-hut. We wanted to get his advice on the Plain of Jars and when he invited us to join him, we happily sat down and started discussing our plans for the next day. We told him that we wanted to visit Jars sites 1, 2 and 3, that we were hoping to rent two moto's in the morning and make the journey on our own. Mr. Kong was very adamant that we should take his guided tour, but the price of his tour was twice what we intended to spend and we were really jazzed about riding moto's. Even when he explained that “all the moto's you can rent in Phonsavan are crappy, guided tours are made in air-conditioned vans or tuk-tuks”, our awesome moto experience in Xam Neua and our desire to get more practice, clouded our judgment and we declined his offer.

Once he understood we weren't going to taking a tour, he told us that his sister, who owns a hostel/restaurant around the corner, has bikes for rent and that we could easily rent two from her if we went in the morning. He also gave us a jewel of information, that was “First sit, then Kip” which meant; 'take the moto out for a test run before you pay for it'. The thought had never occurred to us...but of course! If you just drive the bike around a little you'll be able to tell if it sucks. Duh.

So, thinking that was sound advice, the next morning we walked around the corner to his sister's place called 'The Falang' (which in English, essentially means The Foreigner) and asked about bikes. We told her we wanted two moto's, one automatic and one manual. She handed us the keys and told us to drive down the short street for a test run. We found this very promising, considering Mr. Kong's advice from the night before and drove the moto's to the end of the street and back. We really had no idea what we should be looking when assessing the quality of a bike but they seemed to be OK; they both started up fine, the brakes worked, they didn't appear to have any mechanical issues and plus they looked pretty. So, we agreed to rent them for the day for a total of 200,000Kip. She handed us maps, circling the different Jar sites in the area and told us to be back by 8pm.

About halfway out of town was when we realized that none of us knew enough about motorcycles to recognize an issue if we saw one and that Mr. Kong's advice was only relevant if you have a clue about what to look for...

The automatic scooter Cait and I were riding kept veering hard to the right, and when we all stopped at one of the only stop lights in town, Sam's semi-automatic died (though it started back up again with a few turns of the key and methodical pressing of the ignition). At this point, we were already 20 minutes into what we thought would be an hour long ride, so instead of going back to the rental place we decided to just power through it and continue on. The further and further we got out of town it started to become apparent that riding motorcycles to the Plain of Jars is a bad idea-- unless you're on a top notch, high quality, dirt bike. The road that was at first paved, quickly turned into a gravel road, then a sand and gravel road, then not even really a road as much as is was a stretch of sand with huge potholes and loose rocks the size of baseballs. Our automatic pink scooter and the manual piece of junk we had rented, barely made the journey.

Three hours later, when we finally reached the first stop on our itinerary (Jar site #2) we were hot, hungry and physically exhausted. Not to mention, all coated head-to-toe in the fine red sand and dust that was kicked up by the huge air-conditioned tours buses that passed us along the way. On the verge of a mental breakdown, we arrived at the ticket counter; Sam pushing a bike with a broken speedometer, fuel gauge, horn, blinker and ignition, Caitlin walking, and me haphazardly riding a scooter with a flat tire. Hoping the woman at the counter could help us, we stumbled up to her desk and asked if she could call the 'in case of a bike emergency' number that we had been given by The Falang. Unfortunately, she spoke not a word of English and even though we pointed to the phone number, then pointed to our bikes, her numerous phone calls where in vain since we couldn't understand each other at all. 

Our pretty pink scooter with a flat rear tire

We then spent about 30 minutes yelling at each other “I told you that we should have taken a tour!” “I told you that we needed to rent good moto's!” “What are we gonna do??? This is all your fault!” “No, it's all your fault!”. By this point, none of us cared even a little bit about seeing any Jars.

It wasn't until a tour bus pulled up and a group of happy, clean, well rested tourists started filing out that we gained our composure; “OMG are you guys ok?”. We explained what had happened and their driver, who spoke English, kindly offered to call the emergency number for us and get someone out to help. When he hung up the phone he told us that someone was on their way, they'd be here in half an hour and that in the mean time, we should go see Jar site #2. We reluctantly agreed, thanked him and started up the hill.

Despite the effort it took to get there and that in retrospect, we should have taken a tour; what we found was really awe-inspiring. The Jars were sitting on top of the largest hill in the valley, each was carved out of solid rock and there were over a hundred of them. Big enough to fit all three of us inside, we hypothesized that the Jars must have been used to brew huge batches of ancient beer or rice-wine... nothing else seemed feasible (though we later found out that the current theory is they were used as ancient burial urns-- not for beer).

"Look at how much beer this could hold!!"

Jar site #2

View out over the valley from the top of Jar site #2

A 'tree hug'!

Jar site #1

The biggest Jar we saw

View out over Jar site #1

Jar site #1

We talked about how sad and unfortunate it is that these hugely impressive, megalithic, works of our ancestors, aren't even listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to the UXO contamination and the danger they pose to mass tourism. We hoped our donation would help, but we knew from looking around us that much more work still needed to be done and that we alone, couldn't solve the problem. All over the site were painted markers, showing where MAG had cleared surface UXO's and where they hadn't. Standing in the middle of the site, the danger was very apparent. Walkways were clearly marked, walking outside of the perimeter was strictly off limits and bomb craters littered the area.

"YOU ARE ADVISED TO STAY BETWEEN THE WHITE MARKERS"

The markers showed where MAG had cleared UXO's and where they hadn't.

Bomb crater

Another bomb crater

We had read at the MAG Center that The Plain of Jars was the most heavily bombed area of Laos, making it the most arduous clean-up effort in the country. Even though MAG has spent years clearing a few of the sites, most (83 of 90) have not yet been assessed and ALL still have lingering bombs that pose a threat to human life.

We felt privileged getting to see something that few people have seen or even know about. Embracing our filth and misfortune, we walked back down the hill in better spirits then when we had made the ascent. Though, the second half of our day proved to be just as frustrating as the first, and none of us really recovered.

Waiting at the ticket counter for someone to show up.

We waited for another hour before the woman, who rented us the bikes, showed up to help us out. Once she changed the flat tire, she told us that we had to pay her another 200,000Kip for a 'new' tire plus her time and trouble, and that even though nothing actually worked on Sam's bike; “The bike works good! You just have to use the kickstart”. Which would be fine for anyone who knows what that means, but for us, we had never 'kickstarted' a moto before and it proved to be the most frustrating and embarrassing thing we had encountered thus far. We also got lost, riding more the 20km in the wrong direction before realizing our error.

There were times when some of us threatened to walk home and leave the bikes in the dirt... others threatened to drive away on the bikes and leave the people in the dirt. Ultimately, the glorious day that we had sacrificed from our itinerary to see the Plain of Jars, was spent yelling, fuming, seeing some jars, then fuming and yelling again.

We were all irritated with the reality of traveling and with each other. For the first time in two months we were actually looking forward to going home to Phnom Penh.

Phonsavan; the MAG Center

The next morning we were woken up by the roosters at 6am. Last night's conversation was still fresh on our minds, and we had intended to get up early--but not that early. So, as soon as the roosters stopped their announcement of the sunrise, we all closed our eyes and tried to get a little more sleep. We had about 30 minutes of peace and quiet before they started up again...then it was quiet...then roosters... quiet, roosters...quiet...roosters! It took about two hours before we were all wide awake, hating chickens and vowing never to keep a coop with 100m of our house. By 10am we were ready, had eaten breakfast and were on our way to the MAG Center.

We weren't exactly sure where it was located, but we knew that it was east and on the main strip of town, so we headed in that direction. Thankfully, it was only a short walk (2 blocks down the main road from our guesthouse), which we were all extremely happy about. Since arriving in Phonsavan, the weather had been hot... like Cambodia hot. In the afternoons the temperature soared to 34ºC (97º-99ºF) and we were pleased to stumble upon the MAG office without too much effort.

What we found was a tiny museum/info gallery where, for the first time, we were able to see all of the information we had heard about, in writing. The walls were covered in huge full-color posters with pictures, maps and diagrams. Most of the information we already knew, but seeing it for the first time in print made a life-time impression in our brains. As we walked around the room we were able to read about the secret war, the impact of UXO's on the Laotian people and MAG International's current clean-up effort in Laos.

In the middle of the room there were large display cases, filled with the different types of bombs that MAG finds and destroys in Laos every day. Each bomb casing was laid out with a description of the bomb and its country of origin. Surprisingly, not all were American. Many of the casings were Chinese or Russian, as well as some from other countries. For a moment, we felt a sense of relief “It wasn't just us that dropped bombs on Laos... it's not all our fault”. Then we realized what that meant-- America dropped two million metric tons of bombs on Laos, then on top of that, nearly every country in the area had bombed them as well.

A hand-grenade dating back to WWII  made by the USSR and the notorious bombie; a yellow tennis ball sized ordinance deployed by cluster bombs manufactured by the U.S.A

A BLU 45 anti-vehicle submunition. Deployed in groups of 30, would bury themselves into the ground and detonate when triggered by the vibration of a car or a magnetic field-- U.S.A

A number of different munitions from the U.S and China

The thought was staggering. This tiny little landlocked country with its kind and generous people had done nothing to incite war, but because of its strategic location, it was caught in the middle of the global war for world or regional dominance.

It was then that we saw the truth; war creates problems, it doesn't solve them.

We struggled to find a silver lining in the terrible mess of facts and realizations we were having. We hadn't even seen the documentaries yet and we were already starting to agree with the 'you're only one person' mentality. How could we change foreign policy? How could we make a difference?

That's when we then saw the posters describing MAG Internationals clean-up efforts. They explained that, in an effort to stimulate the local economies, MAG only hires local people and that they don't even accept foreigners as volunteers. Instead, they take local volunteers, provide them with training and hire them on as employees. MAG pays good wages and offers full-time, reliable work, to any citizen willing to volunteer for the job. They empower members of the community and make them local heroes who save lives and build futures.

Women in particular play a huge role within MAG Laos as bomb detonation specialists. The organization makes an effort to encourage women to take leadership roles within this highly dangerous, male dominated field. Though many of the women receive criticism from their friends and family saying “That is a man's job”. Their response is always “Yes, I am scared. And yes, it is dangerous. But I am always gentle, meticulous and aware of what I am doing. Saving lives is important and I am good at it”. There were also international news articles praising the all-female teams of bomb detonator specialists that are pioneering the clean-up effort in Laos.

After reading over everything, there was one thing that was very clear; the only road block to cleaning up Laos is the funding. MAG has the man power and the expertise, but they lack the money to buy necessary supplies and pay their employees.

The other countries they work in like Somalia, Libya, Iraq and Cambodia receive direct funding from governmental and institutional donors to complete those specific projects. Though, because the war on Laos was one done in secret, with no international coverage, the funding is minimal and sporadic at best.

We made the cumulative decision to empty our wallets and donate every penny we had on us, even donating the Vietnamese Dong that we had saved as a memento from our travels there. And when we came back in the evening to watch 'Bombies' and 'The Most Secret Place on Earth', we brought with us a significant percentage of the money we had left for our trip and made a larger donation.

It felt good knowing that our relatively small donation could at least pay for two weeks salary of a UXO technician. And now we were well informed and on our way to making a difference.

***We're in the process of becoming an official MAG fund raiser. If you haven't already, please donate on their website  or watch for our link and help us support this great cause!*** 

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.

Vieng Xai

Our second day in Xam Neua we rented moto's from the only guy in town who spoke fluent English. He owned a restaurant around the corner from our guesthouse and when we asked him about where we could rent two motorcycles he told us he would lend us his bikes as long as we brought them back before dark. We had read that there should be a moto rental shop somewhere in town but they only had low quality, unreliable, cheap moto's that were prone to breaking down, so even though the price was a little higher then we were expecting (100,000kip for the automatic and 80,000kip for the semi-automatic vs. 60,000kip each for the crappy motos), we happily accepted and started off on the two hour long journey.

Sam leading the way!

A quick stop for a selfie on the top of the mountain pass

The road to Vieng Xai was paved but narrow and winding. Being so close to the Vietnamese border, the topography was much the same; huge karst mountains covered in jungle and expansive valleys of rice paddies. Though on the Laos side, instead of the emerald-green, lush fields we had grown accustomed to seeing, they were brown, dead and overgrown with weeds (occasionally there would be a bunch of kids using them as a multi-level football field). 

Dead rice paddies just 40km from the Vietnamese boarder

We wondered if it was because of the climate/weather...we did pass over a mountain range, after all? Or maybe Vietnam's government had invested money into building the infrastructure needed to irrigate its countryside in the off season, a luxury that Laos can scarce afford. Whatever the reason, it didn't take away from the magnificence of the landscape and it was nice to have something new to look at. Plus the weather was warm-ish (we actually saw the sun!) and we were riding free in the most rural province in Laos, so we were happy :)

Around 12:40 we arrived in Vieng Xai, a city comprised of only two main roads, a few side streets and a large pond/small lake in the middle. Even though the town was tiny, it took us 20 minutes to figure out exactly where to start the cave tour because the signs that were supposed to point you there were the size of your hand, hidden and often facing in the wrong direction. After driving around in circles for half an hour or so we finally found the main tour office and saw that the English speaking tour would start in 30 minutes, so we went in search of some Indian food! We had seen a restaurant that claimed to serve authentic Indian and since we had been craving Indian food since we left Phnom Penh we were extremely excited to get our fix. We sat down at the restaurant only to find out that the owner “wasn't serving Indian food today”... though he did say we could come back tomorrow and he'd be make us some. LOL. So instead we got some fried rice, jumped back on our moto's and headed back to the cave office.

At the cave office!

The tour cost 60,000kip ($7.50) per person. We were each given a headset to wear and we were accompanied by a local English speaking guide. The tour started at the main office where we were instructed to put on our headsets, press 1 and play. To our surprise, the voice of a well spoken English man came on over our headphones and gave us the background information for what we were about to see;

“When the French Indochinese empire was formally dissolved in 1954, America began pouring money into Laos. The US and other western democracies did not want countries to establish communist or socialist governments. They feared this would increase the power of the Soviet Union, their Cold War enemy. The US wanted Laos to act as a buffer between communist North Vietnam and other countries in the region. Their goal was to influence Laos' internal politics.

“At the time there were just 1 million people in the country, most of them subsistence farmers. The influx of US dollars never reached them. Corruption kept the money concentrated in the cities, and a few well-placed officials became very, very rich. There was much political instability: America was also spending a lot of money undermining local elections. The increasing impact of this US influence demonstrated to many patriots that the Laos people were still not in control of their own destiny. Laos essentially became a victim of its own geography, and was caught between the escalating military conflict between the United States and Vietnam.

“In the early days America's support was purely financial, but slowly that shifted. They secretly built an airstrip at Long Tieng [often called “The Most Secret Place on Earth”], a high plateau to the southwest of here, protected and hidden by the mountains. They stationed fighter planes there, as well as at Udon Thani, a huge air base in Thailand. But unlike the war they were waging in Vietnam, which everyone saw on their TV screens, the battle for Laos was a well-kept secret.

“Some of the secrets of the war are hidden in the mountains around us. The Pathet Laos and some neutralist politicians made their headquarters in the caves in and around Vieng Xai. The people who came to join the command center of the resistance took shelter here from American bombs. For 9 years, from 1964 'til 1973, they lived in the caves, and took cover in the forests. In one way or another, this conflict touched the lives of every person living in Laos, and continues to do so to this day.”

We rode our moto's from cave to cave, seeing where each of the 7 members of the Politburo lived, including the eventual President of Laos PDR. We saw the army headquarters where officials and 2000+ infantrymen were stationed, the cave they converted into a movie theater/reception hall, the hospital and mortuary, and the cremation cave (its roof blackened with ash), among others. 

The first stop on our tour; the cave complex of Kaysone Phomvihane the General Secretary of the Lao PDR. We had seen many caves up to this point and expected this to be more of the same. Boy were we wrong.

His dinning hall

The Politburo meeting room inside his cave where all of the members met on a regular basis during the war

The room that the Politburo members would sleep in if the bombardment was too intense for them to travel 0.5km back to their own caves.

Entrance to the military cave

The great hall where 2000+ infantry men slept and lived

Where the military commanders slept and lived

Entrance to the theater cave

Theater/reception hall where movies were shown, theater production were put on and many people celebrated weddings and holidays...which continues to this day

Our guide would give us some context as we arrived at a new place, then instruct us to “press ## and play” on our headsets. We were able to hear interviews with people who lived in the caves, giving detailed descriptions of what day-to-day life was like living in and around Vieng Xai;

“We cooked only in the early mornings, and would make the meals for the whole day. We had to wake up before 5am because the planes would come as soon as the sun came up and would continue until the sun went down.”

A typical kitchen outside of the caves

“Farming was extremely difficult. We worked in two shifts, at night, by the moon light. Though sometimes we could only work one shift because the planes would come with spot lights and bomb any sign of life.”

A view of the valley from one of the caves. Though no rice paddies remain, this is where they attempted to grow food for their families

When the bombings stopped and the peace treaties were signed, instead of returning to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, the Pathet Laos leaders built houses just outside the caves in which they had lived for the past 9 years. Although we were not allowed to go inside, we were able to see the houses they and their families lived in until their deaths.

One of the many houses that greeted us as we walked to the caves

As we traveled to the different caves we began to realize the scale of the complex: it was truly a city. We also gradually became more aware of the scale of civilian suffering caused by the “Secret War”. In their blind effort to root out the Pathet Laos leadership, the American bombers (many of them actually privately contracted mercenaries) were simply ordered to kill anything that moved. Many of the villagers who took refuge in the caves had no idea who was dropping bombs on them, or why.

“One afternoon a plane flew over head and we ran for cover. I hid behind a large tree. The bomb exploded by my house but the tree saved my life. My younger sister and brother were not hurt by the blast, but had been thrown many yards so I gathered them up and we went to find my grandfather. We found him beside the house with shrapnel in his stomach. He told us he was dying and that we must run.

So we left our home for the caves..we lived in the dormitory cave and studied at the school.”

Nevertheless, the Laotian people succeeded in creating a fully functional society in the caves, while the only success that the bombers enjoyed was in killing innocent people. We were awe-struck both at the dogged ingenuity of the peoples of SE Asia and at the mindless brutality of the war.

In addition to the caves that we saw, there were also caves for baking, the dormitory cave for students and a school cave, a printing press cave, a Womens' Union cave, many small caves that supporters lived in with their families, among many, many others. All of the caves had concrete-bound emergency rooms hidden deep within the rock; they were built to withstand chemical warfare as well as old-fashioned bombing, and all were equipped with a manual hand-crank air pump to bring fresh air deep within the cave. These rooms sheltered 20+ people for days and some times weeks on end. We also learned that the lake in the middle of Vieng Xai had once been a hundred bomb craters that they dug out and filled with water and populated with fish so instead of a ruined landscape they had something that was beautiful and prosperous.

The lake that the modern town of Vieng Xai is situated around

“Once, we questioned an American pilot about his orders and he told us they were to drop bombs on any domesticated animals, particularly white birds [chickens, ducks, pigeons, etc.] because they were easily visible from the air and meant people were living in the area. So we had to kill all our white birds. Many of our cows and water buffalo were killed. Food was scarce, we often went to bed hungry but no one starved.”

By the time the war ended, Laos had the dubious honor of being the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world. The final chapter of our audio book informed us that because of its massive inheritance of unexploded ordinance, Laos has become a world leader in campaigning against the use of cluster bombs. In 2008, most of the countries in the world signed a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs and pledging money to help the clean-up of UXO-ridden countries. The U.S.A. did not sign the treaty. 

We would highly recommend that anyone traveling to Laos visit Vieng Xai, especially if you're American or care at all about world history. Despite being very rural and out of the way from most of the tourist destinations, it's an experience all people should have. It truly brought tears to our eyes and gave us a new appreciation for the resolve and determination of the people of SE Asia. We had seen a little of it in Vietnam (the Hospital Cave in Cat Ba, the War Museum in Hanoi and our many conversations with Vietnamese people) but the scope of Vieng Xai gave us a whole new perspective. The people here are not only generous and welcoming but the most forgiving people alive. At times we wondered how these atrocities could ever be forgiven and how the people of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam could ever look at an American without contempt and hatred in their heart.

We walked away humbled and embarrassed to say we were from the U.S.A.

We rode our motos back to Xam Neua in silence, reflecting on what we had just seen and contemplating how we could make a difference.

Rockin' Out in Xam Neua

After sleeping for a solid 14 hrs and fully recovering from our crazy adventure crossing the border and getting to Xam Neua, we were ready to explore. We started the morning with a glorious cup of Laos coffee with sweet milk near our hotel and ventured around the small town to find breakfast. We crossed a somewhat sketchy footbridge and made our way towards the town food market. The market was beautiful, rows of tables stretched beneath a tent showing off all the bounty from local gardens and surrounding farms. Off to the right was the town meat market, we were warned that we may see animals here that we’d prefer to see running wild in the jungle, so we decided to hold off until we’d eaten breakfast in case the sight made us lose our appetites. By the afternoon when we’d returned, the selection was picked through although we saw lots of pig heads and a roasted dog!

"Mackenzie, stop rocking the bridge!!"

After seeing everything there was to see in town and eating a late lunch we decided to retire early to work on the blog while we had a good internet connection. However, on our way back to the hotel from the local cooler where we’d stopped to buy some beer, we were flagged down by a group of locals who’d been drinking beer by the river all afternoon. They saw we had beer and invited us to drink with them, after exchanging a couple ‘cheers’ and downing a glass or two of Beerlao, we realized that although most of the guys could understand English, they couldn’t really speak it. As is customary when we can’t communicate well in English, Mackenzie nudges Caitlin (dubbed our Lord of Language) to ask “Parlez vous Francais?” and to our delight the response was ‘Oui!’

Our new friends

Through some jumbled French and broken English we found out that we were hanging out with a Laos rock band from the capital Vientiane, here in Xam Neua to play a show that night. We were stoked when they invited us to attend the show as VIPs with them and we didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation.  We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon hanging out with them by the river, drinking beers and doing our best to get to know one another. At dusk the guys put together a makeshift BBQ, tossed on a chicken and asked us to join them for a real ‘Laos’ dinner and how could we say no! We started the meal with what looked like a large pizza tray filled with a blood red liquid substance, lots of cilantro and possibly mushrooms or liver? We were all a little nervous to try it, as they sat the tray down in the middle of our circle and handed us spoons but Cait braved the questionable substance with little reservation and Mackenzie and Sam soon followed. The dish was a spicy one, and tasted mainly of spiciness and cilantro. Sam and Cait liked it well enough and took another spoonful. Unfortunately for Mackenzie, she is allergic to cilantro – not in the serious sense, more so that it simply tastes like soap – needless to say, she did not like it. They heated up some sticky rice over the fire and passed us each a piece of the chicken and a ball of rice. Sam was just starting to get into her drumstick when it slipped from her hand into the dirt below, feeling like an idiot she picked it up quickly and continued to eat the dirt chicken. After a few minutes of laughing at Sam, Mackenzie came to the rescue and slyly tossed the dirt covered chicken over her shoulder. After we all finished up we jumped into the band’s van and headed off to the concert!

Cheers!

Part of Laos hospitality is to offer something to your guests: this tradition often turns out to be one killer drinking session, as usually you'll be served Lao Lao whiskey or BeerLao. When drinking Beerlao or Lao Lao rice whiskey, it is customary is to fill a small cup up for yourself, down it, then fill it up again and pass it to your left, until everyone in the group has had a cup and then it is the next person’s turn to be the pourer. We did one more round of this in the van prior to entering to the concert, just for good measure.

Sam's turn! 

When we entered the bar, it was completely empty with chairs still on the table, so we helped the guys set up until they forced us to sit down and drink a beer. While they set up and continued to pre-funk Cait decided to jump on the drums and give it a whirl. A little bit of liquid courage and a badass leather jacket made Caitlin look like a rock star. Mackenzie was in the bathroom when Cait started to play and thought the band was just warming up, she was shocked and super excited to see that it was really Cait rocking out on stage.

Out front before the concert

Cait looking like a total rock star! 

After spending a few hours drinking beer, dancing and listening to some awesome Laos rock we decided to call it a night. It was only 10:30, but we had a big day ahead of us as we planned to rent motorbikes and drive 30km through winding mountain passes to the city of Vieng Xai, in order to visit the cave town that was built during the American War to protect the Laos PDR leaders. So Cait told our new friends “allons-y!” and after a confusing conversation of French, English and Spanish (because any time Sam tries to speak French, Spanish comes out instead) one of the band members jumped up and ended up driving us back to our guesthouse, even though it was only 1km away. Thanks for the great night guys!

"rock on"

"The Big Boss" aka the bar owner

The DJ and our awesome driver - Thanks again for the ride!!