Laos – cheeky gin travels

Laos is fabulous – but it seems to be the forgotten country of Asia, which is just not deserved. So I’m going to take you on my brief trip around Laos and hope it’s enough to make you want to go and see it for yourself.

I started out in Luang Prabang. There are some really high end hotels there as well as lots of budget accommodation, but it doesn’t feel at all crowded. It’s peaceful and beautiful and while there are plenty of activities, it’s also a great place to relax, take your time and watch the world go by.

Just outside Luang Prabang there are caves and waterfalls to explore, but my plans went out the window after spraining my ankle falling over on the first night. In a completely unrelated incident, I discovered there’s a chap in Luang Prabang who mixes absolutely world class martinis 🍸 🍸 🍸 😬

So I didn’t get out of the town itself but spent my time hobbling around seeing the sights of Luang Prabang (wats, wats and wats), stopping for frequent refreshments of some quite fabulous French and Lao F&B.

Beautiful glass mosaics on the walls of a wat.

Luang Prabang literally means Royal Buddha Image, and this is where the Prabang itself is kept.

Baked Camembert lunch with a cheeky Chardy.

More wat art. Luang Prabang was the royal capital and seat of government until the communist take over by the Pathet Lao in 1975. You can visit the Haw Kham Royal Palace Museum which is a really interesting spot to find out a bit more about the history of Laos. The monarchy was overthrown by the Pathet Lao and the royal family taken away to re-education camps.

The main street is mainly wats and restaurants, cafes and bars, but it’s got such a relaxing atmosphere, you really don’t feel the need to do anything but alternate between strolling and sitting.

As you can see, the food is wonderful (and lovely and spicy 🌶 🌶 🌶 ) and there is some excellent Lao coffee, which is served with a layer of condensed milk at the bottom and a side order of banana whiskey!

And then to the Plain of Jars. I know what you’re thinking – did we really travel eight hours in a van to see some 2000 year old broken megaliths, just because I read about them in a magazine 40 years ago?! Well, yes; yes we did.

There are about 2,500 of them scattered across the plains constructed by an unknown civilisation, but you can only really visit a handful of sites because of so much unexploded ordinance dropped during the Vietnam American war which hasn’t yet been cleared.

No one knows who they were or what they were doing, but their legacy remains in these big stone jars, so feel free to make up your own story here – burial chambers, cups for giants, crematoria, wine or beer vats, water butts, aliens, food storage? We’ll never know. But it’s definitely not aliens.

Tree growing out of a jar.

Jars, jars, jars.

If you like plains and you like jars, you’ll love the Plain of Jars.

Bomb craters. Tragically there are rather too many of these around as well.

Jar with a lid.

Alien symbols on the jar lid.

Jars. With a disc, not to be confused with a lid. Apparently.

I loved the Plain of Jars and I don’t think you can really say you’ve seen Laos unless you been here too.

This is not a great photo, but the countryside is seriously stunning in this part of the world.

The UXO Survivors Centre is on the main street of Phonsavan, and is a must-stop if you’re in the area to see the Plain of Jars. There’s an exhibition about unexploded ordinance, a reading area and a shop selling handicrafts produced by UXO survivors. At the current rate of clearance, it’ll take at least another 150 years to clear it all. By some accounts there is a casualty almost every day, 40% of them children.

…. and here’s why … the extent of the bombing during the Secret War. About 30% of the 270 million “bombies” that were dropped failed to detonate.

And on to Vientiane. This is the Patuxai, a war monument allegedly built in the 60s with concrete donated by the US to build an airport!

And here is a view of Vientiane from the top of the Patuxai. We met a bloke who had brought his elderly grandmother from the countryside to see the capital city for the first time in her life. We turned out to be more of a tourist attraction than the Patuxai, and she was absolutely delighted to have her photograph taken with us!

At the COPE visitor centre learning more about UXO problems and how they provide rehabilitation and prosthetic limbs for people. You can sponsor a prosthetic limb, or buy local coffee and other handicrafts to help with funding. You can also buy a book called “The Coroner’s Lunch” by Colin Cotterill, which is a comedy detective book set in Laos shortly after the communist take over in the 1970s. It’s the first of an absolutely brilliant series and I was so hooked I read all of them one after the other.

What the Lonely Planet guide describes as the “underwhelming” fountain; I can’t argue with that.

Like so much electricity in Asia.

That Dam – A 7-headed giant water serpent lives under this stupa, which is presumably why everyone’s too scared to get close enough to do any weeding.