We traveled one month through Laos and truly enjoyed most of the places we visited. What immediately amazed us was how green this country is and that we could travel for hours without passing a village. But above all, it was the genuine friendliness of the Lao and their attitude towards their visitors that we found captivating. None of that pushy & constant “buy from me” business that you often see in other countries throughout the world!

Among the younger backpackers, we repeatedly heard “Laos is what Thailand was 20 years ago”. First of all, we think it is not true. Thailand then had many well known destinations even at that time. On the other hand, Laos only has two places with a fairly developed tourist infrastructure: Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, apart from the capital. Besides Laos should not be compared to Thailand, because it is an attractive destination for other reasons. It is very rural and off the beaten tracks. During the off season, you can easily find yourself to be one among a handful of other tourists in such places.

If you stray from the backpacker circuit, traveling can sometimes be time consuming and uncomfortable, but full of lively and often funny experiences. Driving a scooters or motorbike is often the best way to reach an interesting destination. The main activities offered for tourists in Laos are treks through the many National Parks, home-stays in remote minority villages, various activities on rivers, a few archeological sites and its stunning temples.

The highlights of this trip were:

(x) Phonsavanh: Of course we enjoyed visiting the Plain of Jars, but the real highlight was the time spent at the MAG (Mines Advisory Group) office watching the videos and displays. To learn the horrid details about the “Secret War” was overwhelming. Apart from that we drove through villages and even got to see some of the “war scrap architecture”. (x) Wat Phu Champasak. This temple is truly amazing, but we especially enjoyed the trip there, crossing the Mekong and the location itself, up the hill with a great view. (x) Chilling out at the Villa Manoly in Vientiane, one of the best value hotels we have enjoyed in a year. (x) Driving around on a scooter, no matter if it was in Luang Nam Tha, Phonsavanh or the region of Pakse. (x) Believe it or not… We truly enjoyed Vang Vieng. Yes, it is bizarre to observe those young adventurers in Southeast Asia spending their days watching TV or getting drunk while tubing down the river. Nevertheless, it was very easy to avoid the party crowd and noise by staying far away from the tiny island. The landscape is simply breathtaking and there are plenty of relaxing activities. And yes, we loved the tubing!

Would we do something differently the next time?

(x) The trek near Luang Nam Tha was very disappointing, as well as the stay in the Akha village. Only the fact that there was a wedding that night saved the whole trip. (x) The 4.000 Island are probably best visited during a cooler period: without electricity and a chance to cool off, we simply suffered from the heat. (x) We could not join in the hype about Luang Prabang. The surrounding scenery is nice, some Wats and the museum are stunning, but its other assets - a wide choice of restaurants & hotels, a great market for crafts - could be re-created at any place. (x) Heidi's long trip to Kong Lo Cave… This is no place to visit in the rain season! (x) Not leave a bag in the basket in front of the bicycle, this way it was snatched in Vientiane by a guy passing on a motorbike.

Conclusion? Laos is an amazing country, especially if you take the time and effort to do a few trips off the well-trodden track. What makes it an even greater place to be is that even a comfortable trip can be done on a very small budget.

Laos is the cheapest country we have been so far, even far cheaper than Bolivia! We honestly did not think it was possible. Even though we significantly upgraded our standard of living, we spent only 22 Euros a person per day during the month we were there. One could actually travel on a daily budget of less than 15 Euros and still be able to see a lot!

On average, we spent 12 Euros per night on accommodation for a nice double room with private bath and air-conditioning. If we had not splurged the week in Vientiane, where we treated ourselves to the very comfortable Villa Manoly for 20 Euros a night, this average would even be only 9 Euros per night. A bargain!

Lao food is tasty but not very diverse and we grew a bit weary of Asian food altogether. So we more often chose more expensive restaurants with Western food. Nevertheless, we spent on average less than 6 Euros a day per person on food and drinks.

Traveling as well is incredibly cheap, but busses are slow and can be uncomfortable. Gilles decided to fly once, which is a costly option, and we often rented a motorbike to be independent. However, we spent as little as 170 Euros per person for traveling and transportation.

The boat trip from Don Khong to Don Khon - this is not a joke, the “g” makes for a difference of 16 kilometers further south on the Mekong - was fantastic. Cruising past small islands that had almost disappeared in the Mekong’s high waters, we saw many small boats carrying just anything, tables, motorbikes, etc...

Once we stopped on a very small island where children were busy doing what all children living on the Mekong love to do: they climb up a tree almost engulfed by the flooded river, crawl out on a branch and plunge like ripe fruits into the river. They pop back up, their faces having the same color as the river, smiling again, climbing up the river bank and do the whole thing over and over again.

We asked the boatman to drop us off on Don Khon, the bigger of the two islands connected by a robust bridge built by the French back in colonial days. Pan’s Guesthouse offered the kind of rooms we were looking for to enjoy a few more relaxing days. Nay, soon the hammering began for putting up a bike shed, right in front of our room. After a while it became nerve-racking, especially since we did not want to leave our somehow cooler room during the heat of the day. Anyway, only after dark did a generator provide energy for the little fan for a couple of hours, so our room was extremely hot as well.

As soon as the temperature dropped a bit, we started a little excursion through both islands on a rented scooter. The waterfall was quiet impressive, equally spectacular was the part where the small swing bridge crosses to a tiny island. The water beneath was violently gushing through that small riverbed at a speed we had never seen before. The locals captivated us by their genuine friendliness, especially the children who smile, wave & call “Sabaidee” whenever they see a foreigner. It as only then that we understood the many stories of travelers going north who found the attitude of the villagers in the Luang Nam Tha area rather strange or even unfriendly!

We found Don Khon even more scenic than Don Det, with its palms trees shadowing the small dirt roads around the island, but Don Det certainly has a better developed tourist infrastructure and more tourists. It was completely silly of us to stay on Don Khon in the off-off season. We saw three other tourists and ate dinner in a large restaurant being the only customers, so much for the fun factor!

Once electricity was cut again close to midnight, the temperatures in the room became unpleasant, around 03:00 am the rosters started crowing relentlessly and once day broke a monotonous hammering drove us from our bed. This place may seem laid-back, but we definitely could not find peace and quietness there!

To leave the islands and continue travel south into Cambodia is all organized by the guesthouses: due to the lack of public transport, everything is in the hands to ultra-entrepreneurial businessmen, as we found out soon…

Of the so called 4.000 islands on the southernmost part of the Mekong in Laos, only three are tourist destinations: Don Khong, Don Det & Don Khon. We guess all readers now know that “Don” means “Island” in Lao.

“Relaxed” & “quiet” said our tour guide and people who had been there. We were rather skeptical: a REALLY quiet place is a luxury nowadays and difficult to find. But yes, it is true, even though we made the biggest island, Don Khong, our first destination and stayed in the center of the main “town”, Muang Khong. Still it was quiet, except for the TV at full blast at Pong’s Restaurant downstairs.

Most people on the backpacker circuit through Laos go straight to Don Det & Don Khon, which are supposedly more scenic. This is why we chose Don Khong, because it is “real”. Its very center, Muang Khong is actually the only place where you find tourists and the infrastructure that comes along with them. The visitor can choose among ten different hosts, from basic guesthouses to very fine hotels, usually with a restaurant attached. Apparently quite a few local families purchased computers and are now in the Internet cafe business, with surprisingly good connections.

Probably we were among the 20 to 30 tourists presently populating this island: this is the low season in June. Our only activity was to circle the island on a motorbike on our second day. This trip took us along rice paddies and through small villages. In one place we came across a local who spoke very good German because he had studied in Rostock in the 1970s.

Did you know that you can find some world class coffee in Laos? I am not talking about drink sweetened with condensed milk that you get with your breakfast, which requires getting used to it… I mean the coffee that is grown on the Bolaven Plateau, some 1.420 meters above the see level in the otherwise flat region of the lower Mekong in southern Laos.

I was definitely in no mood for the usual tour including a trek through some tropical rain forest, stopping at some waterfalls, visiting the usual ethnic villages and of course a coffee plantation. So I decided to go and discover the Bolaven Plateau on my own, on a scooter. I opted for the more popular 250 kilometer loop starting north of the Plateau, with an overnight stay in Tad Lo, and then only climbing up the Plateau on the second day, heading to Paksong before driving back to Pakse.

There are no “real” highlights or places of special interest along the way. Nevertheless, the whole ride was exiting and definitely off the beaten tracks, even though this is supposed to be one of the highlights of southern Laos. It was basically a journey through lush primary rain forest. On the way, there are numerous waterfalls, but after stopping at two, my interest in seeing more slowly faded. These waterfalls were nice but not worth the sometimes big detours.

Most interesting were the numerous villages that I passed. Sure, there is at least one paved road crossing them and electricity has reached all of them. However, apart from these modern features, it is only wooden huts on stilts and lots of small kids playing, waving and calling out “Sabadee”. And … There are definitely more animals like pigs, piglets, chickens, goats, cows, dogs, buffalos etc. than people in these remote villages! Those animals are simply everywhere, under the stilt houses, lying on the road and freely roaming the countryside.

Tad Lo, even though highly praised in the Lonely Planet, has remained very laid-back and unspoiled. To put it into a proper perspective, there are more guesthouses than tourists and there are not that many guesthouses! Anyone looking for some serious relaxing, this is the place to go!

It may sound boring but during those two days, relatively little happened and it was still an exciting time, discovering these very remote villages where almost no tourist stops and then driving further ahead. The biggest excitement was actually spotting a giant scorpion on the road, about 15 to 18 centimeters long. For a scorpion, this is really, really impressive!

The other excitement was that I had lost contact to Heidi for 3 days. In her last eMail, she not only asked me to change all my plans so that she would be able to visit the region of Pakse with me, but she also promised to write the same evening with further details of her travel plans! And then… No sign of life for the next 72 hours! She did not even check her mails, which I realized after a while when logging into her GMail account. That was the most disturbing fact for me, knowing Heidi’s addiction for her eMails. After three days of increasing worries, I finally contacted the Austrian Embassy in Thailand, which is also in charge of Laos, asking if an accident had been reported. I immediately got an answer that no, there was no report of an Austrian person injured or in trouble.

Of course, the same evening Heidi contacted me again. To solve the puzzle, you need to read Heidi’s entries “My most favorite bus ride“ & “The journey is the Reward”.

A visit to Wat Phu is more than paying tribute to Laos’ most impressive archaeological site. It is above all a fun trip. The best part is definitely the crossing of the Mekong, either in a tiny roll-on ferry, made of two canoes linked by a few wooden planks or on the “regular” ferry, where you can observe local women trying to sell just any food to passengers: noodle soup, coca-cola, cooked bananas and what not... After the heavy rain recently, the Mekong was spreading as far as the eye can see.

Wat Phu Champasak is a religious complex of Khmer architecture about 30 kilometers south of Pakse, across the Mekong. The first temple on this site was built as early as the 5th century. Nevertheless, the existing temples were built during the Khmer empire between the 11th and the 13th centuries, using some of the stone blocks from the original structure. This originally Hindu temple later became a centre of Theravada Buddhist worship, which it remains today.

Considering its age, parts of it are in an incredible good condition, especially the two palaces. The most intriguing part is the stairway leading up the hill. Not two stones used to build the stairs are alike. Elements of the stairs seem to be caving in and a few are richly decorated. For the short climb up exotic trees provide shade. The view over the whole temple complex, the nearby rice paddies and the Mekong in the distance is simply stunning. It is really the location that makes the place so spectacular.

The major part of the complex is still overgrown with vegetation, since restoration seems to be slow. Although it started in 1993, there is little evidence of it. The most obvious one is that the little pillars lining the path are standing again. Wat Phu Champasak has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001.

When he was there for the first time, Gilles had the place for himself. Unfortunately, it was drizzling then… A few days later, we went there together, since Heidi needed to be chauffeured on the motorbike. This time we had blue skies, which completely changed the impression we had of this place. There were no more than four or five western tourists and a Lao family visiting the site. On top of that, we could see a few people who seemed to be restoring and maintaining the place. This emptiness added a special feeling.

After arriving in Khoum Khan late in the evening, I found a place to sleep and good company on top: a few Australians who also had arrived that day and wanted to go to Kong Lo Cave the following day. I was really relieved since my biggest worry was that I would have to pay for the entire transport to Kong Lo village and for the cave alone.

As it turned out, getting to the village of Kong Lo involved a small bus, canoes to cross a river and a small bus again. If this sound like a lengthy, cumbersome trip, it is not, compared to what it was like a month ago. We were among the privileged to travel on the newly finished 30 kilometre road from Khoum Kham to Kong Lo. Before, it was a short bus ride and a 3.5 hour boat trip.

Nevertheless, there was still one crucial obstacle: the bridge crossing a small river was only half finished, so everything and everybody from the first bus had to be transferred across this flooded river on tiny canoes and then reloaded onto the second small bus waiting on the other side. Maybe I should mention that our small truck was not only filled with passengers but loaded with sacks of rice, fruits and machinery, plus 200 litres of gasoline in canisters.

Once in the village of Kong Lo, we were met by an elderly man who spoke some English and who linked us up with the boatmen. It was ten dollars for a boat, but we needed two since one boat holds only three tourists, the guy on the engine and the man up front with the headlamp. When we arrived at the boat landing, we faced the sad image of boats drowned by the heavy rain during the previous night. The boatmen were just scooping out the water to get two of them ready for our cave crossing.

The minute I saw these tiny boats and the flooded river my heart sank. The four Australians were even more nervous, asking if it was safe and if there were life jackets. At this question I simply smiled, but they were persistent even though nobody understood what they were asking. Finally they resorted to their Lonely Planet dictionary pointing at the words “safe”, and “lifejacket”. The men simply shook their head. We climbed into the swaying canoes anyway.

During a short trip upstream, we passed gorgeous scenery, but when we arrived at the entrance of the cave, we realized even more how high the water had risen. Above all, we stared at insurmountable rapids. Well, you do not need to go passed these rapids but continue the trip through the cave on a boat that is waiting inside the cave. However, the prospect of passing a flooded cave in a small wooden canoe with a guide equipped with a small headlamp made us decide to turn around. Luckily, we got most of our money back.

The Australians immediately had abandoned their plan to do a home stay in Kong Lo, when they fought their way through the mud: the whole village was a swamp. So back in the same small truck to the river, another crossing, another little truck! The driver asked for 50.000 kips from each to take us the remaining 20 kilometres to Khoum Kham. We angrily stormed off although we knew we never could walk that distance before it got really dark. By chance, a little pick up passed by, the ONLY other car we saw on this road. It was the overseer of the construction site at the bridge. We hitched a ride for 10.000 kips each, about one dollar.

Back in Khoum Khan at around 04:00 pm, all options of reaching the main road, route 13, to catch a bus down south had vanished. So I had to stay another night in Khoum Kham, luckily again in very nice company, before I headed to Pakse, another 9 hour bus ride south.

“Quick, quick” said the lady when I asked for the bus to Khoum Khan at Vientane’s southern bus station. She just pushed me onto a bus that was pulling out of the station. Although Gilles refused to join this excursion, I had set my mind and heart to see the spectacular 7 kilometer long Kong Lo Cave. It can be crossed by boat on the river passing through it. What was a quick start turned into a very long three day journey.

Luckily, I brought a piece of paper explaining in Lao where I wanted to go, since I expected few people to understand English in such a remote area. The bus driver nodded when I showed it to him and seconds later I encounter my first obstacle, which became symptomatic for the whole trip. The complete aisle of the bus was filled with boxes in two layers. I was motioned to step on them to get to the rear of the bus where there were a few empty seats. Once I realized the boxes were full of tiles, I lugged myself and my big backpack across.

Soon we stopped to fill the bus with more passengers, who then sat on top of the boxes on little plastic stools. This brought even petite people like the Lao close to the roof of the bus. Once no more people fitted into the bus, it was time for the usual DVD, featuring singers that wailed in high-pitched voices, naturally played at max. volume.

Since I was the only tourist on the bus, I could not share my doubts about the destination of the bus with anybody. During a stop, I showed my paper to some passengers and everybody took a good look. Then somebody drew a little map and so it was clear that I was on a bus to Pakse, 10 hours to the south. But no problem, I only had to get off at the junction with route 8. There, I would find transport to my next destination, the tiny village of Khoum Khan, 40 kilometers further east from the junction. There again, I could arrange further transport to Kong Lo Cave.

The rest of this trip turned into a real Lao experience: we constantly stopped for passengers getting on and off carrying serious luggage. Then there were pee stops in the middle of nowhere and nowhere to hide, food stops, fuel stops and even a stop to place offerings at a shrine. These stops often brought a whole bunch of food vendors on board who climbed over or squeezed past the people sitting in the aisle. They had to bend over, because they also had to move across the piled up boxes.

During one of these many stops, a family got on carrying a fan. Once the bus sped up, it started rotating promptly, providing a nice breeze for the passengers nearby. I thought it was funny to have a wind powered fan on a bus, but the situation became more comical when the ladies next to the fan started playing with its switches. All of a sudden, this reminded me of a scene in Steinbeck’s’ novel “Tortilla Flat”, where a lady moves her vacuum cleaner around the house for all the neighbors to see, except that there is no electricity in her home! I could not help but burst out laughing. When everybody around me joined in, not knowing why, it felt even more hilarious.

I said goodbye to this funny busload at the junction and threw my bag into a small truck waiting there. We were supposed to leave within an hour, so I strolled around. Suddenly the truck was gone with my bag, after another hour it returned loaded with hundreds of heads of cabbage and enough passengers to be able to leave. It was pitch dark when I jumped off in Khoum Khan. The faint ringing of the bells attached to the necks of buffaloes and cows kept me from falling over them, wandering the dark street looking for a place to sleep.

Since we wanted to visit different places at a different pace, we decided to travel our own way for the next week. It was also time for each of us to be a little on our own: we have been sticking together non-stop since Chile, which means 7 months!

I decided to skip the area around Tha Khaek, which also meant giving up traveling the “430 kilometer Loop” on motorbike. But considering the many times I have been sick over the last 4 weeks, it simply was more reasonable. So I flew directly to Pakse, 680 kilometers further south.

Pakse is no longer the sleepy Mekong town described in many tour guides, but has now turned into “boomtown down south”. It has become the major tourist hub for visiting the Bolaven Plateau, the Khmer temple Wat Phu in Champasak as well as the “4.000 Islands” at the Cambodian border.

Pakse is also on the crossroad to nearby Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand just across the river. This strategic location did not escape the attention of Chinese and Thai investors. This city is growing and changing at an unbelievable pace, with kitschy brand new fake colonial-style houses growing like mushrooms, huge hotel resorts being built one after another and the unavoidable traffic jam that is linked to such a development. Traffic is here actually much worse than in Vientiane, the capital city!

If Pakse is THE hub for discovering the whole southern part of Laos, the city itself has little to offer. Tourists concentrate on one or two streets where the usual infrastructure can be found: accommodation, restaurants and Internet cafes. It is heartbreaking to see these young adventurers flocking to the few eateries recommended in the Lonely Planet in the center instead of venturing out to the restaurants along the river less than one kilometer away. The same people who cannot wait to visit minority villages have little interest to eat where all the locals spend their evening…

Things quiet down early in the center and tourists soon disappear in their hostels, whereas the road that runs parallel to the Mekong is full of life and laughter. It is THE place to go out for the locals, with food stalls all along the way and bars playing loud Lao pop music. Especially one area seems to be the hotspot, a place where in the evening young people gather and lesson to live music or karaoke at a deafening volume and enjoy Beerlao or imported whisky.

The Lonely Planet describes eating in Vientiane as “dollar for dollar the best in the world”. After more than two months of eating Asian food, we could not wait to explore this city’s highly praised restaurant scene.

Of course, there are always places that offer “international cuisine” or what is thought to be such, namely burgers, spaghettis, pizzas or burritos. BUT these dishes are often prepared far from what you would expect: for instance, pizza made of sweet dough, spaghetti cooked into a mash or tacos that were actually crepes! So our hopes were up high to sample REAL international food at reasonable prices here.

At first, we only found ridiculously overpriced “French” restaurants, with prices indeed lower than downtown Paris or London but nevertheless obscene in relation to the cost of living in Laos. Our next hope was the well known PhimPhone market, a mini market full of delicacies like French Camembert, Charcuterie or Foie Gras but also fine chocolates and a very wide range of wine. All this was very, very tempting, but the prices were so frightening that all our dreams of nibbling great cheese and sipping a bottle of red quickly vanished.

We did not give up and one evening tried the Khop Chai Deu Restaurant, right next to Nam Phu, the big fountain in the very center. The place was packed every single evening with members of the vast expatriate community, N.G.O. workers, tourists and a good number of Lao. Rightly, since the food is excellent, the service attentive and prices absolutely reasonable. It is owned by a local whose father fought with the Pathet Lao and spent 10 years in prison for no obvious reason. Quite a success story, especially given that the family also owns Green Discovery, the eco-tour operator with offices in most tourist destinations in Laos!

Nevertheless, the best place to dine out is one of the many, many restaurants along the Mekong River. This string of eateries starts in front of the Lane Xang Hotel and runs for at least two kilometers upstream. The view over the Mekong is superb and you faintly can hear the music from the restaurants on the Thai side of the river. Surprisingly, only a few tourists make the effort to leave the trodden path around Nam Phu…

This capital of a nation of almost 6 million people rather reminds of a busy village. Its 300.000 residents enjoy a city without skyscrapers and a few major streets that are ploughed by a couple of brand new pickup trucks and scooters. What a difference to the crazy traffic jam, noise and pollution in other bigger towns in Southeast Asia, not talking about what we experienced in towns large and small in Latin America!

We liked the city the minute we stepped off the bus and our new home, Villa Manoly, simply tops it all. This old French villa was tastefully extended into a guesthouse with a tropical garden and a pool facing a larger temple area. So all we hear is birds chirping away, mangos dropping from the trees and twice a day the low sound the drum calling the monks of the nearby wat.

After extensive walking and bike rides, we came to the conclusion that there is an impressive wat on every corner. This may sound heretic, but we think Vientiane can easily compete with Luang Prabang in this regard. The temples do not seem as old, though they are not less inspiring. Living right next to a wat, we might able to watch the monks receiving their alms from our hosts at 6 o’clock in the morning, what we did not succeed to do in Luang Prabang.

Enjoying all these amenities, we decided to stay here a little longer to rest after the very demanding bus trips we endured during the last few weeks and to gather new strengths for the final five weeks in southern Laos, Cambodia and Bangkok. This may sound a bit dramatic, but the decision to stay on was also made because Gilles was suffering from his third bad cold in a month and was prescribed antibiotics each time he came near a doctor. So we will stay until he feels fit to hit the road again, even if it means we have to skip a few destinations that we had planned.

Nay, we could not resist the “tubing ritual”, but resourcefully made it part of a day trip that also took us to various caves, and needless to say an ethnic village, which always seems to be part of an itinerary. Of the four caves we visited, Tham Nam, the Water Cave, was the best fun. This cave filled with water reaches far into the mountain and its accessibility depends very much on the water level.

The fascinating part is how you explore it. At the entrance, which was hardly noticeable due to the water level being so high, you climb into a rubber tube and pull yourself into the cave on a rope. We literally had to duck at the entrance and lay flat on our tubes to get in without banging our heads. Soon, there was more leeway for our heads and we worked our way deeper into the cave for another 100 meters, with the current getting stronger and stronger. Our guide told us that due to the high water, we could not intrude deeper into the cave, which during the dry season is possible. So holding on to our rope, we leisurely drifted back to the entrance.

Before we entered the Water Cave, we were equipped with ancient looking headlamps. They were attached to a giant battery that dangled from a shoulder strap. This tool worried Heidi all the way through the cave: all these wires, cables, batteries and us in the water! She kept imagining a mass electrocution, but we all stepped out of the water unharmed…

The other three caves were far less adventurous, two caves had Buddha statues at their entrance and one was just a big cave, but awfully difficult to access since the terrain was extremely slippery. Unless somebody likes crawling through slippery mud in order to see a big cave, we would suggest to simply skip it!

After a delicious lunch in a Hmong village, we were taken to the tubing station. By then it was raining and the temperature dropped considerably. We felt little enthusiasm to climb into a tube and get even wetter and feel even colder. But knowing it was our only chance, we held our breath and just did it. It was great fun with and without the rain, which stopped soon. We even arrived in Vang Vieng in bright sunshine.

To float past this breathtaking scenery is an unforgettable experience. Unfortunately, there are only few stretches where you do not hear the blasting music from the numerous bars along the river. Obviously tubing and drinking in between got boring, so a new attraction was introduced: swings like in a circus. After climbing a wooden tower-like-construction, you swing down across the river holding on to a trapeze. Eventually after a few swings back and forth you let go and plunge into the river. The way some people move on these things clearly indicates they must have practiced a lot!

Strolling around the city center, we watched the” tubers” returning from their run and we assumed from the loud and overconfident talking that many must have stopped at more that one bar along the route. Even though tubers should return at the latest by 06.00 pm, many kept arriving late into the evening, in a rather animated state.

Vang Vieng is a small town about four hours north of Vientiane, surrounded by the most amazing landscape. After what we had heard and read about this place, we arrived with a lot of prejudice expecting heavy drinking, loud partying and god knows what.

Getting there in the middle of the night in torrential rain did not help either. The only hotel we could visually identify in this mayhem was The Elephant’s Crossing, where we dished out 42 USD (!!!) for a nice room, but a noisy night to come. Due to the architecture of the hotel, the boisterous returning of each group from the party island echoed through the whole building.

Only when we opened the curtain in the morning did we realize that we had arrived at the most picturesque and serene place. The Nam Song River was gliding by our window and there was now absolute quietness. The following three nights we stayed at the Thavisouk Resort, which has comfortable bungalows right on the river, for only 12 USD. It is 50 meters below the small bridge, far enough to escape the noise radiating from the bars on the small island upstream.

A first inspection of the very center proved what we had heard. Some of the bars / restaurants serve a crowd of young “adventurers” who seem to have come to South East Asia to watch DVDs for a good part of the day. Bedded on big cushions, they stare at often far away monitors of what we were told are re-runs of “Friends”. Since both of us never watched such any episode of this soap before, we would not do even know if this is true.

The other “must-do” here is tubing down the Nam Song. This activity is easy to describe. A tuk tuk takes you and your huge rubber tube, made to fit trucks, upstream for about 15 minutes. Sitting inside it you glide down the river. Whoever started the tubing business must be rolling in money by now. Everybody, including us skeptics, does at least one run … or many, many more!

The majority of tourists here are in their twenties enjoying the tubing, partying and above all each others company, but it is very easy to avoid this Ibiza-like atmosphere. We simply considered it as one of the attractions of Vang Vieng, which otherwise is a small, quiet place set in the most scenic landscape.

The Mine Advisory Group or M.A.G. started working in Laos in 1994, 20 years after the end of the “Secret War”. M.A.G. is a British association that is committed to clearing areas of mines and bombs. Even though great progresses have been made, they “only” find and destroy 100.000 “bombies” per year: at that pace, it will take almost 1.000 years to get rid of all the “bombies” that have killed so many civilians.

The main activity and commitment of M.A.G. is the training of local technicians, both men and women. Teams are trained to remove a specific type of ordnance, for instance “bombies”. Others specialize in eliminating “big bombs”, some weighing up to 2.000 pounds. Such technicians, who risk their life on a daily basis, are paid 55 USD a week.

Although most accidents happen when people are tending their fields or building new houses, a considerable number of people got killed when they tried to dismantle bombs. The fact that a kilo of scrap metal sells for 0.15 USD and gun powder twice as much makes this a very tempting business in poor rural areas. Many villagers, especially children, roam the countryside looking for metal with the help of cheap metal detectors. These can be bought for 12 USD at the omnipresent Chinese markets in Laos. “Bombies” are very different to landmines, the latter are designed to maim, but “bombies” are meant to kill.

Apart from training technicians, M.A.G. also runs educational campaigns in the villages, especially aimed at young children. Particularly young boys are tempted to prove their courage… But M.A.G. also does a great job informing a wider range of people. Every evening, two excellent DVDs can be watched free of charge in their small office in Phonsavanh. These inform about the work and training of MAG personnel and also provide gripping footage of the “Secret War”, interviews with American politicians, pilots praying before starting on a bombing mission and media coverage from that time. Especially touching are the interviews with a few villagers who survived the horror and tell about the hunger, constant attacks and the many family members they lost.

A rather bizarre side of the aftermath of the bombardments is the so-called “war scrape architecture”. This term was coined to describe the use of empty bomb shells and bombies in every practical manner. Some of the stilt houses rest on four upright bomb casings, rather than wooden pillars. Half a bomb shell may serve to grow a little herb garden. We have seen an entire fence made of big shells, a bomb shell dangling from pole as a bell and smaller “bombies” that were used as candle holders.

It is not often that you run across this scurrile reminders of the war, because, as mentioned before, metal is a precious thing.

U.X.O. stands for “UneXploded Ordnance”. Of the estimated 2 million tons of bombs, including 250 million cluster bombs dropped onto Laos between 1964 and 1973, about 30% did not explode! These have killed no less than 13.000 people in Laos in the last 30 years and crippled an even bigger number. The province of Xinuang Khoung, with its capital Phonsavanh, was especially targeted during the bombing raids. The USA suspected this northeastern province to be the hiding place of the communist Pathet Lao.

Even though the Geneva Convention declared Laos a neutral country in 1962, this rural peaceful countryside gained the sad reputation of being the most heavily bombed area on this planet during the following decade. Even five years into the bombing, top US politicians, including President Nixon, would deny any knowledge of this massacre on civilians, since it was never officially approved by the American Congress. Hence the name “Secret War”…

More bombs were dropped in those 580.000 deadly missions led by the US Air Force on Laos than on Germany and Japan together during World War II. Being a secret war, data on the amount of bombs dropped is incomplete, but 1.36 million metric tons of bombs were acknowledged by the USA in 1994. Two million metric tons of bombs are considered a serious estimate, since some data are still missing.

Two aspects made this bombing campaign especially lethal for the civil population. First, since it was no official war, there were no rules of engagement, like in Vietnam, were temples and civil populations theoretically were protected. It was just “bombing as you wish”, targeting a purely civilian population that had nowhere to hide, except a few caves. However, even these became targets. At Tham Piu Cave, 374 people, mainly women and children who had sought shelter from the bombing were killed instantly, when, on the fourth attempt by American planes, a rocket found its way inside.

Secondly, the vast majority of the bombs used were cluster bombs. These are heavy bombs, generally 1.000 or 2.000 pounds, which open mid-air and release up to 670 sub munitions also called “bombies” in Laos. It is estimated that up to 30% of the approx. 250 million “bombies” that were dropped never exploded, creating a huge threat for generations to come.

During and immediately after the war, the lack of food was equally dramatic: with so many “bombies” littering the ground, a huge part of the cultivable areas could no longer be used, so it became impossible to grow sufficient food. Especially the work in the rice fields turned deadly. But any kind of work, like building a house, could be lethal, not talking about the many “bombies” found by children who had now idea what it was and starting playing with it.

Our favorite so far in Laos, because it is genuine… What a relief after the hyped-up Luang Prabang! Phonsavanh is a quiet little town with a tragic history that is evident at almost every corner.

Apart from the mysterious Jars scattered around at three different sites, it was the more recent history that captivated us: Xinuang Khoung Province was among those areas in Laos most heavily bombed during the “Secret War” between 1964 and 1973. An incredible 1.36 millions tons of bombs were dropped on the northeast and southeast of the country, making it the most heavily bombed place on this planet. A war on a purely civilian population that officially never happened!

Relatively few tourists do the seven to eight hour trip to Phonsavanh from Luang Prabang or Vang Vieng. Although it is only 220 kilometers away, the small, very windy mountain road makes it a tough journey.

It rained most of the trip, fog obscured the road and it was cold in the front part of the bus because the door of the bus was kept open most of the trip. This is indeed where Heidi sought refuge, hoping it would help to overcome her motion sickness, in vain! Neither did it help that people right and left were vomiting into the ever present plastic bags on Laos’ busses… All in all not exactly our most pleasant bus trip!

In Phonsavanh, we were greeted by touts selling “their” hotels and afterwards their tours. None of the places recommended in the Lonely Planet inspired us, so we decided to accept the free ride into town and check out some of the places. The “White Orchid”, our choice, was the most expensive one for 8 Euros, a good investment, especially when we were rained in on the second day and enjoyed our relatively comfortable room.

Naturally we joined a tour to the three sites of the “Plain of Jars”, which also included a stop at a Lao Lao manufacture, at an old destroyed Russian tank and lunch. Each one of us 6 participants had paid a different price, ours was the cheapest with 120.000 Kip per person, others paid 200.000. It seems those who booked in their guesthouse paid a lot more.

We were in great company and truly enjoyed this day trip organized by Lao Youth Travel, a rather relaxed but competent operator with guides who have a good sense of humor. This visit to the “Plain of Jars”, and the walk through surrounding countryside has been the best trip so far in Laos. The three sites are very different in setting, with site 1 probably featuring the most spectacular jars, but again we equally enjoyed the scenery and the nice company, especially our animated guide Te.

There is only very little knowledge so far about the 350 mysterious Jars that dot the landscape in clusters. There are no less than 50 sites in the Xinuang Khoung province, though only 3 are accessible to tourists: the others are still not cleared of unexploded ordnance. Those jars differ slightly in shape but significantly in size. The biggest one is 2.6 meters high and weighs 6 tons. Historians estimate the jars are about 2.000 to 2.500 years old, but nobody knows it for sure.

Lacking profound scientific explanations, the purpose and possible use of those Jars is the topic of many legends and folk tales. Some claim those jars were used as urns to hold the ashes of cremated bodies. More extravagant ones allege they were huge jugs used by giants to have Lao Lao during feasts.

The former royal capital without doubt must have put an irresistible spell on foreigners arriving here 10 to 15 years ago. The lush exotic vegetation, a small city wedged between the Mekong & the tiny Khan River with green hills all around it, this image itself is already idyllic. Now add about 30 “wats” and the countless monks that come with them and you have a very special place.

So the word was out, the city was classified UNESCO World Heritage in 1995. With travelers pouring into Luang Prabang in such numbers, it consequently took the same path with all it ailments like so many other hyped-up traveler destinations before it!

All the beauty mentioned before is visible, but overshadowed by an in-your-face dominance of western style restaurants, spa & massage parlors, travel agencies, Internet cafés and shops selling crafts on Sisvangvong Road. The guesthouses are more decently tucked away in the small side streets. The nightly craft market runs in four lanes the entire length of the former royal palace with some artwork being truly tasteful and still rather cheap. In order to give more business to the tour operators and tuk tuk drivers, foreigners are not allowed to rent a motorbike. The official version is “because there would be too many accidents”. Why bikes for rent are also hard to find and ridiculously expensive is not explained though. As a consequence, tuk tuks ask for outrageous prices.

Some elegant restaurants charge prices pretty close to European levels, but on the other end of the spectrum you can still find a good meal for 0.5 to 2 Euros at the night market. The fun part there is that you shop around at various vendors and finally drop with all your goodies at a table and savor them in the company of other travelers, who strayed away the 200 meters from the main drag.

We did not do any of the tours to the waterfalls, caves or elephant parks, but simply walked around and rested a lot. After traveling so much, lately especially on long-distance bus rides, we were in for some quiet life. The high temperature also took its toll and our little excursions on foot were limited to the morning and evening hours. But above all, we are experiencing a bit of a fatigue or disinterest in all those activities we so often joined in over the last 10 months, like visiting ethnic villages, trekking, kayaking, boat rides etc...

What helped us relax was our extremely comfortable room at Villa Phatana, opposite the Royal Palace Museum, the best and coziest place in 10 months, with perfect service, superb breakfast, all for only 25 USD a night!

To sum it up, there are some nice spots in Luang Prabang, but we think it is not so hot either. Luckily things wrap up early here, so no thumping discos. Also busses and trucks are banned due to the city’s World Heritage status.

The Lonely Planet’s description of Luang Prabang is cooked up travel brochure language: “It is thick with the perfume of pearly frangipanis (…) the burnt siena robes and bare-foot silence of Buddhist monks…”. The monks here are probably the most photographed monks in the world, since when they leave their wats at six o’clock in the morning to receive alms, they are eagerly awaited by camera swinging tourists. Of course, they wear flip-flops like everybody else, walk the streets with a mobile phone snug to their ear and most likely sit next to you in the Internet café.

The most exciting part here was that we met friends from Vienna who have been traveling through Asia for the last 10 months. Irene and Herbert left one day before us, but chose a very different route. They took the train through Russia to Mongolia, visited eastern China, Tibet, Nepal and northern India, before they joined the tourist trail through Laos and Cambodia.

So after 3 days of well-needed rest, we moved on to Phongsavanh and the “Plain of Jars”, another 8 hour bus ride on a very small, windy mountain road for only 320 kilometers.

There are only 300 kilometers from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang. Nevertheless, even if the Chinese government invested a lot of money to improve the roads in Laos, it took us more than 10 hours on a partly very bumpy, windy mountain road to reach the latter. Not to mention the fact that the bus left with more than one hour delay, with everyone giving us different information about the actual schedule…

We arrived exhausted in Luang Prabang to discover a tourist zoo… In the first hour, we saw more western tourists than the 5 weeks before! Of course, the two hotels we had in mind were booked out, so we just crashed in the first place we found, which was actually ok. The next day, we shopped around and decided to stay in the superb Villa Phanthana. For one of the most comfortable, quietest rooms we have had in 10 months, we paid the fortune of 25 USD a night. On top of that, we discovered the next day that for this price, an excellent breakfast was included!

Of course, walking down the tourist mile on arrival, we bumped into Irene und Herbert, two friends who have been traveling around Asia for 11 months.

We reached Ban Nam Lai in the late afternoon and to our surprise found our accommodation to be half a kilometer outside the village, which felt rather uninviting. After a quick wash in the small river, we went over. On the way, we passed a person taking a bath in the river, who told our guide that in the evening, a wedding would be celebrated in this village. We immediately asked if we could join the ceremony and our guide Pet said we were welcome.

Before we came to here, we heard several times that Laos today is what Thailand was 30 years ago. Well, what we witnessed this evening in a very remote Akha village of 260 inhabitants was more Neolithic Age than anything else, if you ignored the few bikes, scooters and some tiny solar panels that provide electricity for a few houses. Heidi had trekked in remote areas in northern Thailand 20 years ago and felt that here, in Ban Nam Lai, living conditions were a lot worse than in those villages she visited back then.

About fifty families live in huts made of wood and thatched roofs, surrounded by pigs, lots of piglets, goats, dogs, cats, chicken, duck and the excrements of all the animals mentioned. And dust… Simply everywhere! As often in a remote area, the many children were excited to meet us. Men would greet us in Lao with “Sabbaidii”, but women, who by the way were all bare breasted, were very reserved. We felt very strange, like intruding into somebody’s home. For this reason, we only took photos of children, except later in the evening, when Lao Lao, a 40% proof rice whiskey, helped to break the ice.

With our guide, we practiced a few words in Akha: “Tapatar” = toast to drink and “Yoh mue ma de” = thank you. Equipped with these two words, we emerged or were emerged in this Akha wedding ceremony, a very bizarre experience. Inside a hut, we witnessed various activities: the offerings of pig fat; the 17 year old bride chanting in a corner, the women sitting next to her watching passively; the men, drinking, smoking, preparing the offering and chasing the dogs from the hut, who tried to snatch the offerings.

The heat inside was intense and soon we were sweating profusely. Luckily, we were asked outside, where the drinking of Lao Lao began and food was put on the table, literally, only the rice came in a dish. We had no clue what was “served” and not in the least tempted because we had stuffed ourselves at our previous dinner. There was no escape though, we were fed by our neighbors who took great pleasure stuffing chopsticks full of food in our mouth and invited us permanently to have a drink. This meant to gulp down a shot of Lao Lao, after you had looked at everyone at the table and said “Tapatar”, which was greeted with a collective “Tapatar”. We lost track of how many drinks we had, but it was not only a few… Except the bride’s sister who was serving the food, only men sat with us. Later, the newly wed couple circled the tables receiving small amounts of money and giving cigarettes and candies in exchange.

Then it was time for speeches and songs. Some of the men in the village sang quite beautifully. Shortly before midnight, while the alcohol was still flowing and the battery powered stereo playing the same songs over and over, we called it a night.

The trek to this remote hamlet of Ban Nam Lai was rather unspectacular, as we were always walking under the thick canopy of the primary rain forest or other types of forest. This protected us from the scorching sun, but on the other hand there was no view for the entire seven hours we hiked. The trail was not particularly difficult, but quite a few parts were very steep and extremely slippery. This required all our concentration, because this was not the place to get injured.

But the worst part were the leeches! These creepy things crawl up on your legs and suck away on your blood. Heidi had a few small ones, but we both had large ones on our calves that created real wounds. It simply would not stop bleeding... Only after we applied thick bandages and pressure did the bleeding stop. When we removed the tape after five hours because it was cutting into the leg, the bleeding immediately started again!

To make it short, we would not recommend doing this trek, period. We should add that we did not do the seven hour hike the following day, because we stayed in the village in the morning for a wedding ceremony, the best part of this two day trip. Instead, we hiked two hours on a dirt path, without shade, that took us to the nearest road. After another 30 minutes walk on the road we reached a village, where our guide borrowed a scooter to organize our pick-up, since we had changed our route.

We reached Ban Nam Lai in the late afternoon and to our surprise found our accommodation to be half a kilometer outside the village, which felt rather uninviting.

The ecotourism project that started in 1999 in the Luang Nam Tha province has been quite a success story and has been extended to some of the other 20 National Park Areas (N.P.A.). The main goal is to reduce poverty in rural areas, protect the environment and support local culture. The 2007 edition of the Lonely Planet quotes that 75% of Laos is covered with unmanaged vegetation with 25% of this being primary rain forest. This fact, plus the many minorities and diverse wild life makes it the ideal place to explore a healthy untouched environment.

Unfortunately, it is very obvious that this is changing at a rapid pace. In many places, large parts of the forest are burned down to plant rubber trees, a project initiated by the Chinese government four years ago. In many villages, you can see the “nurseries”, where the small seedlings are grown before they are re-planted on the cleared hills. It takes 8 years before the first sap can be harvested.

We also witnessed the construction of roads into these, nowadays remote, villages. Of course there is lot of concern about the loss of this rain forest. Nevertheless, the villages and the Lao government see a source of income in these impoverished rural areas. With the demand for tires rising, it is a business idea difficult to turn down. The official version is that rice will also be planted together with the rubber trees…

Since ecotourism is such a friendly term but has been misused frequently, we were very cautious, also because we had heard some distressing reports from fellow travelers. We booked a two day trek with a company called Green Discovery that to us looked the most professionally run. Their folders explain in great detail who benefits from the money spent by western tourists and to what extend!

New town Luang Nam Tha is best described as a stretch of road of about 1 kilometer, lined with buildings, mostly serving the budding tourist industry here. We stayed at the comfortable & central Manychan Guesthouse, in a huge room with air-con for the equivalent 4.8 Euros. On that ”stretch” making up the town are numerous restaurants, but we tried to give most business to the ladies on the markets, top quality food for 0.5 cents a meal!

Most travelers come here to do some trekking, rafting or kayaking in the Nam Tha NPA. These activities usually last from one to three days and include staying overnight in a remote minority village.

Before we set off on our two day trek, we explored the surrounding villages of Luang Nam Tha on a rented scooter, something we tremendously enjoyed. It was simply too hot to cover the distances on a bike. Along the sealed roads, we came across some very nice houses, wondering who they belong to. But with so many N.G.O.’s based here, there must be a market. Once you turn into dirt roads, however, it is only wooden houses on stilts, with the obligatory rusty satellite dishes right outside. Life pretty much centers on the river here, with children trying their luck fishing, others bathing or doing the laundry.

At one point, we passed through a village were a concerted effort was underway to get a truck out of a tiny creek. The drunken driver had missed the small bridge and landed in the ditch. A crane was trying to lift / pull it out. While we watched and photographed the futile efforts, a 40 kilogram iron hook from the extended arm of the crane came loose and missed the people helping down near the truck by a few centimeters. What stunned us what how unexcited most people remained, although only sheer luck prevented one of their neighbors from being killed. It was the third accident we saw in three hours, the two others were scooters that had crashed! So we took it very, very easy…

Twice we dropped in a restaurant owned by an English guy and his Lao wife. There we learned a lot about village life, local gossip and that even today people disappear in one of the 21 (!) re-education camps if they are too outspoken against various hot issues, like the many rubber plantations popping up, where once primary rain forest covered the hills.

Laos welcomed us with big thunderstorm. While we were filling out our visa application and later had our passports checked & stamped at immigration, the first thunder roared. And soon, the skies came open…

Somebody waved us into a “jumbo”, a big tuk-tuk with a roof. We jumped on it and off we went, not really knowing where we were going and actually how much it would cost... Gilles was sure it would take us to the next town to catch a bus for the two hour ride to Luang Nam Tha, Heidi had her doubts.

First of all, since we “only” paid 2 Euros, we assumed it would be a short trip. The other reason was rather wishful thinking, since we could not imagine being so exposed in this heavy rain for long. Well, we were!

There was an elderly Lao couple traveling with us. The man tried to make a kind of shield against the rain from carton that covered the floor of the truck. In vain, soon it was so soaked that it flapped sadly in the wind. After a while, the sun reappeared. The couple fed us with sweet bread and in no time we pulled into Luang Nam Tha.

When crossing this border, it is most impressive to see the building activities that are underway on both sides. Buildings pop up like mushrooms, right in the middle of nowhere. The new highway from Jinghong to the Lao border is just receiving its last touches. It has not been officially been opened, but is used nevertheless, often in a rather unorthodox way.

On the Lao side, roads have been greatly improved, all financed by the Chinese government. These large investments in infrastructure on behalf of the Chinese are not pure charity, but a very smart long term plan. These roads, connecting the southwest of China with the north of Laos and Thailand, are the “silk roads” of the 21st century!

Laos is said to be what Thailand was 30 years ago, so we will take our time there to discover the country far more in depth.

After visiting Vientiane, we will drive to Vang Viang & the Plain of Jars, then head towards Luang Phabang and finally the Muang Sing Region.

After that, we aim at crossing the Chinese boarder.