Phonsavan

I wrote in a former post that Phonsavan had nothing special to it. That's true to a certain extent, yet if one wants to get to know a little bit about this country, one should stay in these smaller cities and villages for a while, as they simply represent the typical Laos. I'm here now for almost a week, and I don't think that I lost time...
A couple of days ago a boy stopped next to me and asked me in English where I would be going. We talked for a while, he (like many others) looked for contacts and possibilities to practice English. The next evening I found myself standing in front of about 40 boys and girls teaching English... It was a private school, and they all enjoyed the possibility to talk to someone different than their teacher. Two days later I went there again, this time staying also for the second level course... I had a lot of fun, it was not precisely a "normal" English lesson, we talked about a dozen different things. In Vientiane someone had suggested to stay there and teach English, as my level would be high enough to do so. I declined, as I have some different plans for the future... After the experience in Phonsavan I have to admit that I almost started thinking about it again...

The encounter with the students also provided for another touch with Laotian reality. Despite the - in parts - shiney Vientiane, the ubiquitous mobile phones, the big 4-wheel-drives, Laos belongs to the category of the so-called "Least Devellopped Countries". The major part of the population lives in the countryside and their existence is called "subsistence living".
Some of the students come from villages close to Phonsavan and their origin was clearly visible, the clothes displayed their economic status. The monthly fee for attending this private school is 45000 Kip, that's 4,50 US-dollars, and they said that they hardly manage to pay this amount... they recognize clearly the importance of speaking English, even more in a country like Laos, but they are never sure whether this month could be the last one to go to this school, as very simply there wouldn't be any money left to pay the fee...

UXO

Again, if you are interested about more information (there's plenty of it) just type "UXO" and "Laos" in your search engine...
UXO stands for Unexploded Ordnances and describes a mainly unknown history: in the beginning of the 60s Laos was drawn into the Vietnam war. Between 1964 and 1973 the USA dropped an amount of bombs over this country which was bigger than what was dropped on Germany + Japan (together) in the Second World War. Many of these bombs were cluster bombs, and between 20 and 30 % of these bomblets (and also of the big bombs) did not explode. So the whole country is virtually littered with these unexploded big and small bombs ("bombies"). Every year several hundred people are killed, mostly children, who want to play with these neat-looking balls, or farmers, who dig up the ground and hit one of these bombs (more than 12000 since the end of the war)...
Phonsavan is the capital of Xieng Khouang province, the most heavily bombed region. There are a lot of bomb clearing activities carried out, and I managed to get access to one site. A team of deminers had found seven bombies and were going to blow them up... I will also have the possibility to go with a bomb clearing team from an other organisation, but they will resume their activities only in May... no problem, as I plan to come back to Laos for another two weeks...
As I said, there's a lot of information on the internet. I also will write an article about this issue, so if anyone is interested, I can pass on the text once it's finished (that means probably July, after my return). I also can highly recommend the documentary "Bombies", which was filmed and published in 2001. Maybe it's possible to download it from internet...
To give one last figure: with the present speed it will take around 100 years to "clean up" the whole country...

Northern Laos

After a night trip by bus I arrived in Phonsavan, my last station before crossing into Vietnam. Phonsavan is nothing special, but only a few kilometers away is the Plain of Jars. If you need more information about this site than I can give in a few minutes, just look it up in internet. Basically, through the whole region there are several sites containing up to several hundred stone jars, the biggest of them around 2 meters high. Their origin and purpose is unknown, there are some scientific theories as well some legends from Hmong hill tribes...
Yesterday I went on a tour there with a handfull of people. Unfortunately is started to rain quite heavily around late noon, so our visit to one of the sites was a little spoilt. Yet it was impressing...

In the morning we were touring around in the other direction, including a visit to some villages and a small waterfall, which included a one-hour hike through beautiful mountain terrain... This is northern Laos, a mountainous, rugged country, not to compare with the flat south. It's also cooler here, the first days it was only around 33, 34 degrees, quite pleasant compared to the heat in Vientiane... to be honest, the locals say that it would be much hotter than usual... but now, after one night and one day of heavy rainfalls, it's really cooler...