plain of jars of vegimite
We are currently engaged in mental and physical preparation for a night bus trip through the back woods of Laos - lots of meditation to block out Lao pop at full volume and yoga to fit into the most miniscule seats imaginable and try to sleep… and those couple of Beer Laos for internal fortitude won’t go astray either.
We have spent most of today investigating several sites in the Plain of Jars - lots of enigmatic stone pots scattered around on hillsides. It is all quite interesting and a little spooky. The surrounding countryside is very different to the rest of Laos - in many ways it reminds me of Australia. Lots of bare roling hills and even stands of eucalypts. Of course the Australian landscape generally doesn’t have rice paddies on any flat sections and certainly is missing bomb craters from the American (Vietnam) War dotting every hill and unexploded ordinance littering the place.
The bus ride into this region was quite interesting, very high on the windiness scale again and with lots of quite poor Hill Tribe villages clinging precariously to the sides of hills along the road. They were full of dirty children and beligerent blokes nursing guns staring at us - and this time unlike our previous Lao bus trips we didn’t have our own gun toting chap in the back seat.
Luang Prabang was a bit of a wash-out - very enjoyable but we didn’t get to as much stuff as we had planned because of the weather. Now - back to that yoga…
