Shell shocked and H'monged out

Yet another bus and yet another arduous journey. This time we were issued with sick bags because the roads were so twisty and bumpy that there was a very good chance you'd become reacquainted with your noodle soup lunch. In fact there were a couple of points where we left the road entirely and were just driving through rivers. I chose a seat without an arm rest so that I could stretch out, but soon realised that I was in the cargo section of the bus and was virtually swamped with various sacks and boxes as we picked up more and more cargo en route.

Phonsavan is cold. I don't know if it's at a much higher altitude than other places we've been but it is definitely very much colder, almost Alpine cold, and my rucksack contains very little in the way of warm clothing. We were asked if we wanted a room with air-con when we got to our guesthouse which I thought was taking the piss a bit. Phonsavan is also riddled with bullets. And bombs, shells, grenades and other ordnance left over from the "Secret War", a period in the 60s and 70s which saw America bomb the crap out of Laos - it was the biggest bombing campaign in the history of the world. A lot of the bombs dropped failed to go off, leaving Laos full of unexploded devices. In the years since, those shells and bombs which weren't maiming or killing locals were being diffused and put to other uses. These can now be seen all over Phonsavan being employed as fence posts, building supports, furniture - we even saw bomb casings cut in half and used as barbecue hearths. I'm not sure I'd want to be the first one to have to light those.

We came across some H'Mong people (related to the hill tribes we'd seen in northern Vietnam) dressed in amazing technicolour interpretations of traditional dress. They were celebrating their New Year in a festival that lasts a week and involves mass games of catch. Yes, you read that correctly. They form two lines, facing each other, and toss tennis balls to each other. For a week. There's no drinking, no dancing, no high jinx... occasionally someone might drop a ball which is a cause of much excitement. The only other distractions on offer were a really shoddy looking ferris wheel - it looked like a school metalwork project that hadn't been properly supervised - and a stall game that involved throwing darts at balloons in order to win a can of fizzy pop. The costumes were good though.

We were in Phansavan to visit "The Plain Of Jars" - thousands of stone vessels spread over miles of Laos countryside. Some are taller than me, some are knee-height, some have lids, all are hundreds of years old and nobody really knows what they were for or why they are there. They are strange and enigmatic. There are also a number of big craters (more evidence of the indiscriminate US bombings) and lots of signs telling you to be careful where you tread because of "unexploded ordnance", which lends an element of excitement to what would otherwise be just a field of big pots. It's a wonder so many jars still remain.

Next we went to Vientiane on another hairy bus trip that saw lots of passengers utilising the complimentary sick bags and a rear tyre blow out. The driver actually drove on for about ten minutes with the shredded rubber slapping the wheel arch before he finally accepted that we had a puncture. And then he reluctantly changed the wheel for one that was in almost as bad a state as the one that had come off.

Vientiane is supposed to be the capital of Laos but it does little to show it. It's like it can't be arsed. There's no real centre, nothing much goes on and there's very little to see or do. We found a monument, a bit like the Arc De Triomphe, that they had never bothered to finish building and which even has a sign on it telling you just how lame it is. There seems to be a lot of building work going on all over town but nothing is quite finished. We decided to leave.

We are going to Thailand for Christmas and, having spent an inordinate amount of time on really rubbish knackered old buses, we decided to splash out on a "VIP" bus to Bangkok. It was the best bus I have ever been on. There was almost too much leg room, the seats reclined to near horizontal, we got pillows, blankets and refreshments - we even had a stewardess! It was like being in business class on an incredibly low-flying plane. I shall never be able to go on a normal bus again.