Phonservan and the surrounding district is the most heavily bombed area on the planet, thanks to a illegal bombing campaign carried out by the USA during the Vietnam war. Today the area is still heavily covered with buried cluster bombs and hundreds of locals are maimed or killed every year just carrying out everyday tasks such as ploughing fields.

I went on a organized trek/bike ride to the plain of jars sights, mysterious giant jars origin unknown. Sight one was interesting but by the time we got to the third sight of similar looking giant jars the interest level was waning somewhat. At the sights there were landmine clearance teams in operation, a little worrying that’s they are still clearing mines etc from a well trodden tourist sight. Thankfully the other 18 or so sights are so heavily mined that we could only safely visit three sights.

We cycled back into Phonservan stopping at a scrap metal yard where everyday 15 tones of US gun metal is brought for recycling. The bomb metal is used for everything, house roofs, sheds, trailers, even the fire place at my guest house was an emptied out bomb shell. At the scrap yard a team of recyclers wee hammering at the end of a huge missile trying to break the end in order to remove the explosives for resale. I decided it wasn’t the safest looking bomb disposal operation and decided to move on and leave them to it.

The following day I get a bus to Vietnam! Which turns out to be the bus journey from hell. You see, they have built the border crossing on the peak of a mountain and opened it, but they haven’t yet got around to building a road to it on the Vietnam side. And Coaches aren’t the greatest off road vehicles. 12 hours later on a bus no longer representing the one we boarded in Laos (covered in mud, front and rear bumpers fallen off and side panel missing) we arrive in ‘Vinh’ a non descript city in Vietnam.