Off the track in eastern Laos
A week or so ago we decided that we would visit the east of Laos, which is quite remote and not usually visited by foreign travelers. Since there’s a pretty well-worn path that goes through Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang etc, we thought it would be nice to see a bit of the ‘real’ Laos away from the impacts of mass tourism. A boat ride, songthaew trip, a lazy afternoon in a very un-noteworthy town, half a night of sleep and a night bus later, we arrived in Xam Neua just under 24 hours after leaving Muang Ngoi. We met a couple of other travelers at the bus station and decided to head with them straight to Vieng Xai, another 30km away, as this was one of the main reasons for coming east in the first place – I think the four of us were the only foreigners in the village that night.
Vieng Xai is a beautiful village with many surrounding karsts or cliffs (though I was once again ruing the fact that it’s harvest time and the rice fields are brown and not green), but is most famous for being probably the most important place in the whole country regarding the modern history of Laos – it was here in the 1960s that leaders of the rebel communist Pathet Lao (who now govern the country) built homes and headquarters inside hundreds of caves to protect themselves from US aerial bombing. The US signed Geneva accords in 1962 agreeing not to attack neutral Laos, but as is their custom, defied that agreement and instead dropped more bombs on Laos from 1964-73 than the entire number of bombs dropped on all countries in World War II, and did not even admit to bombing Laos at all until 1970. This campaign crippled Laos and continues to do so as many, many people are still killed or injured from unexploded bombs every year.
A couple of years ago the government opened five of the caves to foreigners and you can now go in to this ‘Hidden City’ and see how these leaders lived for years, which is quite interesting. A couple of the caves have ‘emergency rooms’ equipped with Soviet-supplied oxygen generators in case of chemical attack (which ultimately never came), and one meeting room has a series of extremely basic bed frames that were the sleeping quarters of the Politburo when they needed to participate in multi-day meetings. All in all, it was a worthwhile and pretty fascinating insight into the struggle of the Pathet Lao during the Vietnam War, regardless of what you think of their policies.
Today, back in Xam Neua, we hired a songthaew for the day to take us to some of the nearby sites. This in itself was a bit of an adventure, as tourist infrastructure is poor here and we had to use two different interpreters (from the guesthouse and tourist office) before we managed to make a songthaew driver understand what we wanted. Eventually it was arranged and this morning he took us to a few places including an archaeological site containing mysterious Stonehenge-style slabs that are said to be 1500 years old, a waterfall and some hot springs. The unexpected highlight, though, was going to a weaving village on the way back. Usually the inclusion of ‘traditional villages’ on these sorts of day trips is not very rewarding as it’s very touristy, the villagers are sometimes hostile (and you can’t blame them) and there are often kids begging at every turn. But in Saleui it seemed like we were the only foreigners who had ever been there and everyone was very friendly to us despite the language barrier. Almost every house in the village has a weaving loom but the villagers don’t sell the items they make and seemed really surprised that we were there in the first place. A nice lady with no English whatsoever invited us into her house to watch her demonstrate weaving and seemed pretty excited when we offered her 50 cents as a thank-you. A more disturbing part of Saleui was what the villagers apparently eat for lunch – tiny, disgusting looking dried birds that look like nothing but bone, which were hanging out to dry from a couple of poles around town (this photo hopefully demonstrates the grossness of this!).
So, we’ve enjoyed being out here in the east for a few days observing local life and being away from the tourist circuit. Tomorrow we have an 8-10 hour bus back west to Phonsavanh to see the Plain of Jars, another unusual archaeological site.
Tags: Asia, Laos, Southeast Asia, Travel
Nick