I breezed through Phonsavan and its plain of jars in a floaty sleep-deprived day. The jars were pretty amazing, but less than expected.

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Revisiting places gets old. Here I am in Laos, again, when there is so much of the world still to see. I’m not sure why I ever thought that this was going to be a good idea. ‘May as well make the most of it’ was my reasoning when I decided to go to Phonsavan to see something new, the famed Plain of Jars.
So, I had a plan, and when I’ve got a plan I stick to it for better, or in this case, worse.
Phonsavan is a small town about 9 hours north east of Vientiane. In lazy traveller mode I chose the easy option - buying a ticket on a VIP bus from a travel agent in town. The only option was overnight. Now I hate the Laotian overnight bus more than I despise Xich Lo’s, fake fingernails and recipes that call for Splenda™. If someone has a bad bus story than I’ll be there champing at the bit to tell my own hell horror bus tale of woe, invariably about a bus in this country. My plan was to go to Phonsavan, so I bought a ticket.

And it was worse than expected. A double decker bus and I was in the third row, window seat. Not only did my legs not fit in any of the seats these front few rows were jammed closer together as well as being lower to the ground to make way for the driver underneath.

I took a deep breath and squeezed my enormity in, much to the amusement of the gathering crowd, and decided that this wouldn’t work for the next 10+ hours (I know I said it was 9 hours away,  but this is Laos). So I hoisted myself up and out and stood in the aisle for a while, yelling at tiny people with so much leg room they could start a noodle shop between their knees and the seat in front. They ignored me like I was just some giant crazy white girl so I took matters into my own hands and grabbed the aisle seat. Now, this was marginally better, but crazy bus dimensions that allow La down the back to start her breakfast business mean that my feet won’t touch the ground in the aisle. Didn’t matter too much though, because soon enough there was a someone sitting on a plastic stool in my leg space anyway. Poor girl spent the entire trip with my knees in her face.

With every bump in the road, and there are many, the contents of the luggage racks jumps and bangs and I’m imagining my lenses cracking and smashing, when in quick succession the boy in front of my reclines his seat all the way and the man beside me falls asleep on my shoulder. All for a destination I don’t really want to visit.

Now my knees don’t fit in my seat at all and on the brink of exhaustion I start to sob. Sometime later, after the toilet/dinner break my aisle mate disappears, doesn’t return and I notice that kid who’d been playing around on the stairs, flirting with the girls is carrying an AK47. I remember years ago people on Laos busses carrying guns to ward off Hmong  insurgents, but didn’t think it was an issue on this road. Furthermore, who gave that teenaged gangster a gun?

It could have been worse, luckily they kept the lights on and the blinging speakers were thankfully silent throughout. After 9 hours the bus pulls into a station. I ask the boy in front of me if this is Phonsavan and he looks blankly, five thirty in the morning at me and says “OK, I guess”.

Well thats OK then, I guess.

Vientiane has a new breed of inhabitant taking over this miniature capital like plague. They come in all colours and ages, they walk in the blazing sun, guide books in hand like a passport to the city. But these documents only provides access to the tangle of streets by the river and the areas surrounding tourist attractions. They flock here, heavy expensive cameras dangling precariously from sunburnt shoulders. Their incessent documentation makes me ashamed to extract my own. This new breed of Vientiane visitor is mostly European and invariably comes net-book ready and unequipped with the skills to ward off beggards.

But they are Japanese and Australian too, holding their wallets open, conducting difficult mental arithmetic while trying to tell the difference between these strange foreign notes. I’ve been away, out of the tourist loop so long that I’m hit full on by the loud Germans blowing smoke, and I wonder why these men don’t wear undies under their flimsy Thai pants.

I think I’ve been here too many times and am made surly by the changes and by travelling alone - forever comparing it to my glowing memories. I judge the two fat men passing by with mullets and bumbags and realise that I’, one of them too, siting outside a frensh patisserie, nursing my iced coffee.

Regardless of my experience, Vientiane is relaxed, beautiful and delicious. If you rise before the sun then often you have a blessed few hours of exploration in the cool when most of your peers are still abed. Hibernate during the hot part of the day, it is better that way.

Unfortunately they are renovating the river front. Once a divine place to eat dinner is not infested with heavy machinery. The eateries are still there, just not so pleasant any longer.

More photos on Flickr.