River life in Can Tho; floating markets

I have arranged a homestay with Mr Hung who lives in a village called Thuong Thanh in Can Tho. Can Tho is in the south of Vietnam, in the Mekong Delta where life slowly revolves around the river. Mr Hung’s house is set right next to the river and he’s built some little wooden bungalows for his guests to stay in.

It’s idyllic. We are cooked the most delicious elephant ear fish (the local specialty) lunch by Hung’s family, after which we borrow some bicycles to traverse the riverside village’s paths, which are over hung by numerous fruit trees and flowers; mangoes, jackfruit, bananas and coconuts abound along with rose apples and star apples. It’s a beautiful setting and such a warm atmosphere; everybody waves hello as we cycle by and at one school a whole class stands up in their classroom, waving and squealing ‘hello hello hello’! I feel special.
After a restless sleep listening to the ‘tranquil’ sounds of the river; dogs
barking, chickens squawking and geckos chirping, I rise just before 6 to visit Cai Rang floating market with Mr Hung. Many tourists come to see the famous floating

markets of the Mekong but we’re early enough not to run into them although it’s still very lively. Farmers bring their produce here to sell to traders who carry it out to the surrounding villages and towns. There’s large boats filled to the brim with all kinds of fruit and vegetables; pineapples, potatoes, pumpkins, yams, turnips, carrots, watermelons. . . the list is endless. The sellers tie a sample of their produce to a long pole extending above the boat to advertise what their selling and traders paddle around them filling their longboats with a selection of fruit and vegetables to sell on. It’s a fascinating scene and the river looks alive and magical in the early morning sunlight. Mr Hung also takes us on a tour to visit a rice noodle factory, a vegetable seedling nursery, a watermelon farm and a rice factory. We get a glimpse of everyday life in the Mekong delta and it’s fabulous. All the people seem so content in their simple work, they are humble and happy. They also make you wonder if a life like this isn’t better than one in a big city where banks and new shoes and offices rule the day. Mr Hung charges $12 a night at his homestay including dinner and breakfast. It’s more for the personal tour but it was definitely worth it! You can make a booking with him directly at hunghomestay@yahoo.com.vn or on 84903849881.

Ho Chi Minh City; The Cu Chi Tunnels

About thirty kilometres from the city of Saigon lies the beginning of an amazing network of tunnels consisting of 250 kilometres of underground passageways. They were created during the wars by guerillas to obtain refuge from falling bombs and raining chemicals. The first tunnels were dug during the French invasion and occupation but during this time only one level was created and during the US invasion two further levels were dug out creating a three tiered warren with sleeping quarters, meeting rooms, kitchens, fresh water wells, air vents and escape routes. We take two local buses to get to the Ben Duoc tunnel system and it takes a good two hours but only 12,000VND.
After buying an 80,000vnd ticket I am led into the woods in a small group by a guide who first shows us the outlet to an air vent which is cleverly disguised as a termite mound. He then leads us to a patch of ground where he brushes away some leaves to reveal a small manhole cover which hides one of the original entrances to the tunnels. Its a very small rectangular gap in the ground and feels instantly secret and slightly claustrophobic as we test out descending our over-sized bodies into the tunnel. We have to turn diagonally and raise our hands above our heads just to fit in the hole. It's quite a shock. We stop next at an underground surgery and operating theatre, the ceiling of which has been removed for ease of viewing. The guide shows us some booby-traps; leaf covered pits full of sharp spikes intended to maim US soldiers who strayed too close. They give me tingles down my spine. We descend below the earth into a short section of tunnel. I read that the tunnels have been widened for larger tourists to fit in but they're still very small and you have to crouch, almost crawl, through them. There are some bats hanging from the tunnel roof which suprises me due to the amount of human activity through them. You inevitably bump into them given the lack of room and send them frantically fluttering around your head. After emerging into a meeting room we make a further excursion 30 metres through the depths of the tunnels where the ceiling gets lower and the claustrophobic pressure increases.
The tunnels have already withstood the test of hundreds of bombs and don't look like collapsing any time. The ground here is very hard and the men who dug the tunnels could sometimes dig no more than 2 metres a day. It took 20 years to complete the 250 km network.

Ho Chi Minh City; The War Remnants Museum

Outside the War remnants museum in Saigon stand some imposing warfare vehicles and planes. They loom over you casting a dark shadow and a certain sense of impending doom. The first exhibition I enter is outside and is a graphic depiction of conditions in prisons where POW's were kept, including the 'tiger cages' where inmates were enclosed in tiny cages of barbed wire and forced to suffer; enduring punishment and starvation. My stomach turns as I read descriptions of torture treatments the prisoners were subjected to. Removing prisoners toe nails and finger nails. There's a room with a guillotine. Burning sex organs. There's a dark, damp cell. Breaking knee-caps off. How could anyone be so desensitized to commit these acts? Burying prisoners alive. I make my way into the building under a dark cloud and up the stairs a world of terror, death and despair unfolds before my eyes through images from war photographers.
"Platoon 1 led by Lieutenant william Colley overwhelmed to seek for civilians with the aim of killing anyone they found. Particularly at a ditch they found at the other end of Thuan Yen hamlet. The U.S. troops massacred 170 people". Black and white prints of agonised faces cover the walls. Screaming babies. Dead bodies. "most were women and babies. It looked as if they tried to get away". An image shows a bloody heap of female bodies, some tiny, all helpless. Skin melted from bodies like chocolate dripping off a candy bar. "Victim of phosphorus bombs" it simply reads.
The next area is an exhibition of the 'Agent Orange aftermath'. "The US air force sprayed 72 million litres of toxic chemicals of various types on Vietnam, including 44 million litres of Agent Orange". Agent Orange was sprayed over the land with the aim of defoliating plants and crops and destroying food and water resources. The hideous chemical also had the effect of directly harming people causing illnesses and cancers and destroying DNA causing future generations to be born with terrible malformations, birth defects, diseases and brain problems. Limbless children. Tumoured faces. Desperately sadly deformed bodies. The US came. They tried to destroy lives. They succeeded more than they even knew. In the streets of Saigon I see the crippled bodies, I see the desperate faces, I see their agony, their need, their sadness. Why are they sitting on the streets? A hand raised for any donation. Someone should be paying for this. The museum makes me feel sick. I walk around and see dismembered bodies, burnt faces, blood, pain, terror, dead babies, mothers, pregnant women. A lump in my throat. Soldiers, guns, burning villages. What is that look in his eye? A knot twists in my stomach. How did these men look into the eyes of their victims. The innocent. The slaughtered. Fight an army not a child.
The museum is one of the best I've ever been to and I leave feeling terrible. A must see.

Mui Ne; Almost Arabia

Set on the coast amid rolling sand dunes, the town of Mui Ne seems a world away from the rest of Vietnam. I said town but it’s really just a tourist resort although there is a close-by fishing village which supplies some delicious fresh fish to the tourist restaurants which is super tasty. I visit both the red and white sand dunes on a tour on my first afternoon in Mui Ne, their undulating forms dominate sections of land and standing in the centre I’d like to say you feel like you could be lost in the middle of the Sahara but you can see either a lake or the ocean from both so that would be misleading. They’re not quite as impressive as I’d imagined but quite a sight none the less and very different from any other landscape I’ve seen in the country. The tour also takes me to a spot dubbed ‘the fairy spring’; a stream which runs alongside a section of the dunes where red and white sands create some colourful formations. It’s actually the highlight and more beautiful than the star dunes. I also borrow a bicycle one morning to cycle to a couple of old Cham towers which stand atop a hill, they're well preserved and with the view from the hill rewarding enough for my cycle. Mui Ne has little else to offer the average traveller it’s more of a two week tourist destination for holidaying Russians, although the beach is nice enough to spend an extra day relaxing here and gorging on the freshest seafood!

Ninh Binh: In One Day

I was planning to stay overnight in Ninh Binh but after taking a morning bus from Hanoi I've arrived early enough to see the attractions in an afternoon, a very helpful hotelier tells me. He's keen to sell me some transport and as he suggests I tour on a mototaxi for the afternoon and then take the night bus to Hue, I think why not?
I am driven first to Tam Coc, apparently often referred to as 'Halong Bay on the rice paddies' because of it's similar stunning limestone karsts. I take a trip up the river in a small boat which the boatman seems to put all of his effort into rowing, but I suspect it's a bit of a show in an attempt to get a bigger tip! The cliffs rise high above the the little paddies of bright green shoots while a small river picturesquely meanders it's way through the midst of this stunning scenery. The river, along with us in our little wooden vessel, passes through a few dark caves, which these very waters no doubt created, with ceilings so low I have to duck to avoid stalactites appearing from the darkness. I am returned to my moto-driver empty-handed after two hours even though I've been told to buy everything from souvenirs to a drink for my boatman, even the boatman himself tried to sell me some embroidered textiles!
It's a cold, grey day and as we drive through the countryside to Hoa Lu the wind goes straight through my thin cardigan, brrr. Hoa Lu is an ancient citadel created during one of the chinese dynasties but mostly destroyed or crumbled to pieces. I explore the two remaining temple pagodas which are quite architecturally aesthetic but there's nothing very special to be seen.
Ninh Binh is well known for it's local delicacy of goat meat, having seen some mountain goats precariously perched on the cliffs of Tam Coc I am keen to try the local favourite so I order a goat meat bbq in the town. It's in a delicious marinade and is very tasty. I'm glad I only stayed for an afternoon, with the boat trip and my goat dinner I've had the best Ninh Binh has to offer.

If You're Booking a Halong Bay Tour. . .

Just a suggestion if you are booking a Halong Bay tour; I booked on to a standard 3 day tour from Hanoi, standard meaning cheap and budget, as opposed to the more expensive deluxe and superior tours which I figured would be very similar. I think it's safe to say you get what you pay for with a Halong Bay tour; the boat was lovely but the hotel on Cat Ba was very mouldy (including my pillow) and all the food was tasteless and in very small portions, the guide also did no guiding whatsoever and might as well not have been there. So if you're going to be happy with this take the cheap option but I would recommend paying just a few more dollars to not be hungry and not wake up with nostrils full of fungus smell!

Dalat; Not For Honeymooners

After a four hour drive from Nha Trang I am disappointed by my first sights of Dalat, I was expecting a mountainside town reminiscent of the green farmland of Malaysia’s Cameron highlands, instead all I see is plastic polly-tunnels and greenhouses overcrowding the land so barely a patch of green remains visible. The town itself is a huge concrete urban area with little to please the eye but a few swiss-mountain style buildings. Apparently many locals like to come here for their honeymoon, though it is beyond my comprehension why anyone would do such a thing. I see nothing romantic about the place what so ever, even the plastic swan paddle boats on the lake seem too tacky to be remotely charming.
Having heard of the legendary easyriders of Dalat; a group of motorbike drivers who run day (and longer) tours of the area, I decide to see if they can help occupy my afternoon in Dalat. I’m expecting some kind of leather-clad biker group but on entering their office/hangout I am greeted by a friendly, old guy. Greying and weathered he has the kindest face and is really helpful, even though I don’t have enough time to do a tour he arranges a moto taxi to run me about to some attractions for a few hours. Most of Dalat’s tourist sights are Asian-orientated tacky and attractions, which I visit the least crappy of! I go first to a beautifully peaceful meditation centre set on a hillside surrounded by beautiful gardens, then to Datlana waterfall where some genius has created an odd rollercoaster luge ride which I don’t go on. We make two more stops in the town at an old railway station and the ‘crazy house’ a quirky funhouse you might find in Disneyland. Cheesy! I do not think Dalat is worth a visit unless you’re planning to do an easyrider tour to it, around it or away from it.

Nha Trang; One Big Beach

Nha Trang is a seaside metropolis, where the city almost leans into the ocean. The beach is wide, long and sandy but the city doesn’t have much else to offer the common tourist or traveller. The nearby islands are the only other draw, the largest of which is Hon Tre where the Vietnamese have built a large theme park called Vinpearl. I avoid it for fear of overpriced tacky rides and typically cheesy Asian entertainment. I do however take a boat tour to some of the other surrounding islands which calls first at Mieu Island where we visit a large ship-shaped monstrosity of an aquarium where I can say for sure the owners spent a considerably larger amount of money building the ‘ship’ than creating a comfortable living environment for the aquariums miserable looking inhabitants. The highlight is a pool out the back where some giant turtles await being fed by eager tourists; you can step right into to the water and almost feed them by hand, fantastic. Next stop is a little snorkeling spot at Mun Island which at first look appears a bit barren but on closer inspection actually throws up some giant blue starfish, seahorses and an unidentified metre-long sluggy thing! We have lunch on the boat and then anchor down in the middle of the open water for the most peculiar part of the tour; on-board entertainment. The boat crew put on some wigs and form themselves into a ‘band’; one with an electric guitar, one with a drum set made of plastic tubs and one with just a microphone and a twirl! They mash out some hilarious tunes, dragging members of the audience on stage (including me) for a karaoke type affair. They’re rather terrible and it’s quite hilarious! After this we are plunged into the water with one of the boatmen who dishes out sun-warmed fruity wine in plastic cups with pineapple, mmmm! Very odd. Our final stop is at Tranh Island where we are left to relax on the beach and I feel like we have emerged from some parallel universe as the crew loose the wigs and resume their normal duties. A strange but interesting day which enlivened a visit to mediocre Nha Trang.

Hoi An; Just For It's Personality

Hoi An is a beautiful little town set alongside the picturesque Hoai river which was South Vietnams trading hub during the 16th and 17th centuries. Filled with French, Dutch and Japanese influence it oozes colonial charm through old streets laced with fragrant flowers and shuttered shop fronts. The old streets of the town and some of the historical buildings are Unesco world heritage listed but after reading some reviews of the ‘culture tour’ ticket which allows entrance to the related sites, buildings and museums like the museum of ceramics which doesn’t exactly draw me in! I decide I’ll be better off just wandering and absorbing the wonderful atmosphere of the place. I seek out some of the listed sites, including the Japanese bridge and some old community meeting houses and viewing from the outside is aesthetically pleasing enough. The town has retained its trading roots and shops full of wonderful fabrics abound. There are hundreds of tailors ready to create the perfect suit, ball gown and garments fitted for you in a matter of days, even hours if you’re short on time! Of course there are many shops selling tourist souvenirs but they are beautifully crafted and much less tacky than the usual fare; lacquered wood bowls, vases, silk cushion covers and table runners are as abundant as the tailors and no doubt please numerous souvenir seekers.
At night the riverside is illuminated by many beautiful coloured lanterns which are hand crafted in the town creating a magical ambience. Combined with the free cultural dance and music performances which take place along the river bank this makes for a perfect evening to relax, enjoy some delicious local food and soak up Hoi An’s flavour.
All in all I loved Hoi An simply for it’s magical atmosphere and beautiful setting and would gladly spend a week enjoying its personality.

Hanoi: A City of Organised Chaos

Hanoi is a wonderful capital full of interesting sights, sounds and smells. It's a place for relaxing and watching the chaotic life of the city pass you by, it's a place for wandering museums for hours on end, it's a place to get lost in exploring surprising back streets. The roads in Hanoi are a crazy mess of thousands of scooters, cars, cyclo's and bikes, beep beep, while the pavements are full of allsorts, including scooters and lots of locals enjoying a tea and snacking on some seeds while perched on child-sized plastic stools. Hawkers carry heavily loaded trays of various foodstuffs and spend their days roaming the streets selling their chosen produce. Hoan Kim Lake is in the heart of the city and is a hive of activity day and night, where locals exercise, tourists take photos and young lovers fall under the city's spell. I'm entranced by it's foggy mystery in the day and by it's illuminated islands at night.
Ngoc Son temple sits on a small island in the lake and houses a rather odd looking preserved giant turtle. The pagoda brings to mind the vast Chinese history of Vietnam. I pay a visit to the temple of literature; the first university in Vietnam where the students had to sit final exams with the emperor posing questions as their examiner. To soak up a bit more Vietnamese traditional culture I attend a famed water puppetry show in the evening. Water puppetry was invented by farmers who used their rice paddies as their stage. I watch a fun and humorous show of puppets fighting, dancing and performing on a stage of water accompanied by some traditional music. One of the should really see's in Hanoi is Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and so I go one morning and find a large imposing concrete tomb. There are a lot of slightly ridiculous security checks and my empty water bottle and bananas are confiscated. What am I going to do with a banana for god's sake!? A lot of people have come to pay their respects and after a bit of queuing and a lot of hoo haa; remove your sunglasses, hands out of your pockets, sssshhhhhh!! We are permitted to walk past Ho Chi Minhs mummified body which lies, looking peaceful, in a glass casket. Honestly, after the hassle I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Mister Minh actually wanted to be cremated but his adoring fans disregarded his last wishes to preserve and display him for all to see (if you don't have any deadly bananas in your handbag). After this surreal experience I check out Ho Chi Minh's museum to learn a bit more about the man himself. Hanoi provides several days worth of museums and I fill many hours visiting Hoa Lo Prison museum, the history museum and the wonderful women's museum. In short Hanoi is a fantastic city full of culture, traffic and amazing people.

Taking the bus from Laos to Vietnam (Sam Neua/ Vieng Xai to Hanoi)

If your planning on making the trip from Laos to Vietnam via the Na Maew/Nam Xoi border crossing on a bus here's a snippet of advice. It is possible to take a long direct bus from Vientiane to Hanoi but if you'd like to visit Phonsavan, the plain of jars, Sam Neua and Vieng Xai on the way and break up the journey a bit it is possible to take a bus from Sam Neua to Thanh Hoa or Hanoi. The bus is technically destined for Thanh Hoa but seems to generally continue straight on to Hanoi however . . . if you buy a ticket on the bus all the way to Hanoi you will likely be ripped off! The ticket from Sam Neua or Vieng Xai to Thanh Hoa is 180,000 kip, and my bus driver claimed it would cost me a further 300,000 dong (150,000 kip) to stay on the bus to Hanoi, apparently this is a frequent occurrence and the ticket from Thanh Hoa bus station to Hanoi will only cost you 80,000 dong. So get off the bus in Thanh Hoa and buy another ticket for another bus to Hanoi, the timetable claims they depart every 15 minutes but this is always subject to how many people are on the bus. If you overnight in Vieng Xai walk to the main road from the village and you will be able to flag the bus down here at around 8.30am (but you'll probably be waiting till 9.30 so if you're a little late don't assume you've missed it).

When I finally get on the bus at 9.45 we make a dash for the border which closes at 11.30. The driver is smoking something from a pipe which isn't just tobacco and doesn't smell like marijuana. He's bombing it hell for leather down the narrow mountain road flying through villages sending children and pigs squealing from his path. The bus emits an almost constant wail from it's horn under the hand of our invincible driver who seems to think any incident is impossible if you 'announce' you're coming and put your foot to the floor. I never the less make it to Thanh Hoa eight and a half hours later and through some of the most stunning scenery I've seen on this trip.

Hue; Tombs, Pagodas and Palaces

The city of Hue is home to a Unesco world heritage listed ancient citadel and many tombs and pagodas of historical interest. After fending off numerous cyclo drivers who followed me around pointing me in the wrong direction and telling me the citadel was closed for lunch (it wasn't) I begin my exploring at the citadel, including the imperial city with the royal accommodations, and the king's private forbidden purple city. It is encircled by a tall imposing wall the entrance of which is a grand structure with a viewing platform from which the royals used to watch outside festivities and entertainment. It's a relatively sizable area and I spend most of an afternoon exploring it's mostly restored (though some entirely destroyed by war) pagodas, palaces, and living quarters of the royal family.
I take a city tour to discover the rest of the city's ancient and more distributed sights. After viewing a disappointing mandarin house we struggle through a sea of school children to see Thien Mu Pagoda which is quite a beautiful structure set in tree lined gardens overlooking the river. Unfortunately the cheap tour has rendered me with a useless guide who feels little need to tell us anything about the sights we are visiting so I learn very little about our next stop; Khai Dinh Tomb.
I find it to be a beautifully dark and Gothic structure. The inside of the main building is decorated with the most elaborate and stunning ceramic mosaics and bass-reliefs, where emperor Khai Dinh combined European and Oriental influences.
Tu Doc tomb is the largest in Hue and is the last stop on the tour. The site encompasses many beautiful archways, columns and buildings which are showing the years that have passed and beginning to sag and crumble. Unlike many of Hue's ancient site's it seems to be mainly un-renovated and therefore maintains more of it's original charm.
Hue is a city well worth spending a couple of days exploring to learn a little of it's ancient history and imagine yourself transported into the past.

Where The Troops Were Hiding in Vieng Xai

Vieng Xai is a beautiful little village in the Hoahphanh province of Laos. Peppered with small fields and paddies it hides a dark history within the craggy limestone outcrops which wall the village. This is known as the birthplace of Lao PDR because during the Indochina war 20,000 Pathet Lao's (of the revolutionary movement) lived in a hidden city here. Dwelling in caves which riddle the cliffs they created a bomb-sheltered community hosting schools, markets and hospitals inside the depths of the caverns. The leaders of the Pathet Lao discovered and retreated to the safety of the caves from 1964-1973 while Laos was being subjected to 2 million tons of falling bombs. The US were targeting the Hoahphanh province as part of their efforts to stop the Ho Chi Minh trail and supplies getting into Vietnam. Meanwhile the Pathet Lao were fighting their own war with the government.
Some of the caves are now open to visitors and as i venture inside the cave of President Kaysone Phomvihane I am struck by the cold grey concrete-reinforced walls and damp stale air. I sense little comforts would have been afforded here. A few books from a personal library remain but but for a leaders quarters the outlook is bare. For the rest of the hidden city's inhabitants, in far more crowded conditions the darkness must have been suffocating, whilst at the same time the thick surrounding rock provided comfort by protection.
The tour leads us through some more leaders' caves, a barren hospital cave an artillery cave with an advantageous outlook and finally to Xanglot cave. This large open-ended cavern was the host to many weddings, festival celebrations and a weekly movie screening which surely helped enliven morale during some bleak times for those trapped here. Their shelter was almost a prison; daylight locking them inside, while under the cover of darkness they dared venture out to tend crops and gather supplies. It's a fascinating tour of a hidden past. Standing in th village i could never imagine such terror ravaged this landscape or that an entire community could have hidden in the tunnel ridden rocks surrounding me. But they did and they eventually won their war and their freedom.

Longing for the Sunshine in Halong Bay

Visiting Halong bay when the skies are grey and droplets of water fill the air is certainly not the best time to say the least. But the weather is what it is and I don't want to miss the natural heritage listed site although my first glimpse of Halong's famous limestone islands is through a misty grey screen; somewhat mysterious but mostly miserable.
I spend one day on a junk boat cruising around the bay and visiting various sites. Our first stop is Thien Cung cave which turns out to be an impressive, huge cavern filled with giant stalactites and columns illuminated by various coloured neon lights. It's a fabulous grotto well worth the visit. Cruising through Halong Bays notorious scenery we pass bold islands rising from (not quite so) emerald waters on the way to a floating fishing village where we stop for a short kayak. After spending a night on the boat in the bay we dock on Cat Ba island and disembark for the land-based section of the trip. We are abandoned by our useless guide; mister Tom at Cat Ba national park where we climb an incredibly muddy and slippery viewpoint from which we can see nothing but the surrounding cloud! After checking into a disgusting hotel the afternoon is spent exploring Cat Ba town and beaches in the ensuing drizzle. The harbor is filled with colourful fishing boats and the scene might be quite picturesque in some warming sunshine.
After a night spent on the island we return by boat to Halong city, and then by bus to Hanoi.

The Mysterious Plain of Jars

The countryside surrounding the town of Phonsavan is home to some very ancient stone jars, which sporadically litter the land at many different sites and no one truly knows what their purpose was or how they came to be here. I visit site one of The Plain of jars, as it is known, with the most jars and (I have to disagree with lonely planet) a lovely hillside setting. There are several different theories on what the jars were used for and there is no evidence to verify any of them. The locals will tell you that a King created them to store Lao Lao (local whiskey) after a victorious battle while academic studies have concluded that they were funerary urns. To me neither of these explanations seems satisfactory but I can’t imagine realistically what their purpose could have been. Some of them are very large and they seem to be scattered so randomly across the landscape. Only one jar at this site remains with a lid although my guide Ponsai tells us that all had them but most were destroyed during the bombings. How tragic that this fascinating historical site also fell victim to the brutality of war. Most of the area here has been cleared of UXO (unexploded ordnance) by MAG who have marked out safe paths but craters from past explosions are still visible very close to the jars. The plain of huge stone urns is almost other-worldly and I imagine fairytale giants sitting on a hillside and gulping from the heavy containers before discarding them on the ground. In a dream world.

Phonsavan; Discovering The War

After a hellish twelve hour ride from Vientiane we pull into a provincial bus station after 8 am and I am more than elated to step into the cool fresh air of Phonsavan, as a lone traveler. Stepping out into the dusty streets I find it not to be a glamorous town or even very attractive but it has a warm outback feeling to it and I spend the day wandering its streets and markets.

Having heard a little of the dark history of this region I pay a visit to MAG; Mines Advisory Group to learn more. Mag is an organization working in Laos to clear UXO (unexploded ordnance) i.e. bombs that were dropped during the war, from land particularly which is useful to communities. It is estimated around 30% of the 2 million tons of bombs dropped on Laos during the second Indochina war did not explode on impact leaving them littering the country; from farmland to temples to school yards. I am amazed to discover that Laos is the most bombed country in the world (per person).
They call it ‘the secret war’ and I find myself engrossed discovering the history of the soil I stand upon even more so because its effects are still destroying lives today. Hundreds of people are still being maimed, blinded and killed by bombs they disturb both accidentally; perhaps while ploughing a field, and purposefully; to sell the metal for scrap. Many of the victims are children who search for scrap metal to support their families or innocently pick up a colourful ball-like cluster ‘bombie’.
MAG are on an inspiring mission to clear land of hazardous 'bombies' to make it safe for farming, developing and simply living on so some of the poorest communities may have a hope to help themselves and rise from the ashes of somebody else’s war. So innocent lives do not continue to be lost more than 3 decades after the country was carpeted by the deathly showers.
I’m so fascinated by what I learn that I go to a local restaurant which is screening a documentary where I learn more about the actions of the USA and CIA whose covert operations in Laos were hidden behind a smokescreen of humanitarian aid. All the while their agents worked with a general Vang Pao to train a secret army of Hmong fighters to battle communism in the country. The following day I visit some large bomb craters which scar the land as stark reminders of the power of the bombs, some of which still lie in wait. A large portion of the land at the crater site has been cleared of UXO but not all of it and my guide shows me a 'bombie' from a cluster bomb which idly lies half buried in the dry soil. It’s quite shocking to see and really emphasizes the everyday dangers that the people who live here face. I’m instilled with the deepest sympathy for the country I am in which is still suffering from a waged war and suffering in silence from the rest of the world.

The Triumph of Tubing: Vang Vieng

So we’re doing what Vang Vieng is famous for; Tubing. For those who haven’t heard of this anomaly let me explain. You hire a rubber ring, along with hundreds of eager ignorant young people clad in bikinis and souvenir high-vis t-shirts, and head in a tuk tuk to the river, upstream of VV. Everyone is deposited at the starting point and left to float the two hour stretch of river back to town, only to spice things up a bit the river bank is covered with bars blaring pop dance music, very keen to sell you copious amounts of alcohol in little plastic buckets and dishing out free whiskey shots. So we spend a few hours in the waterside bars drinking merrily and occasionally floating to a different bar, well one with a different name but same music and same buckets! It’s a little strange and I wonder how this juxtaposition of natural beauty and alcohol induced mental party place ever came to be. SPLASH, what’s that? A flailing body plummeting into the river from one of the many zip lines, slides and swings the bars have arranged for their inebriated patrons. Some of which have actually caused sad and notorious backpacker deaths. Drunk youths + rubber rings + river always seemed a recipe for trouble to me. With the sun disappearing behind the mountain the river air begins to chill, running out of time to make it back to town I abort the mission on the first day and sneak away in a tuk tuk back to town. On the second day we decide to try and float the whole distance back to town. At lunch time we stop at a bar where a dear old lady, who seems to be running the place single handed, is dishing out free chili fries with every drink. She looks so incredibly out of place it’s sweet, but she clearly isn’t intimidated by her drunken clientele. Around 4.15 after stopping at a bar where another old Lao lady is dancing around the youths very endearingly we grab our tubes and make a move for home. So we’re floating down the river, not really sure how long it’s going to take, so we’re paddling, paddling, paddling. . .the river meanders past the limestone cliffs, through the shaded valley and past a few more spartan bars. One and a half hours later of paddling and a couple of the girls give up, while Richard and I are determined to reach the bitter end. Two kilometers later and past a small herd of bathing buffalo we finally arrive back in Vang Vieng, hurrah! The evenings here are similar to the days with the same crowd continuing a never ending party. We head to the bucket bar where, you guessed it, free buckets before 10! Are you kidding it’s like the people of Vang Vieng have made it their mission to seriously intoxicate every single backpacker that comes this way, regardless of profit! All I can say is this whiskey must be very cheap!