Yesterday, while walking in Bankok on Khao San road I hear somebody saying my name. I turned around and there stood Hiro - the Japenese guy I travelled with for a week in Vietnam. As it turned out he was heading just like me for Laos the next day. So what do you know - at 21:00 o'clock we hop on the night bus which will take us to Nong Khai, the Thai border town with Laos.

Around 07:00 in the morning we arrive at the border - our visas are being checked and after paying an entrance fee the passports get stamped (and my passport is getting pretty full already..). Around 09:00 we arrive in Vientiane, the capital of Laos in a Tuk Tuk, together with another 7 foreigners: 2 guys from England, a guy from Israel, 2 girls from Norway, a girl from New Zealand (who was also on the bus with us) and a girl from Holland. Michelle, the girl from New Zealand took a room with us.

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Luang Prabang is a small town, half way between Vientiane and the north of Laos. It's a World Heritage town, which means so much as that it is protected by the UNESCO and that it get's money for this. On the way to Luang Prabang, we met Kemp and Erika, a couple from Canada. As it was Kemp's birthday the 22nd of May, and mine the 25th, we celebrated it together. Michelle, Hiro, Erika, Kemp and me went out to have a great meal in one of the restaurants in Luang Prabang (and ate the national delicacy, "Yellow Mushrooms", which can only be had during the months of May and June).

After dinner we met up with a couple of french, a belgium guy and a dutch guy to really start celebrating (and when the first bottle of Whisky was finished, the party really got started (a bottle of Lao Whiskey is the same price as a beer..). This was all very well, except that Hiro, Michelle and me had to catch a plane at 7 in the morning (well, who needs more then 2 hours sleep anyway?!!).

About 20 minutes before the plane leaves, we arrive at Luang Prabang Airport (well, a little shed with a runway in front of it..) - pretty tired from the night before but very excited to go flying with "Lao Aviation". Of course the plane would be very safe and all.... when it was 8 o'clock and we hadn't left yet I walked to our little plane (for only 10 people) and saw these guys sitting under the wing, all staring at this big book which was on the floor in front of them. Right... "so which wire goes where do you think?!!). About one hour after we took off safely for a 35 minutes flight which would have taken us 3 days by pick-up truck.

We were off to the so called "Plain of Jars" ("Velden vol met ontzettend grote, stenen potten"). In this area in the East of Laos, around 2000 years ago people left fields of large stone jars (around 2 to 3 metres high and 2 1 to 2 metres wide). Up untill today, archeologists are not really sure what the jars were used for. Probably to burry the dead under (and the bigger the jar, the richer you were).

While landing at the Plain of Jars, you could see many, many crater wholes, made by bombs thrown onto Laos by the Americans during the Vietnam war. The US dropped more bombs on Laos during this period, then the ever did on Europe during the whole of WW II. American B-52's would take of from Thailand to go and bomb North Vietnam. The pilots were ordered to come back with an empty plane - many times they only got time to drop half of there load on Vietnam. Therefore the simply dropped the remaining bombs on Laos on there way back to Thailand (....).

After the Plain of Jars we flew back to Luang Prabang, taking a bus all the way up north of Laos, to the boarder of China. This is a truly beautifull and wonderfull area. Laos as a whole is not yet spoiled by mass tourism (as Vietnam gets to be) and even less travellers are to be found in the north. We visited hill tribe villages on foot - it is really great to see how these people live. At the same time you realize that because you are there you are also changing the way they are living...

All in all I found Laos (or Lao as the original name was) the best South-East Asia experience so far. The planned 1 week visit easily turned into a 2 week visit. And I definately have to come back to visit the south of Laos. After a crazy three hour speedboat ride on the Mekong river, we were back in Thailand.