We said our final farewells to our new found Canadian friends this morning over breakfast. Jessica and Christian we hope to see you again someday. It has been wonderfull meeting you and we have thoroughly enjoyed your company – as soon as we have a home, you will be most welcome 🙂

Managed to find some motion sickness pills (aptly named Vomina) before our 6 hour minibus trip to Phonsovan. They worked extremely well and knocked me out for most of the journey for which I was extremely grateful. The road to Phonsovan was very windy and only straightenend out about an hour from our destination. Seems Laos has less than 10km of straight road in the entire country ! The views were stunning though. More gigantic kharst monoliths and never-ending jungle.

Simon still has a cold and now a sore ankle from all those swings yesterday (sim: and neck and back)

Phonsovan looks just like Shemula in Northern Natal. The people and the houses are a little different but the vegetation and sandy soil looks so similar. The place is full of ‘Un-exploded Ordinance’ signs on tour agencies and support centres. Shops and hotels all have shells and other munitions as decorations in their lobbies. This part of Laos was one of the most heavily bombed areas during the Vietnam war – it is on the Ho-Chi-Min trail.

We are staying at ‘Nice Hotel’ which seems ok, and we have already organized our onward bus tickets to Vietnam for Friday and a tour of the sights for tomorrow. The tour tomorrow has cost us a fair whack for what it is but all the places in town are doing it for the same price so we did not have much of a choice. So tomorrow we are off to see some stone jars, a rusted russian tank and a bombed out old city.

[Pictures: Huge pile of bombs, mortars, external fuel tanks and other goodies]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi