We spend the majority of our time away from urban centers so city life is fun for us. We eat the foods we miss when we’re in more remote areas, we shop in huge international stores to replace or supplement our traveling gear and clothing, and we can take care of any medical needs. Penang is great for all of that, but the airport has no direct flights to the places on our list so it makes sense to spend a few days in Kuala Lumpur before moving on.
We returned to the hotel where we stayed before Sumatra. It’s clean and modern and with a pool at a very reasonable price, right in the middle of the shopping district. This time we had a peekaboo view of the Petronas towers. Well, one of them. If you look between the Park Royal and the black building you can see a sliver of one of the towers.
It took another day for us to finally make a decision on our next destination. It requires a visa, and nothing online assured us that we could make that happen within the week. Monday night found me laboring over the online evisa application which, for the first time ever, required information on our parents, and for the first time since French Polynesia, questions about our criminal history. (Spoiler alert: we have none.)
That done, we thought we should wait before booking a flight until our visa applications were approved. Meanwhile it was off to the nearby Pavilion mall. For the first time in our many trips here the main court was completely empty of decorations. A few days later they were all ready for Ramadan which begins the day we leave.
Of course we walked over to the Petronas Towers. We didn’t go to the top again (we did in 2018) and I’m kind of sorry we didn’t. We never know when we’ll be back in a favorite place again.
Jack of course had to admire the Formula 1 car in the lobby.
We always enjoy modern big city architecture.
Two days after submitting our visa applications we got our approvals. That put the gears in motion. We booked a flight and hotels for the first few nights. The rest we’ll do as we go along. I contacted a nearby clinic for vaccination requirements and we made two trips around the corner for shots because they can’t administer both on the same day. They also gave us recommendations on medications to take with us, so we stocked up at a nearby pharmacy.
The rest of our time we spent reorganizing our packing, watching YouTube videos for destination ideas and tips. And of course, eating.
And now it’s time to go. We’re excited, apprehensive, eager to throw ourselves into deep end of the pool and experience the rush of popping back up again.
Our 30-day Indonesian visa is about to expire and we have no further plans. If you’ve been following along for any length of time you know this is nothing new for the Escapees. We’re terrible at planning ahead.
We don’t want to return to our campervan in Northern Ireland until it warms up a bit, and the mechanic we’ve lined up can’t schedule us until the end of April so there’s no rush to be back.
The one thing we meant to do while in Asia is get our eyes examined and order new glasses. Also, I lost a filling while we were in Sumatra, so we need an optometrist and a dentist. We had a return flight to Kuala Lumpur but the longer I looked online for convenient eye and dental clinics in KL, the more I wished we were going to Penang instead. Penang is smaller, easier to navigate and because we’ve spent so much time there, familiar. Jack agreed so we decided to abandon our return flight to KL and fly instead to Penang.
We took the 8:30 ferry back to the mainland, then a shared taxi for our final trauma-inducing Sumatra road trip. Yes, I got queasy. I’m better now.
It took awhile, as Asian travel often does, but we got to Georgetown the next day and checked in to a familiar convenient hotel right in the middle of our favorite neighborhood. We got down to business immediately, eating at our favorite joints.
We’re spoiled for choice on optometrists and I eschewed the big eye clinics and Family Vision Centers and picked instead a one man shop nearby. Dr. Beh was UK trained, has a great personality, and gave us all the time we needed for full eye exams and refractions. We both ordered two new pairs of glasses, for reading and distance.
It’s funny how quickly we settle into life in Penang, wandering the alleyways looking for street art we haven’t seen before, shopping, eating bagels and pastries, but mostly avoiding thinking about what to do next.
Early one evening we heard drumming out in the street and raced downstairs to find a long parade celebrating the end of Chinese New Year. To be honest, I hadn’t realized it goes on until the next full moon. We were in Christian Northern Sumatra for the actual Lunar New Year and there was no celebration, so we were happy to be here in Chinatown for this exuberant parade.
As the sun set and the moon rose we retired to the rooftop bar to enjoy the rest of the parade and the fireworks afterwards.
The days went by and we still hadn’t decided where to go next. I got my tooth filled and we had a long anticipated meetup with Mark and Sarah of Field Trip, cruiser friends we met more than a decade ago when we first started sailing.
Jack and I finally exercised a little self discipline, put our heads together and whittled down the list of potential destinations. It’s clear that wherever we go, we first have to fly back to Kuala Lumpur.
We kicked the can down the road and booked the flight.
Once again we are happy to report we didn’t suffer longterm damage from the arduous volcano climb, and after a very rainy evening in Berastagi the next day dawned dry and sunny.
There’s not a whole lot more to do here but to walk up Gundaling Hill for the view of the two nearby volcanos.
The hill is steep but the road to the top slopes gently with long shallow switchbacks, so different from the brutal climb up Mount Sibayak. It was so gentle, in fact, that when we spotted a possible shortcut to the top we took it. I guess we’re getting impatient in our old age.
Near the top we found a good view of Mount Sinabung to the west, a 2475 meter volcano that last erupted in 2014. It’s still considered active and several alerts have been issued more recently. The villages surrounding the volcano have been abandoned. We are, I remind you, in the middle of the Ring of Fire.
To the north is Mount Sibayak, the one we climbed the day before, but we had difficulty finding an unobstructed view.
Jack found an abandoned cafe with a cantilevered patio marginally supported by a liberal use of very long bamboo poles. By leaning way out over the steep slope we could just about get a clear shot of the cleft in the volcano we’d climbed in the dark. My palms sweat even typing this. It’s a height thing.
The top of Gundaling hill is an odd place with three or four vignettes we presumed are for Instagramming your selfies, and dozens of small platforms of various individual designs.
I’m not really sure what it was all about and there were only a couple of other people around. We expected a cafe with a view or an ice cream vendor at the very least but there was none of that. After a few minutes we started back down again, this time taking the long switchback road all the way.
We left Berastagi with Uncle Mike, our driver for the volcano climb, his new car all cleaned up again. The private transport people try to make your drive into a “tour” but we were just interested in getting to our next destination as quickly as possible. The total journey takes most of a day anyway and we didn’t want to prolong it. We did stop for a quick photo op at Sipisopiso Waterfall, a 120-meter single drop and one of Indonesia’s tallest.
The 4-hour drive took us through the mountains, up and down again and again. My stomach flipflopped all day even though I’d taken a Dramamine before we left. I believe I suffered more motion sickness on Sumatra’s roads than I did on ocean passages on the boat.
Finally we got a glimpse of Lake Toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world and a welcome sight after a long and uncomfortable drive. The lake is 100 km long, 30 km wide and up to 500 m deep. We’re headed for Samosir Island, which means we’ll be on an island in a lake on an island, or what’s called a recursive island. It’s a thing and you can read more about that here.
It still took a long time to descend from the mountains that ring the lake to the shoreline and the ferry that will take us to the island. The lake is so big that the ferry ride is about 45 minutes to the town of Tuktuk, a tiny peninsula jutting into the lake from the very large Samosir Island.
We couldn’t book our preferred lodging for that night so we grabbed what we could, a rundown, slightly dirty place set back a bit from the lakeshore, but good enough for a long night’s sleep to recover from the journey.
We stayed in Bukit Lawang another couple of days to enjoy the comings and goings of travelers from all over the world who come to see the orangutans. Most of the younger ones go on two or three day treks; older folks opt for one day, as we did. Regardless of the time spent in the jungle, we felt a kinship with all the other travelers. Bukit Lawang is not easy to get to, and the jungle is hot and challenging. But we can now count ourselves among the intrepid few for whom the rewards are worth the effort.
I had the same feeling when we dropped anchor in Fatu Hiva in the Marquesas in 2015. There were 18 other boats in the bay when we arrived after weeks at sea and I knew that every one of them had also crossed the Pacific Ocean in their own boats.
The other reason to stay a little longer in the jungle was to assess the damage after what was, for us, a difficult physical effort. We were fine, we discovered. Not even a little sore. Just tired.
I planned another adventure that I assured Jack would be a walk in the park by comparison, at least judging by the reviews I read online. And so we were off to Berastagi, a small town even closer to the equator but much higher in elevation. We looked forward to cooler weather and a break in humidity.
We again booked a car and driver, and after schlepping the kilometer back to the road we embarked on our second bone-jarring, stomach-churning, nerve-jangling Sumatra road trip into the mountains.
We’re always sad to see the miles and miles of palm oil plantations. I know it’s a profitable cash crop for many tropical countries but it’s also the reason orangutans and other species are critically endangered. I don’t know how you reconcile poor countries’ need for development with the first world’s commitment to protecting wild places, especially when the parts of the planet we want to protect are often the places other people are dependent on for their livelihood. It’s a dilemma.
We arrived in Berastagi under threat of rain but we quickly learned that here in the mountains the clouds roll over the peaks and through the valley all day long. It might rain, it might not. Wait an hour and the clouds are gone.
We got settled in to our guesthouse and walked into town to reload our wallets at an ATM.
Berastagi is a town of about 50,000, with a majority Christian population because of the history of Dutch settlers.
I was keen to visit the famous fruit market and it did not disappoint.
This is snakefruit, a new one on us. I’m not a fan.
We were both starving for fruit. Unlike Thailand, Indonesian restaurant food doesn’t include much fruit and we bought mango, passionfruit, mangosteen and tamarillo. We had a nice chat with our chosen vendor who kept adding more fruit to our bag. She also slipped us a box cutter so we could slice the giant mango.
On our way back to our digs we were approached by a group of high school girls who asked if we had a few minutes to speak with them for a class assignment. They were adorable and very shy and they “interviewed” us to practice their English. We experienced this the last time we were in Indonesia, and it would happen again and again during the rest of our time in Sumatra.
We finally got a good look at our coming challenge. This is Mount Sibayak, a 2200 meter stratovolcano. We’ll be climbing to the top.
Trekking day came and our guides Yahya and Putra checked that we had what we needed and enough water, and instructed us to pull our socks up over our trousers to prevent leeches from burrowing into our feet and ankles. Then we spritzed ourselves all over with insect repellent before heading off.
We walked back through the village to a swing bridge and crossed the river to the steep mountain ridge on the other side. Take note of the turmoil in the river. It comes up later.
We started to climb. And climb. And climb. Sometimes there were steps, sometimes just toeholds carved into the slope, but it was up all the way. I had to stop several times because my heart was pounding out of my chest, but the guides and Jack seemed not to be bothered by the climb at all. And I remind you that Jack is sporting two stainless steel knees. My original equipment is still in operation so far, thank goodness.
Along the way we passed two men carrying a 55kg block of raw latex out of a rubber plantation. They were about to start down the steep steps we’d just come up and I felt sorry for the downhill guy. He would bear most of the weight of the unwieldy load.
We continued to climb and the path grew more and more uneven. We were both mindful of where we stepped; it wouldn’t do to turn an ankle here.
We saw our first orangutans about an hour into the climb but we didn’t get any good photos. We decided right then and there that we would be present and enjoy what we saw and not worry about photography. Most of the time we needed two hands for safety on the trail.
After an hour and a half and 1300 feet of elevation gained we finally reached the entrance to the national park and the protected area. Our guide presented us with our park permits and after a photo op we forged ahead.
Once we entered the park the trail deteriorated dramatically. It’s still rainy season and it had rained all night long so the footing was slippery and often puddled. Both of us went down several times in the mud.
We started seeing more orangutans, including a mother and baby. They were much harder to spot and photograph than in Borneo because there aren’t feeding stations in open clearings. We’re in dense rainforest on narrow pathways and these are wild orangutans fending for themselves.
Our guides never hurried us. When we spotted animals we all stopped and watched for as long as we could see anything, then we moved on.
We were there for the orangutans but we also saw plenty of macaques, which we’ve had our fill of after living in Langkawi for so long, but eventually we saw Thomas leaf monkeys, a species only found here in Sumatra.
Despite the many people trekking through this park at any given time we rarely crossed paths with anyone else. The guides were good at giving us all our own experience.
Our trail lead us up and down, again and again, and as we crested another slope a large male orangutan came out of the forest right in front of us.
“Back, back, back,” said Yahya, and we quickly backed away from the animal. This individual is a known rogue who has learned that humans sometimes have food and he’s not afraid like the others. Our guides held us back until he saw that he wasn’t getting anything from us, and he moved off into the trees.
This is why we chose an ethical company. We’d heard that some guides call to the animals, or lure them with food. Our guides respect the forest and the animals and are dedicated to leaving no trace.
After a few more sightings our guides found a quiet spot to rest and within a few minutes we had a delicious lunch of nasi goreng and fresh fruit.
It was a welcome break before the long trek back. Even though the food was served in banana leaves, the guides gathered up the leftovers and fruit peels and packed it all out again. We left no trace.
As it turned out, we didn’t go back. Yahya gave us a choice: an easy uphill, then downhill to the river, or a more difficult up and down then up and down with the possibility of more animals. We hemmed and hawed. We were tired but we also knew we’d probably never be here again. Yahya sensed our indecision and suggested “the middle path,” and as a Buddhist I seized on that.
In the event, the middle path was a killer. The phones went into our pockets, not to see the light of day again until we reached the river because it took every ounce of strength on all four limbs to move forward and maintain balance.
At one point we climbed hand over hand up a near vertical rock face. Halfway up I stopped. I couldn’t do it. I had a long conversation with myself. I questioned my life’s choices and wondered where I had gone wrong to be in this situation. I wondered if I could call for an airlift. I wondered if I could just sit down and wait for a miracle. I couldn’t go on. But I had to go on.
Yahya talked me up, pointing to where to put my foot next, often taking my hand and hauling me up to the next foothold. I looked back at Jack who was doing just fine. He told me later his only thoughts were that he had no knee pain like before, and he wished he were in better shape. Yeah, me too.
As we rested on a narrow ledge before tackling another steep climb, Yahya asked us how old we are. When we told him he and Putra both gasped. When their parents and grandparents are that old, he told us, they can no longer come to the forest. They stay home.
“But we are here,” I said. Yahya grinned and nodded approvingly.
“Yes. You are here.”
We finally descended to the beach. We would return to the village by tubing down the river which was swollen and foaming over the rocky riverbed.
We knew ahead of time we’d get soaked. Jack had worn his swim trunks under his trousers but I had to duck into the forest to change into shorts. I found a rock to sit on and with hands shaking from exhaustion I pulled off my shoes and socks, then peeled off my sweaty trousers, all the while mindful that leeches were eyeing my veins. I dislodged one just as it started to attach itself to my leg. I hoped there weren’t any on my bum.
It took awhile to get recombobulated with shorts and reef runners and I returned to the river where Yahya helped us dislodge the remaining leeches from our ankles. It turns out our socks were no deterrent to a determined leech.
Putra laid out a spread of fresh fruit that we barely had the energy to eat. A third member of our team showed up with our tubing rig. He will guide us through the whitewater.
Once again we said goodbye to our phones and any possibility of photos, as everything got packed into plastic bags for the whitewater adventure ahead. I took a few photos of other rafts to give you an idea of what it was like, but they don’t come close to conveying the turbulent water we navigated on our way downriver.
Our boatman was an expert driver, fending off the boulders that studded the river with a bamboo pole, and keeping us facing in the right direction as the current tried many times to spin us around. It had rained heavily the night before and the river was running fast. We got sucked into whirlpools and spat out the other side after scooping up a large share of river, which then dumped on our heads. It was an exhilarating ride, the water bracing but welcome on our tired limbs.
We finally landed downriver from the guesthouse and we crawled out of the tubes on legs like jelly. Our guides and boatman shouldered our gear and the tubes and hoofed it back to home base with the energy of youth, Jack and I dragging our tails behind.
It was, without a doubt, the toughest trek we’ve ever done. So far.
Back in January 2020 we were due for a visa run from Malaysia and I suggested Sumatra, right across the Malacca Strait, to see the orangutans. As I researched I found that unlike our houseboat trip up the Kumai River in Borneo, this visit to the People of the Forest involves hours of trekking through the rainforest on uneven and often muddy trails. Just six weeks earlier Jack had total knee replacement surgery, and while he was doing very well, we agreed a jungle trek might not be the best way to test the new equipment. We went instead to Singapore where Jack continued his rehab by walking miles a day, but mostly on dry pavement. A month after we returned we were locked down by the global pandemic and we had other things to think about besides Sumatra.
Flash forward four years and a second knee replacement and we find ourselves with no plans and eager for a bit of adventure after a couple of relaxing months in northern Thailand. Sumatra is back on the agenda.
Indonesia travel can be challenging outside the tourist hotspots. Transportation is often uncomfortable, sometimes even dangerous. Roads are bad, many places haven’t come to grips with waste management, the local diet has very little variation, and the currency is one of those with way too many zeros so you have to carry wads of bills just to get through the day in a cash only society.
We flew from Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumpur where we spent a week soaking up First World city life, then made the short hop across the strait to Medan, the largest city in Sumatra and third largest in Indonesia. It’s an unremarkable place, and we spent a day mapping out our time in Indonesia.
Bukit Lawang, the jumping off point for the orangutans, is only 90km away, yet getting there takes the better part of a day. There are several options for transport in various combinations of local bus, train and minivan but in the end we opted for a car and driver. Since there are two of us it’s only a few bucks more than public transit fare for two.
This turned out to be the first of four similar journeys in Sumatra and I herewith pass on my tips to anyone contemplating a similar itinerary.
The key to a successful journey in any vehicle in Indonesia is to remain loose limbed and refrain from looking directly out the front. Direct your gaze instead toward the side and appreciate the scenery as the driver veers around the most egregious potholes and, if you’re lucky, hits the brakes for the ones he can’t avoid. In general, expect the driver to have a lead foot both on the gas and brake pedals.
Try not to gasp every time your driver swerves away at the last possible second from a certain head-on collision with an oncoming truck while passing a motorbike overloaded with coconuts, timber, bamboo, market produce, or a family of six and learn to appreciate the musical quality of the signature beep-beeps your driver taps to warn vehicles that we’re overtaking.
Be mindful not to look down as you pass a section of road that has crumbled into the canyon below and save yourself the image of what it would be like to tumble into the abyss ending in a fiery Hollywood explosion at the bottom. You’re not wearing a seatbelt because either there isn’t one or it’s broken. The driver, you note, is buckled in.
Look instead toward the mountains ahead where in 45 minutes or so you’ll be flung left and right in your seat as your driver bosses the vehicle up ten or twelve tight hairpin switchbacks, many of them blind, then screams down the other side in an attempt to make up the time we lost behind a lumbering truckload of cement. This sequence will no doubt be repeated many times before you reach your destination.
I repeat, stay loose. Roll with it. I find deep yogic breathing helps.
We counted this driver as a particularly good one, or maybe the road was marginally better than expected, but all of our drives in Sumatra required a program of quiet recovery to bring our blood pressure back to normal.
We arrived in Bukit Lawang intact at the end of the road. Literally. The road doesn’t go through the village, or at least not for anything larger than a motorbike, and we still had a kilometer to schlep. Luckily a man on the street hoisted our duffle onto his shoulder and trotted along the river path all the way to our first night’s lodging at the far end of the village.
We had a hard time keeping up with him, and I stopped frequently to take photos and catch my breath. Bukit Lawang is a charming hippy village of guesthouses, trekking companies and restaurants, with a few bodegas and souvenir shops here and there. It’s as close as you can get to Gunung Leuser National Park where a lot of orangutans live.
The town has its own character and architecture and we loved the Jungle Inn, which I had only booked for one night.
Almost every guesthouse has guides and runs their own treks and we learned they don’t take kindly to booking lodging in one place but trekking with another company. That’s why I’d only booked one night at the Jungle Inn. I’d decided to book our trek with Sumatra Orangutan Explore because they’re known to be an ethical company, devoted to protecting the animals and the environment and we wanted to support them. Besides, the Jungle Inn was just out of our budget.
The next day we went to the chosen company and booked our trek. They found us lodging nearby and we reluctantly moved out of the relatively ritzy Jungle Inn (they have hot showers) to more modest but budget friendly digs. We have one more day to acclimate to the humid weather and explore the town before our trek.
We’re bogged down with unwritten Ireland stories but rather than let the present drift further into the past we’re jumping ahead to get current. We’ll backfill the rest of our time in Ireland later, but for now, let’s get caught up. As always, check the dates on the posts. We always date them when the events actually happened rather than when we get around to posting. We also keep posts in date order, so scroll back if you’ve missed something.
There’s only one flight per day to and from the Plain of Jars. That meant we had an extra day and a half to spend in Phonsavan until our flight out. We didn’t plan anything special. Our tour gave us so much to think about, between the mystery of the jars and the consequences of the bombing and the ongoing task of clearing the land of unexploded ordnance.
We revisited the Mines Advisory Group (MAG International) headquarters to buy a tote bag and leave a donation. They have teams out in the fields every day working to make the land safe again. We passed their vehicles and warning signs several places on our tour.
The rest of our time in Phonsavan we spent looking for food. For a vegetarian Laos is a challenge, especially away from the population centers. As veg-friendly as Thailand is, neighboring Laos is the complete opposite. The diet is basically rice and meat, and finding anything meatless is tough. After trying a couple of local places we settled on the only two restaurants that had any meat free dishes, Cranky-T’s, where I could get a salad, and an Indian restaurant with a variety of vegetarian dishes. I preferred Indian, Jack liked Cranky-T’s. Sometimes we ate together, sometimes we each went to our favorite.
We cruised the local convenience stores for healthy snacks but couldn’t come up with anything.
As usual I convinced Jack to visit the wet market. It was the most earthy market we’ve been to in a long time. Alongside the beautiful produce (why weren’t those fruits and vegetables in the restaurants?) there were tables and tables of dried sticks and other woody things. I tried asking people what they were but we had an unbreachable language barrier. Google Lens later told me many were medicinal plants, but I can’t be sure.
The creepiest thing we saw were wasp nests, complete with wiggly larvae. YouTube showed me how to prepare them but I think that’s a hard no for us.
By the time we got to the butcher tables Jack was itching to get out of there. I don’t think he likes to be reminded of what he’s eating.
I love the markets, all markets. I find them intriguing, inspiring (when I have a kitchen to cook in) and a great window into the culture. After seeing all this gorgeous produce though I’m still wondering why the restaurants couldn’t conjure up a vegetarian meal.
Once again we had to check out with immigration, even though it’s a 35 minute domestic flight. The plane parked way out past the runway. You can see from the mountains in the distance that we’re on a very high plateau and the difference in air temperature from the capital was a surprise. We wished we hadn’t left our warmer clothing in Chiang Mai.
And then we were back in Vientiane. Once again the flight connections meant we had an extra day to spend here. We have no specific plans, except for me. I’m looking for a healthy vegetarian meal.
For Americans of a certain vintage like us, the news during our coming of age years was dominated by the war in Indochina. Words like Tonkin, Mekong, Saigon, Tet, My Lai, red tide, domino theory, Ho Chi Minh Trail, Vietcong, five o’clock follies, pacification, demilitarized zone, and so on, comprised the vocabulary of every day life. To this day the sound of any of these words makes our skin prickle.
Vietnam was the focus of most reporting, of course, then Cambodia and Laos entered our consciousness, especially when Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia in 1970, then in ‘71 with leaking of the Pentagon Papers, when most of the country became aware of the secret bombing of Laos.
Of the two regions of Laos targeted by American carpet bombing, the northern focus was a 15,000 sq.km. area of the Xieng Khuang Plateau called the Plain of Jars, so-called because it is littered with more than 2000 Iron Age stone jars. The area was bombed not because of the jars, but because it was thought to be the location of headquarters and training camps of the Pathet Lao, a homegrown communist faction. The US, with the initial lukewarm blessing of the ruling right wing Lao government, thought they should stop the red tide from flowing across the border and taking over Laos. Over a period of nine years they blew it to smithereens.
For the first time in our travel experience our inclination to bear witness to places and people who have suffered the atrocities of war and our fascination with ancient archaeological sites happen to occupy the same space. We’ve wanted to come here since we first heard of the Plain of Jars. We expect it will be both mysterious and disturbing.
There are about 90 unique sites identified in the UNESCO Plain of Jars archaeological landscape but most are restricted because of the continued danger of UXOs (unexploded ordnance.) Only seven sites have been cleared and we booked a guide to tour the three most accessible locations. We were joined by a pair of young English backpackers and an Aussie.
We began at the Visitor’s Center where we learned more about the ongoing effect of the carpet bombing. The sites we’re visiting are safe but we were warned to keep on the established paths, not just here but in most areas of Laos where the bombing took place.
Our first view of jars was of a flat plain that gave the area its name, but we’re told the rest of the sites are hilly and wooded. You can clearly see several bomb craters across the field.
As we got closer the size of the jars took our breath away. They are huge, even the smaller ones.
I should say here that historians and archaeologists who have researched the jars hypothesize that their purpose was in some way funerary, but there’s only speculation about the exact function. They do know that the stone came from a quarry some distance away in the mountains. How they transported the stone, how they carved the jars, and most importantly why, remain a mystery. You can read a summary of the historical research and current thinking here.
Some of the jars are broken, which we initially assumed happened during the bombing, but I learned later that in the late 19th century bandits destroyed many of the jars at this site. We could only guess whether a jar succumbed to a bomb or a bandit.
At the bottom of the hill at Site 1 is a cave which may have been used as a crematorium. The opening and the roof are covered with scores of wasps nests but we didn’t see many wasps flying around, thank goodness.
Site 1 was a good introduction to the jars but we were eager to move on to the next one, an hour’s drive away over the notorious Laotian roads.
We were fortunate the sky was mostly overcast because not only did we escape the brutal heat of the sun, but we had the sites nearly to ourselves. We learned later that the lack of visitors is more a continuing effect of the pandemic and that tourism at the Plain of Jars is only about 30% of the pre-Covid level.
As we walked to the site we were mindful again to keep on the paths through the fields.
There are so many jars, and we’re only able to see a small percentage of them. It’s mind boggling. All day, as we walked among them we shook our heads in amazement and muttered some version of, “What the—?” I think we touched every one and looked inside. They’re empty, of course, except for the occasional candy wrapper, which I fished out if I could and relocated to a rubbish bin. Some are filled with water or plant life.
The last site, another long drive away, was our favorite. The jars are huge, the trees are old and the setting made it all so much more mysterious. A couple of the trees grew right through jars.
We lingered until our guide rounded us up for the long drive back to town. We can say with confidence that the effort to get here was worth it. We still have no idea what these jars are all about; it’s always amazing to me how quickly knowledge is lost. The jars were made sometime between about 500 BCE and 500 CE; some maybe as late as 800 CE, and yet there’s no record, either oral or written, of their design, construction or purpose. Maybe future technologies will answer those questions. We’re grateful so many of them survive.
The greater tragedy is that the men who ordered the carpet bombing had no regard for the Lao people who lived here and the place they called home. Thousands were killed or maimed, many more displaced, and much of the land rendered unsafe. The secret war on Laos will forever be a stain on our history.
We went back and forth about whether to go to Vang Vieng, supposedly the party and adrenaline destination for young travelers to Laos. We are not young, nor are we party animals, and I can’t remember the last time I welcomed an adrenaline rush. In the end we decided to go because of the promise of mountain vistas. And we do love mountains.
Last year we did some preliminary planning for Laos but the prospect of days on crowded buses over potholed roads put us off, especially given the remote destination we wanted to visit. This year a long-awaited high speed train began operation, making the journey between Luang Prabang and Vientiane in mere hours and without kidney damage, terrifying mountain passes, or extreme motion sickness. What’s more, the train makes a stop in Vang Vieng and that sealed our decision.
Getting tickets is a little tricky and can only be done within two days of your intended journey. There are several ways to book the train, two of them requiring you relinquish your passport while someone else goes to the station and secures the tickets as your agent. We weren’t comfortable with that, nor did we want to spend nearly the cost of the ticket taking a taxi to the station and back ourselves. We settled on what sounded like the easiest option: walk to the in-town official ticket office to buy the tickets.
By “in town” I mean somewhere within the wide city limits, and it turned out to be a long hot slog out of the lovely shady historic district to a small office open only a few hours a day.
It’s funny that you can’t book ahead, and we worried we won’t get a seat on the day we want to travel, but it all worked out except for some reason we didn’t receive our tickets right then. We have to come back the next afternoon to collect the physical tickets and I was instructed to take a photo of this post-it note, our receipt for the 364,000 Lao Kip we paid, about $17.50 US.
With two more days to enjoy Luang Prabang we were determined to spend a good bit of that time by the Mekong River because we don’t know when we’ll get to see it again. There are plenty of riverside establishments to enjoy the end of the day watching the river flow.
We’re not sure if Obama means something here beyond the name of a former US president but it definitely caught our eye.
The night market here, or at least the part of it toward the historic district, was mainly geared toward tourists and same-same souvenirs.
Much more interesting was the morning market, more local and certainly more colorful. This is the kind of market I love and it’s a rare place we go that I don’t visit the local markets at least once.
Spice paste varieties, scooped for sale into plastic bags.
We picked up our train tickets and took a last turn around town. It’s been a nice place to hang out for a week, and now we’re ready for something completely different.
