After the very well visited and beautiful city of Luang Prabang we headed out to a much more tragic chapter of Laotian history: the plateau around Phonsavan not only contains 2500 years of history which has yet to be understood but also was a central place of action during the second Indochina war. Still today the war is an everyday topic since the population still suffers from the consequences of the war which was over more than 40 years ago. From Phonsavan we continued to Vang vieng, the mecca of all backpackers is located in a magificient carst landscape and until recently was the alcohol and drug capital of Laos.