Khaysone Phomvihane's cave entrance

For more than nine years the quiet tranquillity of Viengxay’s humble existence was totally and brutally interrupted on a devastating scale. As the United States of America stepped up its efforts to halt the spread of communism across Indochina, Laos became caught up in a secret war that remains largely ignored in world history1. In 1962 events forced the Lao Communist party – the Pathet Lao – to flee from the capital in Vientiane across the enigmatic Plain of Jars (hundreds of 2,000 year old stone urns) and, in 1964, to take shelter and refuge in the limestone caves and inaccessibility of Viengxay.