Plain of Jars
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2005
1
14
37
Trip End
Dec 10, 2005
Phonsavanh,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Thursday, September 22, 2005
The road to Phonsavanh was so windey - a little similar to the Napier/Wairoa rd around the Devils Elbow part but for 6 hours of road and more slips and pot holes to navigate round too. Their are those horrible stories too of holdups and killings on the road 13 in Laos in 2003/2004 which made us a little nervous. We were to our horror stopped by 2 sets of guys with guns on their backs which got the ol heart rate up nicely. The first only wanted a bottle of water and the 2nd just slowed us down then waved us off ok. We did find out close to Vientiane that our driver had a gun on him the whole trip! The Ozzys told me that their bus trip up north had a army guy with a massive gun sitting at the front of the bus the whole way - just safety measures!
We stopped for lunch at a wee village called the Namchat Village where we sat at a roadside restaurant with the locals and ate noodle soup with a watercress like vege called morning glory. While we were eating we saw (and heard!) some boys with sling shots firing stones into a tree (sling shots are a fav toy of the kids here and we often see them running round having sling shot wars). Our driver told us that they had found a poison snake up the tree that they were trying to kill as it kills small amimals they have in the village and eats the eggs + bites people too. Just crazy to watch - these kids must have only been about 8-10 years old and just firing away as fast as they could all shouting and laughing. They were all a damm good shot with the sling shot and did manage to kill the snake while we watched but when we left they were still at it trying to get it to fall out of the tree.
On it was for another 1 or so in the van. Phonsavan is such a small town with not much there really. We didnt stop, just passed through on our way to site 1 of the Plain of Jars. I had never heard of the Plain of Jars before coming to Laos but they are all in an area around Phonsavan and are these huge jars made from stone sitting scattered in the fields. The exact origin is still unknow but the most likely theory so far is that they were used as funeral related jars. One of the other stories is that they were made to store rice wine - apparently that story is popular to believe for the Lao! Site 1 which we saw was 25 hectares (not sure the conversion to km2 sorry) and had 334 jars. The biggest was 2.5m in diameter, 2.57m high and weighed approx 3 tonnes. This area of Laos was the most heavly bombed parts of the country making it the most bombed part of the world! The US dropped 2 million tonnes of bombs over Laos between 1964-73 of which only 30% of bombs detonated at the time now leaving many bombs and landmines still active in the area. Massive bomb craters were everywhere and the area has been marked where it is safe to walk for landmine clearance. It was a mission of a trip to get out there but they were very cool
