Plain of Jars

After traveling the nauseatingly winding road from Luang Prabang to Phonsavan we were all very happy to arrive safely at our guesthouse. Phonsavan is the capital of the Xieng Khuang province, a strange town since it was only built around 1975 after the Americans bombed the previous capital so severely that it had to be abandoned. In fact, while in Phonsavan we first learned that Laos is actually the most heavily bombed country in the world. During the American-Vietnamese War American pilots would "dump" their unused bombs over Laos before landing their planes back in South Vietnam to make the landing safer for the pilots. There are so many unexploded munitions in Laos that when visiting various sights around the city, tourists are forbidden to go outside of "cleared" areas. Also, they expect it to take 400 years for all the unexploded munitions to be cleared from the country and at this time only a very small percentage of the funding for this project is coming from the US. As you might expect, many Laotians are still very angry about what the US has done to their country.

It was very interesting to learn more about the US involvement in Laos. However, our main reason for going to Phonsavan was to visit the amazing Plain of Jars. Clustered in groups, but scattered in different areas outside the city are 4000 huge jars made of solid stone. No one knows exactly when they were crafted, who made them, or for what they were used. However, they are beautiful and it is suspected they were used about 2000 years ago for dead bodies to decompose before they were buried. The largest jar was two meters in diameter and two and a half meters high. Unfortunately, there are only three Jar sites open to the public, since they are the only ones that have been cleared of unexploded munitions and therefore considered safe. These ancient and mysterious jars were well worth the journey.