"The Plain of Jars"

We arrived in Phonsavan around 2:30 PM and found a guest house right the way. We grabbed some food at a local restaurant and started looking for bus tickets to Luang Prebang. The two options we had were to go by the local bus, which would be about 8 hours, and cost 80 000 KIP, or we could get in a minivan, save two hours and pay 100 000 KIP. We ended up buying the minivan tickets.

Phonsavan is a very small town. There is mainly one street, with a few back allies. Still there were quite a few tourists there, but that did not really matter that much. The tourists in Lao, just like the locals, are a lot more relaxed than in Vietnam. Here people are smiling, there are no signal horns from cars and motorbikes, no vendors trying to force all kinds of souvenirs and food on you. We realized quite fast that we liked Laos a lot.

One of the reasons why there are many tourists in Phonsavan are the famous stone jars, spread out over several fields not far from the city. The streets are full of tour agents where you can buy a trip out to the plains, but there are also a whole bunch of motorbike rentals. Since it is way more fun, and cheaper, Jared, Paul and I headed out to see the jars by motorbikes. Mohan was exhausted after not sleeping on the bus, and needed a nap.

We rented three motorbikes and drove through town in the directions given by the guesthouse owner. We soon got familiar with the bikes, and enjoyed driving them immensely. The traffic was slow, and in most places of the road, not existing. The weather was warm, and the sun up. Passing small houses along the road, fields with different crops, and people working with all kinds of handcrafts along the road was amazing. It was good to feel the wind, and I got my cheap scooter up to about 80 km/h.

There are three sites where they have discovered these stone jars, which are open to tourists. There are about 400 known sites of similar jars, some all the way to India. We only went to site one. This was because we had to return the bikes before dark. After parking our bikes and getting ready to walk up to the jars, we read the signs by the ticket booth. In short they told us to stay between the white markings. On the outside there could be land mines and bombs.

The Plains of Jars have a very mystical atmosphere around them, and they are very secretive. On site one, the largest is 2.7 meters high and 2.5 meters wide. They are carved out of stone, and placed out over these plains. There are different kinds of stone in jars placed right next to each other. One conglomerate jar was placed in between three granite jars. Some of them are placed in patterns, this happened about 2 000 years ago, but no one knows why. There are more than a hundred jars just in site one, and there might be many more.

There are clusters of theories about what these jars have been used for, and I have not landed on one that I think sound more right than others. Theories range from the jars being used as urns/tombs, being used for melting and casting metals, to being used as a trading depot on long distance trading routs, maybe between China and India.

I climbed a few of the jars to pose for photos, and a local woman working at the site kept staring at us. I think she wanted to tell us that it was not allowed, but everyone does it, so I guess she did not bother. I do want the jars to be preserved as good as possible, so I was of course very gentle, and did only touch the big and solid jars.

Whatever they were used for, the jars are impressive. I had a great time walking around, looking at them, trying to figure out what they could have been used for. In many ways I hope it was part of an old trading system, where the Chinese would have left oils in the jars, for the Indians to pick up, or something like it. The concept of ancient trade is very interesting to me, and especially international trade. We know that the cultures in this part of the world were highly advanced, but why not use light and cheap ceramics to carry the jars all the way, instead of spending ages creating these enormous stone jars, that probably never was moved around more than once, to place them at their current position?

The reason why there have not been further excavations of the sites than what is already done is because of the dangers connected to archeological work both at the specific sites, and in the region as a whole. During "The Secret War"(The Laotian civil war), the US Military bombed the North Vietnamese forces who were moving into Laos. With no concerns about the civilians of Lao, but only the fright of the "Domino Effect", the air strikes over Laos left big parts of the country, but mostly in the north east, in ruins. This war was kept secret, and it was not "discovered" as fast as the same situation in Cambodia was.

That does not make it less harmful. One of the American bombs was dropped right over Site 1, and we could see the huge crater. Due to this warfare, cluster bombs destroyed many jars. And every week people get injured in the areas around the jar sites. The Plains of Jars are considered one of the world's most dangerous archeological sites.

After checking out the jars, we got back on the bikes and headed out to the countryside. We drove passed farmland, small towns, groups of naked people taking "bucket showers" by a well, and many interesting vehicles that would never have made it to the road in Norway. The only real danger we could feel was the buffaloes, which at times would not move as we came buzzing down the road. It was warm, and the clouds added on to the beautiful scenery, almost making it a little surreal. We for sure wanted to keep driving, but had to turn back to get the bikes back in time.