Blogs from Plain of Jars, East, Laos, Asia - page 3

After two weeks on the remote Island in Thailand we were ready to continue our travel up north through Thailand into Laos. We decided to pass through the rest of Thailand as quickly as possible as we were keen to spend more time in Laos. Within 36 hours we traveled with speedboat, minibus, plane, bus, overnight-train and tuktuk to the friendship bridge connecting the city of Nong Khai in Thailand with Vientiane in Laos. It was a quite exhausting trip but everything worked out fine and we even accumulated only 3 hours delay at the end. Quite good for Asia... First we enjoyed the layed back capital of Laos - Vientiane - for two days. With just 300.000 inhabitants it is just a little town. Then we headed north to Luang Prabang with a one night ... read more

We hadn't originally planned to go to Phonsovan, but we met a French/Laos couple who had worked as tourguides in Laos during the 70's before fleeing to Laos during the revolution. They suggested we should go here to learn some interesting history - and we certainly did. Phonsovan's regular attraction is the Plain of Jars, a series of huge stone jars scattered across various sites. The one we went to had over 300 jars. Nobody is really sure what they are for or indeed who put them there. The most common view is that they are burial jars and that the ashes of the deceased were put in here. Phosovan's less regular attraction, but far more interesting to me was their recent history during the "Secret War". During the Vietnam War, many Vietnamese troops hid in ... read more

After a few days, henry and I moved on to Phonsavan and the Plane of Jars Sites, everywhere you look in this area there are mine and bomb memorabilia and the area is still very much a mine field with a large number of unexploded bombs/mines still in the groung. We took a tour to the plane of jars and surrounding areas with Denis who is from Singapore and Margaret from Ireland it was a great few days and the jars were quite amazing to think they were made years before and there really not sure what they were used for ?funeral urns or lao lao (Laos Whisky) storage jars. they were really big and alot of them had been distroyed by the heavy bombing the area took during to vietnam war, we also visited the ... read more

Are all things you will find in abundance in The north east region of Loas. Before I explain the title I must warn fellow travelers about the 8 hour very windy road up to the high plains. It seem like the maxium road grade over here is a lot lower because we only gained maybe 3000 feet or so in 150 miles and it took 8 hours. Do the math, we were going fairly slow because we were practically doing figure eights to get up the mountains. Luckily I popped some motion sickness pills before we headed out and Cara did the pressure point cool '70 style wrist/sweat bands and we had no problems. Unfortately several of the passangers weren't so lucky, several of the passengers filled the barf bag that was conviently placed in the ... read more

So from Vang Vieng we travelled east to a strange little town called Phonsavan that is famous for two reasons. The first is the Plain of Jars, which is a series of fields filled with enormous stone jars dating from the stone age that, as of yet, scientists have no idea what they were used for or why they are where they are. One theory (the most likely one) is that they were used in burial practices and were giant urns that held the cremated remains of important people. The other theory (and the one that most locals believe) is that they were actually used as distilleries in producing rice whiskey and that the fields were used to hold huge celebrations and bnaquets. The strange thing is that, either way, no traces of human remains or ... read more