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Published: August 18th 2008
Plain of jars
There is certainly space for some storage in these stones.The morning of 15th Aug, we went to see the Plain of Jars 25km outside of Phonsavan. The jars are made of stones and weight between 600kg to 1000kg and are said to be over 2000 years old. It is not know what they were used for, but a few theories think they were used for rice storage or as wine fermenters.
After a club sandwich for lunch, we jumped on our bike as we had a 240km journey ahead of us to Xam Neua (North East). The drive took us up to the mountains and the views were stunning. It was very slow driving as there were so many curves. At 5pm we were at Nam Noen where we could have stayed, but we decided we could make the last 90km before it got dark…... --- that was a big mistake! The last 90km was in the mountains and there were several landslides that delayed us. At 7pm it was getting dark and we still had about 25km to go. The only protection for my eyes I had was my sunglasses, but I had to take them of as it was dark. This made the driving very difficult as
I kept getting insects in my eyes. There are no lamps or light on the roads and cows and chickens walk/sleep on the road, which mean we had to slow down to avoid a crash. The last 25km took over an hour in the dark and it was very tiring driving.
After breakfast on 16th we left Xam Neua and drove 30km to Vieng Xai where we stayed for 2 nights. We drove to a waterfall about 8km outside Vieng Xai in the afternoon. It was a bit of a trek getting to it and the path down to the fall was very steep. We had been warned about leeches, but did not know what they were. My travel buddy soon found out, as he had the blood suckers attaching him 6 times. I did luckily enough avoid them. The water falls 80 meters and is very pretty. In the evening we went for a beer before dinner and got to the restaurant at 8.15pm to be told that the kitchen had closed. I was starving and did in the end persuade them to make us an omelet.
On 17th we went with a guide to see some
Plain of jars
This was the biggest one we saw. The is also a lid to it. of the important caves around Vieng Xai. The area was the former headquarter for Pathet Lao (communist party). The Pathet Lao lived in caves from 1964 to 1973, as the area was heavily bombed during the Vietnam War. Laos had in that time a USA backed government and USA did secretly bomb mainly North Laos where the communists had their base. 2000kg of bombs per person was thrown over Loas over 9 years. It was frightening to imagine how people lived in these caves for 9 years to avoid the daily bombing. In the afternoon I went for a one hour ride on the bike to see some of the local villages. In the evening we played the card game "arse-hole" with a nice couple from Switzerland.
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