The Plain of Jars

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We had arranged to travel here by minivan but due to it diving off a cliff yesterday and putting two people in hospital we ended up traveling the cheaper way, public transport. We nearly didn't make it as there was a crash just 10 metres away from our guest house which blocked the road off. Some one decided to drive the wrong way down the one way street and hot another vehicle head on at about 95km/hr, it wasn't nice! Some one needed cutting out of their van and there was a lot of screaming.

Luckily I was feeling a bit better today and the bus journey was not as bad as we had imagined, especially after hearing stories of being crammed in with bags of rice everywhere, the only thing we saw that was unusual was a man with a rooster.

When we reached our destination there were people from numerous guest houses waiting to great us, but all the backpackers stayed in the same one, the one that offered a free ride, beauty! It turned out to be really nice, Erica and I stayed in one of the bungalows with its own bathroom (after yesterday I wasn't going to have it any other way!).

Phonsavan is a small village with nothing happening other than the jars so there is not much to see. We booked the trip for the following day and after eating at a place down the road we headed back to our guest house to sit by the fire (made in an old bomb shell) and chill out with our fellow travelers. We also got to watch a documentary on the "Secret War" which was 1964 - 1974 which made Laos the most bombed country in history. The reason it was a secret war was because America never announced nor have they admitted their attack on Laos. The US army dropped thousands of cluster bombs on Laos. A cluster bomb contains three hundred ball bearings and is the size of an apple, they were dropped in large shells each containing seven hundred cluster bombs. Many never exploded and even thirty years on there are large number of them remaining unexploded in the fields of Laos.



On Thursday we headed out to the fields that have huge craters in them from the war, even in the distance you can see fields with craters. No sooner had we got out of the van we found our first unexploded ordnance, then no more 50 metres away was a second. They have not been cleared yet as the main priority are public areas such as schools, but it could also have something to do with giving tourists something to see! The UK based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) have been helping clear the land for years but there are always new bombs being discovered and children are still being killed!

Next we headed to a village 10 km away where they have used old war material for building houses and helping with farming. Very interesting, the people are so resourceful!

We then stopped off at a Secret opium field, which was more like a vegetable patch really. I am not sure how secret it is if tourists are visiting it (but it was behind large bushes) were we found two young children playing in the field.

After heading back to the guest house from lunch we then set of to see the famous Plain Of Jars. There are 136 sites, but only 3 of them are open to tourists because of the unexploded ordnance however there is still a strict path to follow as the land beyond the MAG markers has not been cleared.
The Jars themselves are all different sizes, the largest being 6 tones. It is said that there was one that weighed 15 tones but has been moved to the Secret City. They are made from no local stone and are said to be between 2000 - 3000 years old. No one knows what there purpose is, but it has been said that they could be tombs or used to store wine????

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Photos

Mines Advisory Group
Advising you to stay in between the white strips..

Playing in the poppies
At the SECRET opium fields..