Plain of Jars

Since returning from our trip to Pakse life in Vientiane has been pretty uneventful.  This hasn't been a bad thing as this has allowed Thipp and Alex to visit with family on relaxed basis and provided us with a nice lull before we leave for Cambodia on March 1st.

When we rented our apartment I thought that the location was perfect, just a 15-minute walk to Thipp's Mom's house.  What hadn't occurred to me was that this also meant that we were just a 3-minute motor-scooter ride from their house.  Consequently, we've had many visitors.  Sometimes they are planned, such as when Thipp's sister and her husband brought over dinner one evening.  Sometimes they are a total surprise like when Thipp's sister-in-law dropped-off her two youngest children to spend the day with us, while she attended a wedding event.  There had been no discussion of this in advance, even though we had seen them the night before.  Thipp wasn't fussed as this is presumably the Laotian way.  I was slightly less impressed.

I recognized that I needed some sort of side-event to keep myself sane.  Thipp graciously granted me a two-day "hall pass" and after reviewing my options decided to fly northwest to the town of Phonsavan in the province of Xieng Khuang.

The main attraction in this region is the Plain of Jars.  There are hundreds of stone jars of various sizes, dating back to between 500 BC and 200 AD.  Their purpose isn't known with certainty, but my guide was very confident that they were used to store the ashes of the deceased.  The place had the feel of Stonehenge to it.  However, after about 1 1/2 hours of wandering amongst the jars I was pretty much jarred-out.

The rest of the day-trip involved quite a range of activities, including visiting a Hmong village, going to hot springs, climbing into a giant cave where about 400 people were killed by a US missile during the war, and driving on a road that was once part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to see a field with multiple large craters left by US bombs and soil that has yet to recover from Agent Orange.  Apparently, at the time of the attack there had been a major communist (Pathet Lao) camp located there.

I knew that Laos was indirectly affected by the Vietnam War, but I didn't realize the extent.  Apparently the US dropped more bombs on Laos than they did on Germany in the second world war.  There still remain unexploded bombs and every year people are killed or maimed when they accidentally stumble across one.  When we visited the large craters we were told that we could take photos but to ensure that our flashes were off as they could possibly set-off a bomb.  No one in our group took any photos and we all stuck to the main trail.

I enjoyed my two-days away.  I even got to watch the Oscars on TV, although it was a bit annoying having two Thai announcers adding to the commentary.  I knew I was truly travelling when I got to the airport for my return flight and there were chickens running by the entrance to the terminal.  I went to the  food shed next door for a snack and watched some Laos military drinking beer before departing on their helicopter.  Hopefully no one will be attacking today.