Laos (Phonsavan) - The Plain of Jars

Phonsavan is the back of beyond, miles away from most major places but there lies the plain of jars, one of the top things I wish to see in our short 10 days through Laos. We arrived on a small half empty propeller plane from Vientiane on an air strip which flet like a old tarmac road with an airport terminal (if it can be called that) which resembled a scout hut. Not to say the plane wasn't pleasant as it was and a 30 minute flight is better than a 10hr bus especially when we don't have much time. We plan to spend two nights here before quickly moving on to Luang Prabang. The scout hut (terminal) was very busy with people coming and going and once you'd got your bag from the trolly and been through passport control, a man with a book writing down your name and passport number (by hand!), we jumped in a car to drop us off at our guesthouse, 'Nice Guesthouse'. The town was very quiet, the man driving us told us that in high season 30 tourists a day come and in low only 10. We checked in and scoped out the main strip, soon realising the main strip was a 500m long road where all the action is, not that there was much action. We both liked the town - it felt a bit like a place from an old western movie set, albeit no cowboys and pickup trucks instead of horse and cart. The area itself was the most bombed area in Laos and only 7 of the 50 jar sites have been cleared of UXO and opened to tousits. We wondered around and tried to book some sort of tour/visit to the jar sites only to find that of the 3 nearby sites only one was really available due to the wet season - the others being inaccessible by car most of the time. Site 1 is the biggest and best we have read so were not to bothered about not seeing the other two sites around town.

The first day we booked a tour, our mini bus away to Luang Prabang and wondered around. We visited the Military Advisory Group (MAG) to learn about the effects of the bombing and UXO's on the local people, shocking and emotional indeed, a travesty that it isn't more widely known about the abuse and problems faced. We tried to find something to do stumbling on a shop front with two snooker tables and a very rowdy drunk local, we asked to play snooker and he said okay. We got an hour of snooker and a few beers for £3 which was okay. The table was in a poor condition and with only 5 red balls, we were still both very bad at it and only managed about 1 1/2 games in the hour. That evening a lot of the bars put on short films and documentaries about the bombing and the modern history of Laos, we settled down to a film and a few beers. Two Australian blokes came in and we started to talk. Soon the Lao Lao was out (local rice whisky tasting like vodka and tequila mixed together - positively awful!) and we started to drink and chat. Damien was a Catholic military priest and the other guy was retired and lived in Thailand, both on holiday. We got chatting and had good conversion all night, moving to two other bars and finishing about 1am.

The next day we woke at 7am, not feeling to fresh, to ready ourselves for the trip to the jars. We had organized a tour to site 1 of the jars, the quarry where the jars where made, crater ally (a crater riddled valley where bombs where dropped) and a local village where they use the bombs and debris to build houses and other things. We first stop was the quarry, a huge mountain with a 1000 step walk to the top. The walk was great although steep and tough, the quarries consisted of half finished jars. The best thing about the climb was the views at the top, spectacular views of the surrounding countryside with mountains in the distance. The ground was wet and slippery which made for slow progress of our group of 6 people. It was definitely worth the climb and effort, again I iterate how breath taking the views and landscape of Laos is, the most beautiful we have seen on our trip. Lush green jungle and fields flow up and down the mountain scenary like something from a postcard. We headed for lunch at a local eatery and had traditional Lao lunchtime dish of noodle soup with fresh herbs, lettuce and runner beans which you put in the soup as you please. On the table was this chilli paste which our guide told us to put small amounts in and try before adding too much. Both me and izzi (and in fact the rest of the tour group!) were overly confident and by the end of the soup everyone was breaking a sweat from the heat of the soup, delicious it was though. The second stop was a Hung village, the village was interesting but we didn't see many locals which can sometimes be the best bit. They use bomb casings as stilts for the houses and to grow herbs and plants inside them. The downside is that the dirt path to the village was very bad and to make it worse my flipflop broke and got stuck in the mud, I ended up caked in mud by the end of the walk but thank god I had already walked up the mountain and my flipflop could be mended easily. The next stop before the jars was crater ally, again the craters were interesting but the views and landscape were what made the stop. A sweeping low lying valley with mountains and jungle in the distance, peppered with huge bomb craters. The final stop was the jars site, we headed into the site with instructions to keep to the main paths just incase of UXO. The jars were impressive, varying in size but with a common shape and look. Local mythology states they were drinking cups of giants or just used to brew Lao Lao for huge parties after wars between neighbouring areas. The archeology tells a different story with evidence of burials taking palce inside and around the jars. We walked around and admired the site and the scale as over 300 jars exist at this site alone. The site had an old and ancient feel, both of us agreeing it felt a bit like stone henge. On the way back to the start we were on top of a hill when torrential rain started, we took refugee under a few branches and eventually decided to walk down, the path now resembled a small stream which was good as it cleaned my feet, not sure how safe it was though. Next we have a minibus for 7 hours to Luang Prabang.

The journey to Luang Prabang started of well, we arrived at the bus station and prepared our packs for the trip, securing them up and wrapping them up with water proof covers ready to tie to the roof rack. We set off and soon realised the bus wasn't going to be smooth or spacious in any sense of the word. Every now and again the driver would pick up another person, stopping for 5-10 minutes to adjust the roof rack and add more stuff to it. By half way we were nearly full and then he stopped again, this time 4 more people got on with god knows how many bags of stuff added to the roof. Now the minibus was about as over loaded as it can get and we had 13 people on 10 seats, excluding the driver. The 8 hours actually passed quickly and the people were nice, all of them local which was good fun. However me, izzi and the two locals sharing 3 small seats at the back were cossy to say the least. At one point when we stopped I was the centre of the attention from the villagers, 'big nose' as they call white people, they acted like they'd never seen a tall, fairly stocky and generally large white man before. Before I knew it the camera was out and several people lined up next to me, most weren't  as tall as my shoulder, they were all very nice and smiling which made it fun not unpleasant. The drive was good until the final 20km, the driver seemed to be board and decided to the drive very fast. We bombed though a village and then bang and a massive jolt of the van. We looked behind and unfortunately saw a dog rolling around howling on the floor, obviously in great pain. The driver didn't even blink an eye, our only hope is that the dog will have been quickly put out of its miserly, probably eaten from what we know. It wasn't nice and broght things home about how unsafe the roads can be. We arrived in Luang Prabang eventually safe and well.