Kathleen
Phonsovan, Laos – February 25
The plain of Jars. This rather romantic sounding place took as about 6 harrowing hours out of our way en route between Luang Prabang and Vang Vien. Steve had heard about the barfy busses, and since he gets car sick, we decied to pony up for a private driver. This would have probably been just fine if the three of us could have done the two-day trip in a car rather than a 10-person minivan, and if our driver didn’t seem to be in such a hurry. Essentially, we had two days of driving on shoddy, steep, curvy, non-guardrailed mountain roads, squealing our tires around almost every curve. The scenery was gorgeous, but I kept my head engrossed in a book or my ipad the entire time, because to look was terrifying.
Anyway, like I said in the beginning, Phonsovan pretty much doubled the length of this trip. The plain of jars consists of a series of sites with multitudes of huge iron age stone jars and stone lids. The guidbook said that nobody knew what the jars had been used for, but the visitor’s center and some archeologists we found working in the field confirmed that the jar sites were cemetaries and the jars themselves were funerary urns, where the bodies would be placed to decompose.
The jars were randomly scattered and sort of interesting to look at. Even more interesting, if upsetting, is learning about US dropped bombs and mines en masse in this area to keep the viet kong from moving their troops any further south. There are still believed to be thousands of UXO’s dotting the area, and they cause deaths every year. In addition, prosthetic clinics have become a way of life in this area.
I think it was interesting to learn the history, and there is no question I would go 20-30 minutes out of my way to see this, but 6 harrowing hours….no way. Hotel was somber but deal of the century at $35 per night, including hot water, kettle and breakfast. We froze our tooties off because it was actually quite cool at this elevation and we were entering a 3-day cool spell….no heat, but we could cuddle at least.
Next day was happily a bit shorter drive and a bit straighter roads going into beautiful Vang Vien.