Secrets on the Plain of Jars -- July 26, 2007

After relaxing in the languid beauty of Luang Prabang for a week, it was time to head east into the heart of Xieng Khuang Province, home of one of Laos' strangest archeological mysteries - the Plain of Jars. As we bumped along in the rickety bus (with hard seats!), the limestone karst mountains gave way to rolling green hills, until we finally pulled up in Phonsavan. The town itself was fairly ugly - just a dusty, criss-cross of streets lined with dungy shops, a handful of Chinese restaurants blasting karoke into the streets and a few bustling markets.

I met up with a Dutch woman and Spanish guy, and we decided to join a tour group to visit the Plain of Jars, which is actually 400 different meadows and hills littered with thousands of large stone containers. Everything about the jars is a mystery. Archeologists believe they may be about 2,000 years old, but without any organic remains, they have not been able to determine an exact date. Nearby quarries have been found with partially formed jars, but they still have no idea who made them and how.

But the biggest unanswered question of all is their purpose. One theory is that the locations of the jars mark a caravan route to northern India, and the jars were used to collect rainwater that could be boiled into drinking water for the caravan travelers. Another local tongue-in-cheek theory is that the jars were used to make "lao-lao" the famous Lao whisky. The most popular theory is that they were funerary urns, in which cremated bodies were placed, along with beads, iron tools and other personal artifacts. Here, I'm standing in front of the largest jar (six tonnes) so perhaps this one housed an important or wealthy person.



Surrounding the jars is a quiet pastoral landscape with rice fields, rolling hills and small farms. Cows wandered through the Plain of Jars munching on the abundant vegetation poking through the stone vessels. It's hard to imagine that this was also one of the most heavily bombed areas during the Indochinese war.

At the height of the conflict (1964 to 1973), it's been estimated that the U.S. dropped an average of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. The destructive evidence was everywhere -- huge bomb craters adorned many of the sites we visited, throughout the towns and villages, empty bomb shells are used as planters, fences and other regular household items. UXO (unexploded ordinance) continue to pose a deadly threat around the Plain of Jars and surrounding countryside; vivid red and white markers set up by a landmine/UXO clearing NGO provided a clear deterrent for us wanderng tourists.

The presence of the UXOs has inhibited the archeologists' efforts, but as the land clearing continues over the next few years, there is hope that eventually, the secrets of the Plain of Jars will be revealed.