Phonsavan (Plain of Jars)

Phonsavan is where you stay to visit the plain of jars. Vian Vieng is full of Backpackers, but here is getting into the wilderness and there are only a handful. I met crazy Israeli and surly Fin on the bus and spent most of the time with them. This area was where a lot of fighting was in the secret war and was thus bombed to shit by the Americans. More tonnage of bombs were dropped on Laos than on Europe in the whole of WWII, an average of one planeload every 8 minutes 24 hours for 9 years! Upto 30% of these didn't explode including lots of cluster bombs. Here is the Lobby of our Guest house:



When visiting the jar sites you have to be careful not to stray from the marked path as there are UXOs everywhere (unexploded Ordinance). The jars are in three main sites (or rather there are 3 sites that have been cleared of bombs). Nobody knows what they were for and they were mostly found empty. I was slightly disappointed as I envisioned more of a spread of Jars over the plain, rather than the small clusters that we saw.



Here' a jar with a tree growing in it.



here's me in a jar, what a lark!

Along with the jars we also visited the whisky village, where we saw them making lao-lao (lao whisky) and got a free sample or two, or three. The leading theory for the use of the Jars is that they were for funerary remains, though a competing theory is that they were for lao-lao.

Edit: I should add that a poster in the a restaurant offering advice on DIY Phonsavan trips. Option 9 was "Weddings and Badminton" a great combination I'm sure you'll agree. Guest houses here don't allow unmarried couples to share rooms, and the rules stipulate no "prostiution, gambling or drugs, where it is contrary to traditional Lao customs". Unfortunately I know little of which Lao customs involve the above.