The Plain of Jars

We received a special treat on one of our days off. Permission from the Lao officials to travel a short distance out of Phonsavan to The Plain of Jars. There are thousands of jars scattered around this portion of Laos, but there are four main concentrations. We visited the largest collection of jars (334) at Site 1.


This north-central region of Laos was the subject of heavy fighting during the Vietnam War and as a result there is still a large quantity of unexploded ordinance in the area. The main tourist centers have been swept for mines and such, but it is still very important that you stick to the marked pathways...

The plain of jars is a lesser known archaeological site dating to between 500 BC and 800 AD. While there are many different theories about the origin of the jars, most of them center around burial rituals.


Compared to other sites in SE Asia such as My Son and especially Angkor, the Plain of Jars receives relatively few tourists. Phonsavan is well off of the normal tourist loop and because no backpacker is going to be able to afford a helicopter ride, they are forced to take a gruelling 16 hour bus trip from Vientiane. As a result, the backpackrs tend to be the sort who are SE Asia for numerous months.

More from Laos

Standard operating procedures at work prevent me from divulging a lot of the details about my mission to Laos, but I can share some of the other photos with you.

Enjoy...

Phonsavan, the main drag.

1000 lb bombs get turned into bbqs.

SSG Jimenez and Dr. Baker.

Screening going full tilt.

Team mascot.

My Site

Here are a few photographs of my site. They were taken on the last day when we had completed excavation and had cleaned up all of the units. They are overlapping photos assembled into large panoramics.

In all, we excavated a total 744 square meters (8008 square feet) to an average depth of 25 cm (10 inches). That is a total of 186 cubic meters (6568 cubic feet). That is equivalent to having a foot and a half of dirt covering an area the size of a basketball court.



Photos by Chris Flahive. Panoramic were assembled using autostich.

Vansana Hotel

Ok, so a nice hotel is probably not the best thing to get spoiled with on a first mission, but hey, I am not the one who determines all of this stuff. There are other people in JPAC who decide all of these things. I just take what is given to me.


All 50-some-odd of us stayed in the Vansana Hotel in Phonsavan. It is literally the hotel on the hill. It is also the only place in town large enough to accommodate all of us. There was a super friendly staff who completed a full maid service every day while we were out at work. There was also a pretty decent restaurant with a full complement of asian food and cooks who even went out of their way to learn how to make cheeseburgers for us.


We completely took over the entire hotel. One of the parking lots turned into out gear storage and staging area. Another, lower parking lot, turned into our landing pad for squirrel helicopters. The Mi-17 landed in a dirt area out on the other end of the hotel.


I also had a very nice view of all of town from my front balcony.


I have a bad feeling that I might be camping when I go to Vietnam in June...

Getting to Phonsavan, Laos

How do you move 54 people and enough gear to run four massive archaeological excavations halfway around the world? Start with a C-17 and pile everyone and everything on board. Leave Hawaii and fly to Guam. Hang out in the Anderson Airforce Base terminal for about two hours while the plane refuels and then get back on and fly to Utapao Thailand (About 100 miles southeast of Bangkok).

In Utapao all of the people get off of the C-17 and get onto a C-130. We were on the ground for about 45 minutes total.


This is a much smaller plane that takes you to Vientiane Laos where you go through immigration. After taking you, the C-130 flies back to Thailand to get your gear. In Vientiane you climb on board helicopters. We used two different types. Mi-17s:

And smaller helicopters that we called Squirrels:

After about an hour of flying across Laos we arrived in Phonsavan. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of Laos because the Lao government does not allow us to take any photos from the air other than of our excavations.

Our gear was trucked from Vientiane to Phonsavan and arrived a day after we did.

Returned to Hawaii

I have made it back to Hawaii after a very successful first mission. I am sorry that I was not able to post while I was away. The internet connections in Phonsavan were not capable of handling this web site.

I promise that I will put up lots of pictures very soon.