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.
3 comments:
Impressive... I will return your voicemail at my earliest opportunity; I just started a new job, so my head is swimming at work, and I'm thinking about taking up an ultramarathon this summer, so my free time is spent on a treadmill or an increasingly familiar hour to 1.5 hour loop. I think I said a few years back that this sort of shit was crazy, and I'm pretty sure I was right...
awesome owen - i've always wanted to visit that site. good to see you at the beach bbq this weekend.
Hey Owen,
Nice pics mate. Did you get to see someone by the name of Thongsa Sayavongkhamdy? He's one of the few people to have done excavations there, and he was at ANU when I was. Nice guy! Please go back in time and say hi to him for me :)
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