Next day we took a long bus ride to Phonsavan, center of the Plain of Jars. The road wound up to the top of a high mountain ridge, traversing it for several hours before descending slightly to Phonsavan, at 1200 m altitude.
To our relief it was much cooler!
Phonsavan is the capital of Xieng Khouang province, which was heavily bombed by the US during the secret war, when the CIA directed anti communist operations with mercenaries and US war planes, unknown to the American Public and US congress. They dropped more bombs on Laos than they did on Germany and Japan in WW2. Consequently the area is littered with unexploded munitions (UXOs), crashed aircraft remains and war material. The UXOs continue to kill and maim innocent Laotians to this day.
We teed up a two day trek into a National Protected Area, which included visiting several jar sites. There are many theories about the origin of these 4500 year old jars, however most likely is they were created hold to funeral offerings. Some have been transported from the quarries many kms to auspicious sites.
We walked to a local village and lunched with the locals, then climbed to another mountain Hmong village, no roads, no electricity, just slash and burn subsistence farming. After another jar site and overnight at the village, we headed for a series of waterfalls cascading down the hillside. Cool bush, swimming but the presence of leeches kept us on our toes.
At the top of the waterfall the driver waited to whisk us off to another Hmong village, where they have used war debris, particularly cluster bomb cases to ingenious effect. Fences, foundations and planter tubs to name a few. Last on the trip was the crater field, a landscape pocked with bomb craters and even UXOs.
Apparently the US war planes would jettison their bomb-load indiscriminately here if their primary targets were obscured, they did not want to land with the bombs on board.
During our hike we saw young children working the fields. That is when we realised how poor Laos is, hard scrabble farming.
The main crops are rice and corn. We were touched by the easy friendliness of the people and felt privileged to be invited into their village to eavesdrop in on a typical day in their lives.
To our relief it was much cooler!
Phonsavan is the capital of Xieng Khouang province, which was heavily bombed by the US during the secret war, when the CIA directed anti communist operations with mercenaries and US war planes, unknown to the American Public and US congress. They dropped more bombs on Laos than they did on Germany and Japan in WW2. Consequently the area is littered with unexploded munitions (UXOs), crashed aircraft remains and war material. The UXOs continue to kill and maim innocent Laotians to this day.
We teed up a two day trek into a National Protected Area, which included visiting several jar sites. There are many theories about the origin of these 4500 year old jars, however most likely is they were created hold to funeral offerings. Some have been transported from the quarries many kms to auspicious sites.
We walked to a local village and lunched with the locals, then climbed to another mountain Hmong village, no roads, no electricity, just slash and burn subsistence farming. After another jar site and overnight at the village, we headed for a series of waterfalls cascading down the hillside. Cool bush, swimming but the presence of leeches kept us on our toes.
At the top of the waterfall the driver waited to whisk us off to another Hmong village, where they have used war debris, particularly cluster bomb cases to ingenious effect. Fences, foundations and planter tubs to name a few. Last on the trip was the crater field, a landscape pocked with bomb craters and even UXOs.
Apparently the US war planes would jettison their bomb-load indiscriminately here if their primary targets were obscured, they did not want to land with the bombs on board.
During our hike we saw young children working the fields. That is when we realised how poor Laos is, hard scrabble farming.
The main crops are rice and corn. We were touched by the easy friendliness of the people and felt privileged to be invited into their village to eavesdrop in on a typical day in their lives.