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Phonsovan, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Sunday, Jun 04, 2006

Welfless !!!

David Murray
2007-03-04 09:59:25

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It was ok, but I really did want to leave. On the way out, the guide told us he was a Hmong and had a brother that lived in the USA. He wanted to come home but wasw scared he would be arrested. During the American War, the CIA trained up a load of Hmong village people to fight the Commies. He was one of them, hence the unable to come back. The Hmong people still fight the current Government. This is the reason I never came here 6 years ago, and they still haven't given up fighting either. After a short while longer, we moved on towards the site.

Plain of Jars, Site Three

At the start was a sign telling all about the UXO in the area and how you needed to walk through the markers to get there. They were not to difficult to see, so of few set.

We walked a while through some paddie fields before we came upon it. There are around 150 jars stacked in various places. For the first site, they were pretty impressive. We were a little concerned that we wouldn't enjoy this as we had built ourselves up for the big heads in Turkey. So, we were quite relieved when we came upon them. The guide gave a couple stories about how they were made. Some people believe that they were boulders dug out, whilst others believe that they were made from sand, blood, skin hide and mollasses. There were varying shapes and sizes and a couple of long ones on their sides. Being the first site, we took a while to go through it, before we went back for lunch

Plain of Jars, Site Two

This site is much smaller, there are only around 90 of them, but they are spread out over two little hills. It kind of has an Angkor feel about it because there are a couple of jars that have been cracked into pieces as there are trees growing through them. As it was small, we didn't take long before we had seen it all.

Along the way to the last site, we pulled up and was told that the piece of rusting metal in the ditch was a former Russian tank. Eagerly, we all jumped out and had a look. It actually was a bare shell of one. The turret that at on top had been removed and dumped to one side. As this was my first Russian tank, my virginity was now broken

Plain of Jars, Site One

The last site is the biggest with over 250 jars. The largest ones are here and they weigh between 600 Kg to one Tonne each. The guide reckoned that the largest one weighed over 6 tonnes, but has he ever lifted it !!! They were actually quite huge, to hard to put in words. Surrounding us were craters, left over from the American war. There were also smaller ones where the MAG team had been blowing up the UXO, once it has been found. In the middle of the site was a huge rock with a cave in it. There is a story that the Commies were hiding out here, so the Seppoes tried bombing the shit out of them. Hence, the craters everywhere. Out of the cave an back to anotehr part of the site, we were shown a jar with an engraving of a man on it. There had been a dig here in 1933, but they missed this !!! Maybe it had been put on afterwards !!! We will never know. We walked through the markers until we were on top of the hill which hid the cave. It was pretty good looking over the fields at the jars. Actually, according to a map we saw at the bottom, there are jar sites all over this part of Laos, but you need your own transport to get there. On the way into town, we passed a house with some more bomb casings, so we did the touristy thing and took more photos.

Beer Lao's Drunk - 3
Beer Lao's Total - 43

It had been good to come up here, the trip was views were great, but we were now down to two. Tomorrow, we will be going back over the mountains and then onto Luang Prabang.