SinhCity: Jars and Bombs

The Plain of Jars,

Xieng Khouang, Lao PDR

Are these carved rocks iron-age funerary urns? Perhaps. Some people say they are tubs for distilling Lao rice whiskey and some believe they were created by an ancient race of giants who roamed the plains before the Laos arrived. They have been targets for USA bombardiers offloading excess bombs in the 60s - 70s. They have confused and intrigued many people for many years. Me included.

Stone jars

They are around 2000 years old. They are each carved out of single rocks. Some still have lids. There are hundreds maybe thousands of them scattered around this area of Laos in 90 different sites. Many have had the crap bombed out of them in the last 50 years during the USA "secret war", leaving the surrounding countryside a dangerous place to wander off the track (unexploded bombs abound).

Sunset from Site 1

Sometime in the late 90s I went to the mid north of Laos to see these jars. I'd read about them in the Lonely Planet (the only source at the time of traveller information apart from hostel chatter). I didn't know much about the area or the jars and no one could really tell me much. I asked locals who said they weren't sure what they were for. One man told me that the State Archaeologist would be back soon from getting his degree in Australia so they hoped to have more information after that.

I rode in the back of a ute through the night in the cold from Luang Prabang. It took many hours. The bus was sporadic and unreliable so I hitched. As you did. We stopped now and then at Hmong villages en route. Somewhere I still have the photos I took that night. I'd forgotten until now that I have them.

I can't remember where I stayed, how I got around, who I spoke with. But I do definitely remember the awe of the jars. Here's a picture from back then:

From a slide I took in the late 90s

Slightly different angle, a decade and a half later

I was on my own in a vast paddock scattered with jars that were inexplicable and intriguing. Whoever I had hired to take me there - I vaguely remember a man with a tuk tuk - waited in the shade.

This is me and the big jar at Site 1, many years ago

Recently I went back. It looks much the same as I remembered (as it probably has for the past 2000+ years).

A lot of water under a lot of bridges later, same jars but from a different angle. And god-help-me I'm wearing the same clothes!

I went there this time with my Mum, meeting a group of friends in Phonsavanh. One was an archaeologist. Another had a car. Handy! Fun too.

Intrepid explorers - Edna, Luke, Noela, Jorge, Elcira and Julie

I'd first learnt about this problem back in the 90s. I heard about the unexploded bombs scattered across the countryside - why they are there, how many locals they are still killing, how people hid in caves while great craters were ripped into their fields. Complete villages were wiped out.

Bombs on display in Phonsavanh

Sadly, very little has changed.

40+ years after the USA dropped hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombs on Laos, it still makes people cry. Of course. Bombs are still killing and maiming - often young men or boys who find the bombs, play with them or collect them to sell.

Bombies strung up over the entrance to a restaurant like bunting in a used car yard.

Maybe there's a higher level of awareness and people are less inclined to collect them for scrap metal= especially now the price per kilo has dropped. School kids are taught not to touch, Various international NGOs run mine detecting operations and recruit locals to seek and destroy. But they'll never clear this land in my lifetime.

See more here: my blog post about UXO in Laos

Or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_of_Jars

The bomb shells are all over town. You can't not ask questions. The hillsides still have craters from direct hits.

Mum and a bomb casing fence in Phonsavanh.

We watched a couple of docos at a café about the CIAs recruitment of the Hmong and the massive bombing of the region during the American-Vietnam war. There's nothing like being right there to bring it home. It left a nasty taste in our mouths and I can't just blame the fried rice (although that wasn't good either).

A mum in a jar (or propped behind it anyway)

While in the area we visited a town that was once big, glittery and royal. We saw some very old stuff that had once been important to the people who lived here. Some of it has become neglected and overgrown. Some had the shit ripped out of it by US artillery, fired by men who thought they were saving the world from the evils of 'communist dictatorships'.

Old stupa

Bombed and destroyed temple

As with a lot of stuff here, it was hard to find local information. I'm not sure if people don't know or whether the information and local mythology, beliefs, history just hasn't made it into brochure format... in English. Knowledge has a different value here to what I know. Sharing knowledge is not like at home. But that's a topic for another blog post...

Meanwhile, here are some gratuitous jar pictures....