Phonsavan is another side of Laos that is well worth exploring: a vibrant, gritty town, a great market, the enigmatic Plain of Jars and an unenviable role in America’s ‘Secret War’.

 

Phonsavan, off the beaten track in northeastern Laos, isn’t pretty but then it didn’t get the best start in life either.  It was built in the 1970’s to replace the old Xiang Khouang which had been bombed out by the Americans during the Secret War from 1964 – 1973 when they targeted both the North Vietnamese using the Ho Chi Minh trail to supply the Vietcong in southern Vietnam and the Laotian communists, the Phatet Lao.

The name roughly translates as ‘hills of paradise’ and it is in the hills and plains surrounding the town that you find one of the world’s newest UNESCO attractions: the mysterious Plain of Jars.

 

 

Despite its unprepossessing appearance, Phonsavan became one of our favourite places in Laos. The straggling main street is a mish mash of new mansions and modern industry, leaving the minor tourist industry focused on an area around the bus station.  Indeed we only had a 5 minute walk from there to find our ‘Nice’ hotel on the other side of the main street. The reception area was decorated with old war ordnance and one couldn’t argue with 60,000 kip (about £6) for a basic but perfectly adequate, albeit windowless, double room with en suite.

 

The 260 km mini bus trip from Luang Prabang takes about 6 hours and 120,000 kip, but is quite painless with a decent lunchbreak half way at Muang Phou Khoun. The entire journey is a twisting scenic medley of lush mountains with far reaching views and dusty villages.

Phonsavan is quite high at 1,100m so it can get cool at nights and it has a deserted frontier town feel when darkness falls.  We discovered Nisha on our first evening, a cheap and cheerful and very tasty Indian restaurant on the main road where we had excellent chicken tikka marsala and banana lassis.

The Plain of Jars

We rented a motorcycle for 10,000 kip, actually quite expensive for Laos, to explore the Plain of Jars sites. There are 3 main sites which have been developed for tourism, though up to 90 in total. Progress has been slow as each site has to be painstakingly checked for unexploded bombs before it can be opened. As you walk round these places you will often see MAG (Mines Advisory Group) red and white bricks lining the paths. The white denotes the side that has been totally cleared; the red side has only been visually checked – so stay on the path!

 

The jars are just that: great stone jars in sandstone and granite, some up to 3.5 m high and weighing up to 1 tonne. They are roughly 2000 years old but nothing is known about the civilisation that produced them.

For many years there was even conjecture as to what they were for. Legends spoke of rice wine containers for giants or water storage, but I suspect the more prosaic one to be the real one.  It is now thought that they were originally used to distill corpses, after which the remains were buried round the jars.  As most great monuments that have come down to us today usually have a sacred or funerary aspect, I would go with that; it is also thought that later they were used as urns as cremated remains have been found, by which stage smaller jars could be used as they no longer had to contain a whole body.

Site 1

This site is 15 km SW of Phonsavan and has 272 jars. It has a good little information centre after which a large golf buggy type vehicle will run you up the hill to the first group of jars – ours ground to a halt half way up so we ended up walking, not that any of the circuit is particularly strenuous.

The biggest known jar is found here, as well as the only jar with a lid. You get a pleasant enough view over farming land, though at the moment, a giant buddah is under construction on one skyline. The jars are surprisingly photogenic, almost a work of art in their scattered formations and varying states of decay.  Their enigmatic solidity intrigues and one wonders, as in so many of these ancient monuments, just how the hell they were carved and moved.

 

 

As you approach the second cluster, you pass a cave on the left which might once have been used for cremations but in more modern times for shelter from American bombs. Indeed, as you wander on you will notice the odd bomb crater here and there, and near the top of the circuit, a tank scrape where a tank would have been hidden.

 

Site 2

This is a very picturesque site, about 25 km SW of Phonsavan, and much quieter. We found the Hobo maps (www.hobomaps.com) very useful in finding these places and they have suggested cycling routes too. A new road leads to the ticket office after which it is a  short uphill hike to the first group of jars on a hill to the left. These are amongst trees, some of which have scenically wrapped themselves round the jars.

 

On the other side of the road, there are a few more jars on a scenic knoll and a stone disc which might have been a grave marker with a frog on top. There is a viewpoint just past them along the ridge and it is apparently possible to continue on from here on foot to reach Site 3 in about an hour. The country around this site is more dramatic and rugged.

 

 

Site 3

There are roughly 150 jars here, 35 km SE of Phonsavan, and again the site was quite easy to find. After crossing a small wooden bridge, the little path threads along the banked edges of rice paddies, with nice views over water to distant mountains. It then rises up a small hill, past an isolated toilet block (I wonder if they thought just what every tourist wants!?), to the jars in a small forest.

 

 

By carefully following the MAG markers you will find a few more isolated jars, one beautifully entwined by a tree. It is strange to walk through the animals grazing in the seemingly innocuous fields, yet wonder how safe they actually are: does a bombie lurk beneath the surface? They can sometimes be be disturbed by people tethering buffalo out when they hit the spike into the ground.

 

Muang Khoun

While south of Phonsavan it is worth continuing a little further to Muang Khoun,  the old town of Xieng Khouang which was damaged so badly in the Secret War.  Amidst the modern town are some scattered remnants of better days; in the 16th century it was the royal seat of the local kingdom and had 62 stupas.

 

 

Most striking of all is the great Wat Phia Wat sitting buddha which dates back to 1564. He radiates a benign indifference to his shrapnel wounds in the jagged ruins of his temple, which after a chequered history was finished off by American bombing in 1966. Nearby are the remains of a French colonial hospital with an elegant curving staircase.

 

 

On the hills above the town are 2 picturesque ruined stupas: the mossy That Foun from 1576, and That Chompeth of which there is little left, though there is a nice view from its mound.

Phonsavan Market and Jar Quarry

The following day started with breakfast beside the bombs at Craters restaurant – good omelettes but dodgy local coffee! We had a wander in the excellent market which sprawls all around the bus station, a great place to stock up on fruit and hot fresh donuts before your next trip. It is worth venturing to its outer edges to find the livestock section: I have never seen pigs so well trussed up for market, encased in wickerwork tubes.

 

 

 

Another motorbike later and we were on our way to the Phou Keng jar quarry site, this time due west of Phonosavan between Km 125 – 126. This only opened in 2012 and has a sparkling gravel road leading to it, which bizarrely kinks round a new football stadium, marooned all by itself in the middle of nowhere. They are obviously expecting future expansion.

It is a pretty spot, the jars being found on the slopes of a steep hill, with scattered shady pine trees. These were abandoned: one had only just begun to be hollowed out, some had fractured. 1000 steep concrete steps lead straight up the hill but there are great views to reward your efforts.  The left-wards fork near the top leads to a 70 m long reinforced concrete tunnel which leads from one side of the hill to the other, emerging on a leafy hidden platform. It was built by the Pathet Lao forces during the Secret War.

 

 

The right-wards fork leads to the top of the hill, past old bomb craters, to a superb 360° view over jumbled hills and valleys: a good picnic lunch spot. Again, we had this lovely spot all to ourselves.

Later we tried to find Site 25 but got hopelessly lost and ran out of time, though we enjoyed just riding on the back roads amongst the rice paddies and farms. We did find the remains of a Russian tank, another war relic, and indeed the Secret War is another fascinating side to Phonsavan. It is hard to get away from it, from the ‘decorative’ bomb displays (visit the tourist office for a really impressive array) to the pockmarked hills; that pretty perfectly round pond was probably caused by a B 52 bomb.

 

 

While in town it is worth visiting the MAG centre and the UXO (unexploded ordnance) survivor’s centre. Both put the bombing into a human perspective with good displays and films. There are t-shirts and handicrafts to buy too and for once you can be assured your money is going to a good cause.

We could easily have spent more time in this fascinating area: Phonsavan may not be pretty, it may be off the obvious tourist route, but anyone who does decide to make the trip will surely not be disappointed.