Trip

29/4/02 Phontsovan, Laos (Phillip)

29/4/02 Phontsovan, Laos (Phillip)

I had decided in Luang Prabang to split from the group and travel East to the Plain of Jars. In doing this I was letting the 5 girls travel by themselves and getting to do some traveling by myself. Unfortunately, one by one my solo traveling group managed to entice 3 of the girls to go too. Initially Afka was going to join me and I thought that'd be nice, but by sundown Ether and Eve had joined the group also.

This place is famous for only one thing (mainly cause there's ONLY one thing here!) and that's the Plain of Jars. It's Asia's equivalent to Stonehenge. Thousands of stone jars, some up to 2 tons litter the countryside here and no one can explain what they were for. They're dated at around 30,000 years old (almost as old as my mum!) and it's quite a mysterious place.

The Plain of jars was great though. The first thing to catch my eye, however, was the bomb craters all over the countryside. East Laos was where the Ho Chi Minh Trail was and the Americans bombed this place (although still deny it) heavily during the war. Many of the jars took direct hits. Walking around you can see the craters and whole sections of forest all around you. It's very important not to stray from the paths here since Unexploded Bombs (UXO) litter the ground still. Each month many Laos end up dead or in hospital because of this. The scary part is that walking around town these missiles (about 4-6 feet long) have been recovered and turned into flowerpots, walls, garden decorations etc. Steel is hardly a common commodity in Laos and walking around the markets you'll see shovels, rake's etc. built from sturdy US steel taken from bombs. Quite a scary thought that kids are desperately out there collecting these things to sell for cash! There's a few European aid agency's here that try to at least find the activated bombs before someone steps on them but the anti-American sentiment is high because the American's still deny the bombings and giving aid would be a sign of guilt. The whole war is fascinating me here, it just makes no sense to deny it happened when the bombs still have US call signs readable on the side!