On our way south we made an 8 hour detour to Phonsavan to investigate the mysterious Plain of Jars. The Plain of Jars is an area where they've discovered multiple sites containing jars chiseled out of rock. The jars range from 1 to 3 meters in height, with the largest weighing about 6 metric tonnes. Due to excessive bombing during the American Secret War, most of the sites are not recommended for visit (unless you want to risk death or having a leg blown off), so we only visited 3 of the bomb-free sites: Site 1, Site 2 and Site 3.
Why are these giant jars laying around here in the first place? Unfortunately, archeologists and historians still haven't figured that one out…
Site 3
We rented a motorbike and started our visit with Site 3 - the smallest and furthest of the 3 sites we visited, but also our favourite.
Site 2
Site 1
We finished with Site 1, the biggest of the 3 siteS. It has 334 jars, with the largest being 2.6m tall and 2.5m in diameter. Since Site 1 is the closest site to Phonsavan, it also gets the most tourists :)
American Secret War
One thing we didn't expect during this visit, was to hear about all the bombings that occurred in Laos during the American Secret War. We had heard that there are unexploded ordnance (UXOs) in Laos but assumed it was from unintentional spill-over of the Americans trying to prevent Ho Chi Minh Trail traffic during the Vietnam War. We were surprised to learn that the bombings were actually part of a secondary scheme for the US to support the Royal Lao Government against the Laotian Communists.
As part of the 1962 Geneva Accord, participating countries (including the US) agreed to respect Laos' neutrality, sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity. However, between 1964 and 1973, the US ignored their agreement by dropping more than 2 million tons of ordnance (bombs) on Laos during 580,000 bomb missions: this is about 1 bomb every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years. It was called a Secret War because the American people and congress didn't know this war was occurring.
It's estimated that approximately 30% of the bombs did not explode as intended, and now contaminate the villages and farmlands of Laos. Many of the bombs were called cluster bombs, or "bombies". On detonation, these tennis-ball sized explosives project up to 200,000 metal fragments in all directions - they are designed to kill, and they are effective. According to MAG, there have been 20,000 UXO post-war casualties... 40% were children. Sadly, bombies are the same size, shape, and sometimes even the same colour as a tennis balls, making them attractive to children… try to imagine 80 million undetonated tennis balls scattered around around your city, waiting for unsuspecting kids to find and play with.
Thanks to organizations like MAG, the country is slowly removing the various bombs that contaminate the country, finally allowing farmers to safely begin cultivating their lands so they can work their way out of poverty and starvation... but it will still be decades before the country is free of UXOs.
