Plain of Jars. Finally

 

January 12 2023, Phonosavan, Laos

The plane ride was fine. Cloudy and a touch of rain, I expected it to be a bumpy ride but not bad at all.

It was a 20 minute flight, and of course the American in front of me, needed to recline his seat, because sitting erect for 20 minutes is too much to ask of a body. I didn’t sit back up until after the cabin crew went through their seat belt and seat back checks. They missed him someway. I tapped him on the shoulder asked him to put his seat up. I would hate getting a bloody nose from his seat back if the pilot has a hard landing.

As we were getting off the plane I heard him say to a companion “They made me put my seat up”. I told him it wasn’t they’ it was me. I didn’t want ‘They’ to take my credit away from making him do the correct thing. Of course who do I run into at breakfast today? Yup!

I had to show my passport to get on the domestic air flight, and again when getting off. The government really keeps track on foreigners. Same thing today on the ride to the Plain of Jars.

As soon as I exited the terminal (a building about the size of a big McDonald’s) Mr. Lee leapt on me to hire him to drive me to the hotel. The price was Lao high and American cheap. I just went with it, no bargaining. I was offered a tour by him for a King’s Ransom for today, including lunch and entrance fee. I told him I generally don’t eat lunch, and would pay for my own tickets. He dropped the price by $50. I asked for his phone number and said I’d think about it.

He was too young to have experienced the war, so I asked him how he handled the COVID pandemic. He said that the government made everyone return to their home villages and then basically locked the gates. You lived on what you grew and when the occasional truck brought rice and such. That was it, nothing and no one moved. He sad because of this they had almost no fatalities. I’ll have to Google that later.

At check in the hotel and I talked about a tour, and she asked me Mr. Lee’s price. She beat it by $20, and I’m sure still made a decent profit. This hotel is the most expensive hotel in the city and the cheapest one I’ve stayed in this trip. The room is mostly just that. Twin beds, TV and basic bathroom. The bed is the hardest I can ever remember sleeping on. The A/C heater doesn’t work. I have yet to find the hot water and the room is cold.

Last eve I asked about the heating unit, and was handed a space heater that I am certain not UL approved, with all the buttons and knobs in Chinese. But it worked, as long as I sat next to it.

I walked into town looking for a restaurant and money exchange to get Kip for the tour. The exchange lady, snaked me a bit on the exchange, and then handed me over a million Kip in small bills. I had to count it three times in front of her to make sure it was the right amount.

Next came food. I had a roll and jam at breakfast, and was getting a little hungry. I am not sure if it was too early in the day or not, but all the restaurants had food available and no one was eating. Not a good sign if the locals aren’t eating it. I walked into this huge indoor produce market gawking at the fruits and veggies. I found one stall that had baked goods and there were balls that looked like cream filled doughnut holes. I got five and that was dinner.

Back at the hotel, I watched some Netflix and since the light next to the bed didn’t work, went to sleep and didn’t read anything of my novel as is my general routine.

Morning came and hot water was still MIA. I am not taking a cold shower. So got dressed and went to breakfast. Had some scrambled eggs and bread, made sure it was more substantial than yesterday’s roll. I mentioned there was no hot water, and was asked if I knew to turn the tap towards the left. I didn’t not yell. When I got back the woman at the desk came to assess my inability to turn on a hot water tap and decided the electrician needed to look at the hot water machine, I wonder if he will try the hot water tap first.

The tour van driver arrived at 8:30 and spoke no English. Maybe I should have gone with Mr. Lee after all. Off we went to see Plain of Jars, sites 1, 2 and 3 and the bomb spoon village. The fog or clouds were so thick that I was a bit grumpy that the sun wouldn’t be out. I mean this is one of the main things I came to see in Laos. By the time we got to site 1, the fog had lifted a bit, and I resized that maybe the fog added just the right amount of mystery to any photo I took.

I pretty much had the site to myself there was a small group of people taking selfies in front to the jars, but they soon got tired of seeing their own image and wandered off to other jars to stand next to and take their picture. I guess showing the world how great your life is, is a world wide obsession, even though it is never as good as the pictures imply.

The jars are from 500 BC to 500 CE and there are several theories, but no one has a definitive answer. Burial? Beer? Grain storage? I’m in the ritual pack. These things are large, solid rock and had to be carved with Iron Age tools and placed in high locations, sounds pretty special to me.

More important than that, the electrician declared my hot water tank dead, dead, dead and I now have a different room.

I wandered around looking and taking non-selfies. And worked my way around the site, being sure to stay on well trod paths. There are several large bomb craters within the site and even though they say the site is clean of unexploded weapons, I’m not a big believer in 100% all the time.

Then on to site 2. Site 1 is the actual ‘Plain’ of Jars. Situated on a large flat cleared area around a hill. Site 2 is on a hilltop st among a nice copse of trees. There was one or two bomb craters, but they missed the main area. Some of the jars were cracked and some had trees growing out of them. I was completely alone for a while. Nice and peaceful and really feeling special having the entire site to myself.

Site 3 is also on a hill and a little more interesting to get to, you need to cross a couple wooden foot bridges and walk along the low dykes between the rice paddies. By now rock pots are kind of losing their allure to me, so back to the mini van and off to the ‘Spoon Village’

Except the spoon village was closed. I guess it tuned into a tourist attraction from it original purpose and there aren’t many tourists these days it seems. The Spoon Villages used to scour the area for downed aircraft and bomb casings. Then they would melt the Aluminum down pour it into a mold and take the spoon and sell them to the restaurants in the big city. Now you can buy bracelets, key chain fobs and bottle openers at the night market in the big cities. I think that after 0 years, the aluminum has all (or mostly all) been recovered and they are using recycled aluminum now days. Whether they are or not, it makes for a good story.

Gonna go find some grub

 

Bomb Craters