Travels

It was Cathy’s turn to sit by the window. We had left Vientiane some 30 minutes earlier in the Chinese-made MA60. With its strange downward bent wings, the airplane reminded me of some great goose coming in for a landing or, perhaps, a Klingon warship. As had been our experience on previous flights aboard the MA60, there had been a stomach-tightening drop of a few feet about half a minute into the flight. I don’t know why it happened each time. Perhaps there was a momentary loss of lift as the flaps were raised. In any case, the two 2880 shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127J turboprops didn’t miss a beat.

We had flown over the flat floodplain of the Mekong, then over the mountains of Hmong country, and now we were on final approach to the Phonsavan airport.

Cathy said, “Look, there are bomb craters everywhere.” I strained against my tightened seatbelt to look out the small window and, sure enough, lines of perfectly round depressions marched here and there across the grassy landscape.

We had come to visit the Plain of Jars.

When we stepped off the airplane, the first thing we noticed was how “cool” it was. At around 4,000 feet, the Plain of Jars is much cooler and fresher than the steamy lowlands we’d left only a half hour before. The second thing we noticed was how bright the light was, and how blue the sky was. Altitude again.

The third thing we noticed, after hearing some commotion behind us, was an elderly woman, dressed in her finest sinh, lying flat on her back on the tarmac at the bottom of the airplane’s stairway. I don’t know how far she fell but, when she sat up, blood streamed down her face and ran off her chin from a great gash on her forehead. The Lao Aviation flight attendants just watched as another passenger and a ground agent helped her to her feet. Someone handed her a towel or cloth, and her two helpers assisted her as she made her way unsteadily towards the terminal building. The blood stained her silk blouse and sinh. She didn’t cry or say a word.

Cathy walked over, but there was nothing she could do. All of her medical supplies were in her bag that hadn’t been unloaded yet. They took the lady directly to the hospital. What a terrible way to start what may well have been a trip of a lifetime. I hope her injuries weren’t too serious, and that the rest of her trip was a lot smoother.

The Plain of Jars is known mainly for two things: the strange stone jars that lie in scattered clusters here and there across the landscape, and for being one of the most heavily bombed, and fought over, parts of Lao during the Indochina war.

No one is sure what the jars were for. Some have suggested they were used to ferment wine or to make beer, while others say that they were used to store rice or other foodstuffs. Still others think they were some type of coffin or funeral urn. I’m firmly in the latter camp.

Cathy in a jar.

It seems to me that there would have been far easier and more efficient ways to make beer, or to store rice. One of our guides told us that, long ago, the area around the base of one of the jars had been excavated, and a number of bones and artefacts had been found. He suggested that dead bodies might have been placed in the jars so the flesh could decay. When there was nothing left but the bones, the bones may have been removed and buried nearby. Sounds quite plausible, if a little smelly. Could each jar have been a “family” jar?

For me, however, the strongest evidence came from looking across the valley to the scattered clusters of Buddhist stupas, and seeing that they occupied similar places in the landscape. (The stupas contain cremated remains.) While the jars predate Buddhism by, perhaps, 1500 years or so, there is a remarkable similarity in how the jars and stupas are clustered, and how they are placed mainly on hillsides with good views of the rice paddies and villages below. It seems likely that the “new” Buddhism simply appropriated and modified funeral practices that were already centuries old.

Some of the jars are small, perhaps big enough for a child, while others are huge, and maybe fit for a king. Only a couple still have lids, but all have rims where lids would once have fit.

Cathy and the biggest jar.

There are many unanswered questions about the jars but, after decades of conflict and bombing, and with landmines and anti-personal “bombies” making working at the sites extremely hazardous, no systematic archaeological work has been done on them since the 1930’s. The UN is considering declaring the jars a World Heritage Site (there are no other sites like them in the world, let alone in Lao), and is currently doing an archaeological survey. The survey work and World Heritage status have had to wait, however, until the dangerous but tedious business of clearing UXO (unexploded ordinance) has been completed. We were easily convinced to stay on the cleared path by the grim-looking warning signs at each site.

Stay on the Trail!.

According to the older folks who remember the Indochina war, at times the bombs fell “like rice being thrown to the chickens”. Most of the civilians fled, leaving the Pathet Lao, the Vietnamese, the Royal Lao Army, and the Americans to fight over the rolling green hills and grasslands. Of those who couldn’t or wouldn’t flee, many were killed, including our guide’s grandfather.

Jar Site 1 and bomb craters.

Ironically, one good thing came out of the bombing—instant fishponds. The bomb craters are deep enough that they never dry out. All the farmers had to do was put some bamboo stakes into the water to keep the buffalo out and, voilà, instant fish farm. Now many farmers have a ready source of protein year-round. Still, using 500, 1000, or 2000 pound bombs is a brutal way to dig holes.

Bomb casing are used as building materials, and bombs are a common “decorating motif” in the area. Likewise, the perforated metal panels that were connected together to make “instant” runways are now seen as part of fences, corrals, and walkways. Our guesthouse had a display of shells, bombs, and mortars in the lobby while, outside, a riot of colour overflowed from the larger bomb casing that were used as planters.

As we sat down in the sun-streaked lobby for breakfast the first morning, we noticed what must surely rank as one of the strangest Christmas decorations we’ve ever seen. Under a banner saying “Merry Christmas” sat a large bomb casing hung with anti-personal mines like some sort of macabre Christmas tree. It was hard to know whether to smile or to shudder.

Merry Christmas.

Phonsavan itself wasn’t much to look at, but it did have an agreeable sort of frontier feel to it. Most of the buildings were fairly new because everything had been flattened during the war. The market was also a little different. As well as the usual produce you could buy various sorts of hairy rodent-like creatures or live turtles for dinner.

One evening we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Like Phonsavan itself, the place wasn’t much to look at, but the food was pretty good. At the next table sat several of what looked like Chinese businessmen. They had amble girths, and their table overflowed with food, Beer Lao, and whisky. The businessmen were engrossed in conversation, but not so much so that they didn’t notice the young boy standing outside and peering longingly in at all the food. (We had not noticed him.) They sent a bowl of food out to the boy and he hungrily ate it until there couldn’t have been anything left but a few grains of rice and perhaps a little broth. The boy then set the bowl on the ground so his dog could finish off whatever remained. When the dog was finished, the boy carefully wiped the bowl out with his shirt, and placed the bowl and chopsticks just inside the restaurant door. We didn’t see him or his dog again.

We were at the airport early for the flight home. There was no security at the airport. We had all just made our way to the boarding area and sat on the hard wooden benches waiting for the plane. How refreshing.

For reasons that seemed a mystery to everyone, the Lao Airlines flight had been changed from mid-afternoon to early morning. When we saw the welcoming committee of men in jackets and ties, police, military, and the obligatory “beautiful young women in traditional outfits” go out to meet the plane, we realized that somebody important was arriving. We suspected it was probably some “VIP” or government bigwig. (It’s amazing how much deference is paid to “higher-ups” in what is supposed to be a classless communist society. But that’s another story.)

Instead of someone in a well-tailored suit with perfect hair and a gold watch, a group of grizzled old men got off the plane and walked slowly to the terminal. Some were hunched over, and many had only a few strands of wispy grey hair peeking out from under their baseball caps. They were as instantly recognizable here as they would have been in Normandy or Hanoi or Gallipoli. It was a group of veterans returning to the place where they had left their youth. I no longer felt annoyed that we had to leave a few hours earlier than we had expected.

It was my turn to sit by the window. About 30 seconds into the flight the MA60 dropped a few feet, and the bomb-scarred landscape came a little closer before dropping away again.

I watched as the grassy plains gave way to the rugged highlands. A road twisted and turned and double-backed on itself on its tortuous route past small villages and through the mountains. Then a big open-pit mine came into view, and a river glistened in the sunlight as it wound its way around the base of the mountains. I watched to see if I could catch a glimpse of Long Cheng, Vang Pao and the CIA’s secret airbase during the Indochina war. I didn’t see it. The bombing was over.