Phonsavanh: Connecting with History

One of the things I love about travelling is getting a chance to connect with history, so while I enjoyed all of the places we visited in Laos, I would have to say that Phonsavanh stands out as my favourite. Phonsavanh is a small town in the Xieng Khouang province in northern Laos. There is not much to the town itself, a few guesthouses and a couple of restaurants clustered on a characterless main street. It’s not easy to get to either, the seven hour, motion sickness inducing drive through windy mountain roads from the more popular spots like Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng discourages most people from making the trip. The people who do come, come for the Plain of Jars and the area’s connection to the second Indochina war (Vietnam war). These two things provide an opportunity connect with history in a way that few places on earth afford.


The Jars

The Plain of Jars is a series of prehistoric archeological sites in the countryside just outside Phonsavanh. The sites consist of stone megaliths hollowed out in to what can best be described as large stone vases (or jars as their place name suggests). Legend has it that the megaliths were created by an ancient king to hold all of the wine he had brewed after a victory in battle. A nice story, but while no one knows for sure, it is likely that they were used as funerary urns. Whatever their purpose, they are quite impressive. Massive (some two metres high) stone megaliths littered haphazardly about the countryside looming out of the morning mist can’t help but make an impression. Sites like this fascinate me for so many reasons.

More Jars

First of all, wandering through sites like the Plain of Jars and physically touching their ancient artifacts connects me to the distant past in a way that books or pictures never can. My hand is touching something some craftsman made centuries ago, the artifact itself was witness to the rise and fall of an entire people. It fires the imagination. What was that civilization like? Who were the people that created these things? As you wander through the site, your mind fills in the blanks, and you can almost go back in time and imagine the site as it may have been in its heyday. I am also fascinated by the idea that a civilization advanced enough to create something like the jars could be quite literally lost to history. No one is quite sure who built the jars, or what became of their civilization. Even their purpose is a mystery. How can an entire people disappear, leaving only a few stone monuments as an enigma for future generations? Finally, I love the isolation. As I mentioned above, the site is not that easy to get to, so fewer people visit it. While the site is just as remarkable as something like Stonehenge, there are no crowds, no fences and no guided tours. You have the whole site to yourself and can ponder its mysteries on your own time, in silence.

Bombs as decoration

Phonsavan’s other “attraction” is a little more disturbing. Its connection with the second Indochina war, while fascinating and accessible, is truly tragic. The area surrounding Phonsavanh was strategically important during the war for two reasons: the Ho Chi Minh trail ran through it, and Laos‘ communist insurgency was based in the area. As such, the United States engaged in the so called “secret war” (secret because it was totally illegal) against Laos, and as a part of this war bombed the area heavily. Heavily is an understatement. The numbers are staggering. From 1964 to 1974, 580,000 bombing sorties were flown over Laos (the equivalent of a planeload of bombs everry 8 minutes around the clock for 9 years), over two million tonnes of bombs were dropped (equal to 700 kg of explosives for every man woman and child in Laos), and more bombs dropped on Laos than were dropped during the entire second world war, all at a cost to the U.S. of over 2 million dollars a day. All this combines to give Laos the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country, per capita, in history. Subjecting an entire nation to this kind of horror may seem bad enough, but it actually gets worse. A significant proportion of the bombs (estimated 30%) did not explode, leaving Laos carpeted with what are called unexploded ordinances or UXO. Even now, 35 years after the end of the war, these unexploded bombs still kill hundreds of people per year and injure countless others. They also affect development in that large areas of land are still not available for agriculture until they are cleared of bombs, a costly and time consuming endeavor.

Standing in a bomb crater

Connections with history in this context are a little more immediate and raw, evidence of the war’s impact are everywhere. Parts of the countryside around Phonsavanh are still covered with bomb craters, and look more like some arid moonscape, and empty bomb shells are everywhere, put to use as flowerpots, fenceposts and other practical purposes. Even our visit to the Plain of Jars was not unaffected: the area around the sites had not been cleared of mines, and we had to stay within clearly marked boundaries for our safety. However, it is the people that make the biggest impression. You only have to see one person maimed by a UXO, or speak to someone who had to flee to refugee camps in Vientiane to escape the bombings for it all to really hit home.

I can’t say that this part of the visit was great, or amazing, or that I enjoyed it, those aren’t the right words. However learning about what happened (and continues to happen) in and around Phonsavanh by experiencing it firsthand, has given me insights into history and human nature that, again, no book ever could. It is something I will carry with me forever.

We’ve left Laos, and Cambodia has come and gone. We are back in Bangkok now. I am a little behind on the postings, but hopefully I’ll have a few more up this week. We’re not 100% sure where we’re off to next. Pretty sure we’re heading south though. Malaysia, Peninsular Thailand, Indonesia, who knows? As long as it has great beaches and fantastic diving we’re in. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for…

Michael
Atlanta Hotel
Th. Sukhamvit, Soi 2
Bangkok