Giant stone jars & Tubing

After Luang Prabang, Levka and I travelled along a windy undulating road to Phonsavan to see the mysterious stone jars. The jars are 2500 to 3000 year old structures carved out of massive pieces of rock. They range in size from way above my head to about up to my knees. No-one really knows the purpose of the jars though we were told a few theories and came up with a few good ones ourselves: Giants having a massive party and using the jars as shot glasses for Lao Lao! Cauldrons for a huge coven of witches… The more likely one is ceremonial burial jars.

The stone jars at Site 3

A particularly big jar that I could climb inside

We visited sites 1, 2 & 3 which are the only ones of about a hundred different sites that have been cleared of UXOs for people to look around. Site 3 was the best; we had to walk across tiny pathways through rice paddies to get to a small hill and the jars were all hidden in amongst the trees.

Rice paddies on the way to Site 3

A jar broken apart by the tree growing through it

We just spent one night in Phonsavann then headed straight off to Vang Vieng for some partying. We experienced the wonders of tubing down the Nam Song River on Tuesday. Bascially involved floating along on a giant rubber ring, then stopping off at some bars and getting free shots!

Me, Natalia and Levka at Bar 2 I think

Awesome day and the night was just as good; following the crowd of drunken Westerners to the 3 bars in town! The next 2 nights were essentially the same thing. I somehow managed to make it up in the morning on Sunday to spend the day kayaking and tubing in a cave. This was very cool, surprisingly I even enjoyed the crawling through small spaces in the mud to get to the other spaces!