At 9am we headed off on our tour of the three of the Plain of Jars sites. The jars are large sandstone jars, up to 2.5m tall, made over 2000 years ago by an unknown people - there are many theories and stories about their purpose but no-one knows for certain. Only three of the 400+ known sites are able to be visited, because of the danger of unexploded bombs (UXO) .We visited all three sites - the first site has over 250 jars, the second and third have somewhat less. There were many bomb craters around the sites, and signs warning of UXO (unexploded ordinance). After visiting Site 2, Kathryn stayed with the bus while Mike and another of the tour members trekked the 5 or so kilometres to Site 3 with the tour guide. On the trek there were many more bomb craters, and even some examples of UXO - one a bomblet from a US cluster bomb, the other a couple of mortars found at the edge of a bomb crater.
After Site 3, the tour continued on to a couple of villages, one where aluminium spoons were made from recovered aeroplane parts, and another where Lao rice whiskey was made, as well as viewing the remains of an old Russian tank. After all that it ended up being a pretty full day, we didn't get back to the hotel until after 5:30pm.For some reason, we had been asked on more than one occasion during the day whether we ate kangaroos in Australia - our answer was no, only tourists eat kangaroos!
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