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EXPLORE
THE
PLAIN OF JARS World Heritage stone wonders leave a lasting impression. TEXT BY DR. LIA GENOVESE PHOTOGRAPHS BY PHOONSAB THEVONGSA GETTING THERE Lao Airlines has daily flights to Xieng Khouang from Vientiane.
A
ugust 13, 2009, is forever etched in my memory. A few days earlier I had arrived in Phonsavan, the modern capital of Xieng Khouang Province, intending to visit the famous stone jars as an independent traveler. After a few false starts, I overcame the tuk-tuk learning curve and made a triumphant visit to Site 1, on the edge of town, to admire several hundred jars with the kind of awe felt by a child in a candy
store. Tired but grinning, I returned to my guesthouse, only to realize that my achievement fell exactly on the 143rd birthday of Madeleine Colani, the French archaeologist born on August 13, 1866, and responsible for the first large-scale documentation of the Plain of Jars in 1931–33. This was no mere coincidence, I told myself. Confident of Colani’s blessing from beyond the grave, I enrolled for a doctorate at the University of London, to study the stone jars of Laos. The Plain of Jars holds around 2,100 stone jars, spread over more than 100 sites, hosting from one single jar to several hundred units. Though Xieng Khouang hosts the lion’s share of the sites, Luang Prabang Province is home to around ten sites, concentrated in Phou Khoun District. Even after
