Laos Part 4-Thathom and the Plain of Jars

After leaving Haiter we had one more set of villages to consult. It was about a seven hour drive from Haiter, which meant backtracking halfway to Phonsavanh, and then driving south for about six hours to Thathom, where we had our final meeting. The drive to and from Ban Nadi had been enjoyable; the drive to Thathom was depressing. We passed acre after acre of freshly logged and burnt forest. This was unsustainable slash and burn agriculture at its worst. The farmers in this area appear to have long ago exhausted the soils in the flat areas closest to the rivers, and are now forced to attempt rice cultivation on ever steeper mountainsides. Unfortunately the terrain is so unstable after it is cleared that the soil washes away before they can plant their crops. We saw many rivers and streams running red with eroded topsoil through clearcuts that had never had a single crop planted. The pace of deforestation was sobering. At one point the dust on the road was so thick from truck traffic that we couldn’t see more than a foot or two ahead of our vehicle, and as a result almost got into an accident with a Soviet-era troop transport that had been converted into a logging truck.

We got to Thathom in one piece and had our meetings over the following three days. When I came out of the building after the first of two meetings with the local fishermen I looked across the river and observed three bomb disposal technicians sweeping the lawn of the local primary school for ordinance. They each carried a five gallon bucket, a folding shovel, and a metal detector. I watched them for about five minutes, during which time I saw each one fill their buckets at least twice with chunks of suspect metal objects. They would fill the bucket, dump the contents in the back of a truck, and then return to work.

I was thinking about what it must be like being a kid in a place where simply playing in the schoolyard could be deadly when I heard popping sounds coming from the front of the building. I walked outside and saw our drivers shooting sparrows out of a tree across the road with an air rifle. They got two and stuffed them under front seat of our trucks. I didn’t see them again until the next morning when our drivers joined us on the back porch of the house where we were staying. We were cooking rice for breakfast over a campfire when they showed up and placed the now-plucked sparrows on the cooking grate. The birds were whole; the heads, feet, and internal organs still intact. After the birds had been on the fire long enough for the pin feathers to singe and the skin to turn black, the drivers removed and ate them. When they were finished the only remains I saw were beaks and a couple of bones. We left later that day for the drive back to Phonsavanh.

Our departure from Thathom marked the end of my field work in Laos. All that remained to do was to travel back to Vientiane and compile my notes. I felt like celebrating and I had learned earlier that our route back to Phonsavanh took us within a couple of mile of the Plain of Jars, which is a plateau outside Phonsavanh where giant jars carved from solid stone were placed by prehistoric tribes. It’s also a United Nations World Heritage-designated cultural site and probably the most photographed place in all of Laos. Several of my team had never been to their own country’s most famous landmark, so as a gesture of my appreciation for their hard work over the preceding week and a half I purchased everyone tickets to see the area. Not much is known about the jars, but archaeologists have dated them from sometime in the Iron Age. No one knows for sure what purpose they served, but the leading theory is that they were used as communal secondary tombs, where the bones of the deceased would be re-interred after exhumation from a prior tomb. What the significance of the second burial was is still a mystery. There are several locations around Laos where similar jars may be found, but the Plain of Jars has the largest concentration of stone jars in one place in Laos. According to the signs some of the jars were damaged when the Ho Chi Minh Trail was bombed during the Vietnam war. We did see some that had been cracked or split open, and some massive holes in the ground that were signposted as bomb craters, but most of the jars remained intact. Most were uncovered and lacked obvious decorations, but at least one had a carved lid and a few others had rough pictographs carved into their sides.

After taking in the sights we got back to Phonsavanh for a late lunch and attended a festival in town that evening. The next couple of days were taken up with travel back to Vientiane and rather monotonous work-related chores before heading back to Perth. Angel was a sight for sore eyes when I stepped off the plane. I was tired, but happy to have had the expeeince and to have made it back safely. I was particularly looking forward to visiting with Beth and Brian Versak, who had spent the preceding week with Angel and were due in from Melbourne later the same day.

Photos:

1. The Thathom school. The bomb disposal truck is visible to the right of the schoolyard.

2. The Plain of Jars.

3. A close-up of some of the jars.