And so the Jars

So a week later and I remember that I visited Xieng Khuang and the Plain of Jars. We had some time after our meetings, briefings and site visits with MAG to go out and take a look at these mysterious stone jars, and to formulate some pretty strong theories about why these things exist. I won't ruin it for you now, you can read all about the theories in our article in upcoming edition of The New England Journal of Strange, Cool, and Historical Stuff that Phil Has Figured Out.

MAG has cleared 3 Jar sites thus far, and are gearing up to clear a 4th site in the near future. Instructions leading up to Jar site 1. To summarize, stay on the path.


Jars in the distance. Site 1 is the largest cleared site (and maybe the largest known site, I'm not sure), but there are 60-some sites that have been found around the plain, most with just a few jars. This site goes from the hill I'm standing on, down to the valley seen below, and up another hill. It's just outside of town, so as you walk to the top of the second hill, you get a great view of the town in the distance, and the 10 MIGs that make up the Lao Air Force grounded for lack of spare parts. I've heard that they are kept in Xieng Khuang because once the Japanese built the new airport in Vientiane they required it to be civilian only. But Lao military helicopters still take off and land from Vientiane, so I'm probably wrong.

Lee, MAG translator for all of three months. And what did he do before that? Well, he was a tour guide, of course. As such, we had some great stories, insights, myths, etc.

For instance, do you know why water buffalo are beasts of burden? No? Well neither did I. But I do now.

It seems that in the distant past, Buddha needed to get a message to humans. You see, humans were eating too often. Two meals a day. Buddha told his friend the water buffalo to take an important, and time-sensitive dispatch down to earth. Humans were to eat one meal every three days. (As an aside, I'm not sure why Buddha was so insistent on the fasting, that wasn't part of the story).

The water buffalo, being a bit lazy, or tired, or both, overslept. When he woke up, he was a bit groggy, looked at his watch (or the sun, or however water buffalo tell time) and beat feet down to the humans. When he got there, though, he mixed up the message, and, much to the humans' delight, told them that Buddha decrees that, from that day forward, humans should eat three meals each day.

Well, the Buddha was none-too-pleased, and realized that the humans would need some extra help to get that extra meal every day (being humans, they surely wouldn't disobey the Buddha, and being humans, they were likely gluttonous, even if they were just eating rice). As such, because it was the water buffalo's screw-up in the first place, Buddha sent the water buffalo to earth to toil in the fields for, and, as it turns out, to be eaten for dinner by, the humans.

That's a true story.

This is the largest Jar that has been found thus far. Competing theories have it that the stones were brought from a nearby quarry, or from somewhere far away that hasn't been found yet. They are thought to be about 2000 years old, and some say they were used as burial urns or food stores. Who knows, maybe they were created by a tribe of cannibals, and so they were used for both.