Phonsavan, Laos: Mystery jars and secret wars.

From Luang Prabang we headed east on another long bus trip (no matter where you go by bus in Laos, it takes nine hours. Actual distance covered seems to be irrelevant). We eventually found ourselves in Phonsavan, a fairly nondescript little town with two claims to fame: it plays host to the Plain of Jars, and to a huge percentage of the unexploded ordnance left behind in Laos by the Secret War.

The jars first. The Plain of Jars is actually a number of sites all round Phonsavan which boast collections of huge stone jars, in some cases hundreds of them. Nobody knows for certain when they were made or what they were used for. Educated guesses suggest they were either funerary urns or used to store rice whisky, though no one is entirely sure. They make for a quite majestic and somewhat eerie sight, especially as it was pouring with rain when we saw them.

The mystery attached to them is played up by the Laos tourist industry, but a huge reason why they haven't been investigated more thoroughly is Phonsavan's second claim to fame: unexploded ordnance. Between 1964 and 1973 the US conducted a secret, and illegal, bombing campaign against Laos which saw at least three million tonnes of bombs dropped on this peaceful country. So secret was this bombing campaign that some American pilots were told they were bombing Vietnam and Congress had no idea the war was taking place. The secrecy can be explained in part by the blatant illegality of the war, which broke the Geneva Conventions that classed Laos as a neutral country. Perhaps it can also be explained by those responsible wanting to cover up their brutality. Laos was reportedly hit by an average of one B-52 bomb every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, from 1964 to 1973. More bombs were dropped on Laos in this period that were used in the whole of the Second World War. Estimates suggest that around 30 percent of these bombs, or 80 million of them, failed to detonate, and Laos remains littered with these bombs. Many of them are cluster bombs, packed with small round 'bombies' that pose a particular threat to children. As well as causing injuries and deaths, these bombs help to keep the Laos people in poverty, as many of them are subsistence farmers, too afraid to work new land for fear of bombs. Try searching Youtube for 'Laos Bombies' to find an excellent documentary we were shown about this continuing problem.

International charities such as MAG are doing what they can to clear the bombs and free the Laos people. However, the US government is not doing very much at all to help. It seems the secrecy around the bombing of Laos continues to let the perpetrators off the hook.