Monday Moment: Plain Of Jars, Laos

We are officially in the middle of nowhere. Central Laos is not overly populated and we are and hour and half outside of the nearest town of Phonsavon. Lumbering along the dirt roads, through pine forests and small villages, the only regular sound is the drone of the scooter under us.

It is hot. Really hot. My butt is burning from a combination of the heat of the engine under it and the incessant vibration caused by the uneven road surface. We break often to make it bearable.

But I love it. I love being way off the beaten track; love not knowing what we’ll find while using a faded, oft-photocopied, hand drawn, map to navigate. I trust we won’t get really lost. We pass by people often enough and I know that even without a shared language the local people would easily be able to point us in the direction of civilization.

We’re here to seek out one of the many Plain Of Jars sites in the area. Coming up on them is surreal; massive jars carved from stone dot the landscape. There is nothing else here. No other ruins indicating a long lost civilization or any hints as to what they might have been used for. They just lay, scattered in no discernable pattern, in the middle of nowhere.

Oddly beautiful.