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Xieng Khouang
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| Overview | ||||||
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| HOW TO GET THERE | ||||||
| By plane The nearest airport is in Phonsavan. Lao Airlines offers six flights a week in peak season and four flights in low season to Vientiane. By bus If you are travelling from Vientiane you can either take VIP buses or local buses. The buses leave from the northern bus terminal and take about 10-12 hours. Note: The roads are paved but there are plenty of serpentines. The bus trip from Vang Vieng takes 7-8 hours. Buses run daily from Luang Prabang via Route 13 and 7 and take 8 hours. You could also hire a minivan in either Luang Prabang or Vientiane. Coming from Vinh or Hanoi in Vietnam visas are available on arrival at the Nam Ka border, which is open daily from 6:00 – 18:00. The bus from Vinh leaves four days a week and takes 12 hours, form Hanoi there is one bus per week. Get around To get to other towns in the province you can take local buses or pick-up trucks. Inside Phonsavan there are plenty of Tuk-Tuks, which might not be available without prior booking very early in the morning or late at night. A normal tour inside the town should cost 3000 to 10000 LAK. There are 9 travel agents in Phonsavan that arrange bike, motorbike and car rentals. A bike costs depending on quality from 20.000 Kip per day. You can rent mostly scooters for about 100.000 KIP. To rent a minivan costs about 50-80 USD, a 4WD costs over 100 USD. This includes or excludes gasoline, depending on the company. All prices vary hugely depending on season and availability. Note: Tuk-Tuks are not allowed to take tourists to the Jar sites. You can visit the site with a certified guide or individually. | ||||||
| EVENTS AND FESTIVALS | ||||||
Almost every month of the year there is either a local festival or celebration in Laos.The word for festival in Lao is boun, which also means doing good things in order to gain merit for subsequent lives. If you are in Xieng Khouang while any of the festivals are taking place you will surely be welcomed and asked to join the fun. Please feel free to participate, however remember that most of the festivals are based on religious beliefs, so your hosts will appreciate it if you respect local codes of behavior. January-February Kud Chin & Tet Viet (Chinese & Vietnamese New Year) Chinese and Vietnamese Lunar New Year is celebrated with parties, fireworks and merit making at temples. Chinese and Vietnamese businesses usually close for three days. April Pi Mai Lao (Lao New Year) During the week of 13-15 April the whole country celebrates. Buddha images are cleansed with sacred water and in the vats offerings of fruit and flowers are made. People take to the streets splashing water on one another and having parties everywhere. In Xieng Khouang some years boat races take place at the Supanouvong Lake. Be advised that during Pi Mai Lao most businesses and government offices are closed. April-May Boun Bang Fai (Rocket Festival) Boun Bang Fai is a rainmaking and fertility festival that takes place just before the rainy season. Villagers make rockets from bamboo and homemade gunpowder and parade their colorful rockets noisily around the village before they are shot into the sky to ‘fertilize’ the clouds and bring rain which in turn feeds the rivers and fields. July Boun Khao Pansa (Buddhist Lent) This festival, held on the full moon, marks the beginning of Buddhist lent, a three month period where monks are required to stay within their temple to pray and meditate. Lao men are traditionally ordained as monks during this time. August Boun Khao Padap Din Special offerings are made to the deceased on the new moon of the 9th lunar month. October Boun Ork Pansa End of Buddhist Lent Held on the full moon this festival celebrates the end of Buddhist lent. In the evening small banana-leaf boats called heua fai are launched at Nam Ngum and Supanouvong Lake filled with colorful incense, flowers, candles and a small amount of money to bring luck and prosperity. December Hmong New Year Hmong New Year, Xieng Khouang’s most colorful festival attracts crowds of people from around the province as well as Hmong from overseas.The festival is celebrated either in December or January starting from the 15th day of the ascending moonto give thanks to ancestors and spirits at the end of the annual agricultural cycle. Traditionally it lasts ten days bringing people together from many villages, and it is here that young people typically find a husband or a wife. The special celebrations involve colorful displays of traditional costumes made from green, red and white silk and ornate silver jewelry. People enjoy the music of traditional Hmong instruments such as the teun-flute, Hmong khaen and leaf blowing. Other festivities include the Makkhon(cotton ball) throwing ceremony as part of a charming courting ritual, crossbow competitions and traditional games such as bull fighting and top spinning. Khmu New Year is celebrated within the Khmu communities in late December following the annual rice harvest. The Baci Ceremony Spiritual and ritualistic practices are important to most Lao people. The Baci is an ancient pre-Buddhist ritual traditionally conducted by Tai speakers. The Baci is the most popular Lao traditional ceremony celebrated at special events, whether a marriage, a homecoming, a welcome, a birth, or even to help cure sickness. It involves the ritualistic tying of cotton threads to ensure blessings of the spirits on specific persons, activities, or places. It is an important gesture of reconciliation and is believed to restore the natural order of things. | ||||||
| SITES TO VISIT | ||||||
Scenery and Landscape | ||||||
Visiting The Plain of Jars is a serene inspiration. The ritual burial jars with their minimalistic Iron Age aesthetics are an ever-present part of the landscape and the only remaining witnesses to a vanished civilization. Unlike Ancient Greece or the First Emperor of China that date from around the same time, we know very little about the civilization that created The Plain of Jars. There is neither a legend of Troy nor a Chinese Book of Songs that kept the memory alive. In more recent history a Secret War took place here. Constant aerial bombardments transformed the landscape - and often jar sites as well- into a Plain of Scars. Regardless, villagers found imaginative ways to rebuild their existence and often made the legacy of the war a resourceful part of their daily life. Bombs became spoons; and a distinct Xiengkhouang style of architecture was created that incorporates bomb shells as building material and décor for houses. The integrity of a culture that did not succumb to hardship but grew with its trials and yet preserved century old village traditions and beliefs is characteristic for The Plain of Jars. The stories you will uncover here are not immediately obvious to the naked eye. You will have to take your time to listen and open your heart to understand. But then something very rare will happen: You will realize that even today in a world that believes in “total knowledge” there will always remain hidden stories and places that will never be fully understood. We invite you to a journey to The Plain of Jars. Be inspired by hidden stories. 
Xiengkhouang and the enigmatic Plain of Jars make up one of the most important sites for studying the late prehistory of mainland Southeast Asia. While the ancient civilization that constructed the jars was flourishing, advances in agricultural production, the manufacturing of metals, and the organization of long-distance overland trade between India and China were also rapidly transforming local society and setting the stage for urbanization across the region. Mortuary practices associated with the jars consisting of both cremation and secondary burial suggest a highly-evolved local tradition of ritual, symbolism and metaphysics which persisted through to the kingdoms of the Angkor Period, long after the arrival of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies into Southeast Asia.
Prehistoric material found at the Plain of Jars is still under study, and apparently spans a considerable period of time, with some dating from as early as 2000 BC. The bulk of the archaeological material, however, as well as the jars themselves appeared much later, dating to the early Iron Age between 500 BC and 500-800 AD. The closet archaeological parallels to the finds at the Plain of Jars appear to be Bronze and Iron Age materials from Dong Son in Viet Nam, Samrong Sen in Cambodia, and the Khorat Plateau in northeast Thailand. There are also similarities with the present-day city of Danang, as well as with sites in the North Cachar Hills of northeastern India where megalithic jar North exist. All of these similar sites date to approximately the same period-roughly 500 BC - 500 AD. Together they form a mosaic picture of a large area of upland Southeast Asia criss-crossed by traders, with the Xiengkhouang Plateau at its centre.
To exert greater control of the lands and people of Muang Phuan, the Siamese launched three separate campaigns (1777-1779, 1834-1836, 1875-1876) to resettle large parts of the Phuan population to the south to regions under firm Siamese control . |
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