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If you are a real jarhead you might not have heard about the great Plain of Jars in the middle of Laos, or, I think the middle of Laos? It's a nation with confusing dimensions.
The plain of jars is a megalithic series of massive stone jugs littered across the Xiangkhoang Plateau. Thought to be used in burial rituals as early as 1240 to 660 BC, some very soundly minded people believed that they were indeed drinking vessels for a mysterious and powerful race of massive humanoids, which given the average size of a Laotian male were probably at least 5 foot 9. with a local legend declaring that “a tribe of giants used them as wine chalices to celebrate a great victory."
The Battle of the plain of jars is an interesting ordeal. It is mentioned 23 times in Wilfred G. Burchett’s paper the furtive war. Singkapo, The leader of the Pathet Lao's army at the time, a resistance against the Laotian puppet government run by Nosavan and Kong Le, a bloke who briefly couped the Nosavan government with his fellow paratroopers, used this region to bamboozle the Nosavan army and over the attritious course won back control of Laos with an uneasy alliance between singkapo’s Pathet Lao and Kong Le’s neutralists.
Btw, here is a picture of Nosavan, a man with the same haircut as former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a dopey look that makes you wonder if he has one of those sci fi brain implants that exchange happiness and consciousness.
Leader of Laotian puppet government Nosavan pictured on the left.
Laos today remains an under-developed country due to a history that is undeniably smited by god. Having to deal with wars, bombing, and mines leading to the death of thousands.
On top of that a massive brain drain and Kuomintang fuelled opiate crisis in the post-war has made this economically and physically isolated nation fair even worse than it's Vietnamese neighbour. Nevertheless it has slowly managed to overcome these problems, and the plain of jars remains a megalithic wonder worth visiting if you ever find yourself in that part of the world.
At the end of the day the very existence of the plain of jars is amazing. Having been there for as long as 3,000 years, they have survived everything including but not limited to: The fall of the Khmer Empire, the rise of Lan Xang, the White Elephant War, the fall of Lan Xang, Burmese invasions, the Anouvong Rebellion, Thai occupation, the Haw Wars, the Pa Chay Rebellion, World War II, the First Indochina War, and most impressively, the Second Indochina War, in which the Plain of Jars was subjected not only to some of the fiercest prolonged conflict in the Lao Civil War, but also the most concentrated and extensive bombing effort in all of human history.
It's quite amazing to think about given that it wasn't an architectural marvel like the pyramids or ancient khmer temples, nor was it eschewed in some irrelevant forgotten place (the Xiangkhoang Plateu is literally a plains surrounded by highlands on all sides and was actually thus quite coveted), it's just a bunch of really big stone Jars that have lived through time immemorial
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