Crater and hangover

A couple of Laotian guests are sitting behind the martial decoration with coffee and liquor, bombs of unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War, in the Craters restaurant in Phonsavan. The wife of a guest waits patiently in the background.

Nearby you can find the "Plain of Jar", there are several hundred stone jugs in the size of a half to three meters. The age of the mysterious stone vessels is estimated by archaeologists to be at least 2,500-3,000 years old, and some claim that they could even be up to 10,000 years old. Thus, these stone jugs could not be clearly dated to this day. Also one argues until today, where this hard sandstone originates from, because there is no hard sandstone within a radius of 100 km. There are also no clear explanations about the processing and transport of heavy stone vessels.

Neither do we really know anything about the builders and the meaning and purpose of the giant vessels. In ancient legends, these stone vessels were also called drinking vessels of the gods or drinking vessels of giants. According to an old folk legend, the mysterious Khon Paet Sook, the eight-all-people, are called builders. These fabulous 3-4 meter tall people are said to have made these stone jugs from a kind of concrete that is hardly different from natural stone. On closer examination, one really thinks that the vessels look cast. Many theories about meaning and purpose were developed, but to this day it remains a mystery like the statues on the Easter Islands.

The Ho Chi Min Path, which is known to have been bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam War, also ran through this region. In the Plain of Jar you can still see numerous bomb craters, hence the name of the restaurant | Laos