Laos · Xieng Khouang
Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
Laos at its strangest: an Iron Age burial ground of giant stone jars, set in a landscape still being cleared of bombs.
Thousands of carved stone jars, the biggest of them taller than a person, stand in clusters across the uplands of Xieng Khouang, left by an Iron Age culture nobody has fully explained and inscribed by UNESCO in 2019. The base for reaching them is Phonsavan, a plain, wide-streeted provincial town rebuilt after the Secret War emptied the old capital. Jars and bomb craters share the same hillsides, and that collision is what makes the place land the way it does.
Suggested stay
2–3 days
Language
Lao
Currency
LAK
Timezone
UTC+7
Why you'll love Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
The jars Hundreds of carved stone vessels standing in open clusters on hilltops, with no settled answer to who made them, how they were moved, or what they held.
The war Bomb craters cut through the jar fields, casings reused as fence posts and planters in the villages, and clearance teams still working the ground around them.
Few visitors Getting to Xieng Khouang takes real effort, so even the largest site is often quiet enough to hear the cattle in the next field.
The plateau Cool, pine-dotted grassland at around a thousand metres, a completely different Laos from the Mekong lowlands.
Best time to visit
Oct-Mar
23-28° days
19.452° N, 103.207° E
UTC+7 · Asia/Vientiane
whenywhere contains ads and partner links that we think are helpful and that earn us a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Weather & when to go to Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Oct-Mar
Watch for Feb-Apr haze risk · Aug monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
August is the wettest of the monsoon, when the back tracks to the outlying jar sites turn to mud and the plateau spends days under low cloud. The other caveat is smoke: fields are burned off late in the dry season, and the haze can sit over the valley for weeks.
Top things to do in Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
-
Jar Site 1 (Thong Hai Hin) - the biggest field of jars
history 👍 PopularThe largest and closest cluster to Phonsavan, with a few hundred jars spread over an open hillside, including the giant one that legend calls King Khun Cheuang's victory wine jar. Bomb craters cut straight through the rows, and a limestone cave with holes in its roof is the chamber Madeleine Colani read as a crematorium. Keep to the cleared ground between the marker stones.
-
Jar Site 2 (Hai Hin Phu Salato) - jars on two wooded hills
history off beaten pathA short climb from the road onto two low hills, far quieter than Site 1, where the jars sit among trees rather than out on grassland. One has a tree growing straight up through its broken body, and the second hill looks out over farmland.
-
Jar Site 3 (Hai Hin Lat Khai) - the walk in through the rice paddies
history scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedYou leave the vehicle at Ban Xiengdi village and walk out along paddy bunds and a small bamboo bridge to a jar group under trees on a rise. The approach through working fields is half of why this one sticks.
-
MAG Visitor Information Centre - the UXO story, told straight
history culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedThe room in Phonsavan that makes the rest of the province legible: displays on cluster submunitions and clearance work, and evening documentary screenings on the bombing and its long tail. Worth doing before the jar sites rather than after.
-
Muang Khoun - the bombed old capital
history 👍 PopularXieng Khouang town was the provincial capital until the air war flattened it. At Wat Piawat a large seated Buddha still sits in the open inside a roofless brick shell with its columns sheared off, and damaged stupas stand among houses rebuilt around the ruins.
-
Ban Napia - spoons beaten from war scrap
culture arts off beaten pathA village where families melt down aluminium salvaged from the war and cast it into spoons, bracelets and keyrings in sand moulds on the ground. Most jar-site trips stop here, and you can usually watch a pour.
-
Phonsavan's bomb-casing streetscape
history off beaten pathOnce you notice it you cannot stop: casings sunk as gateposts and fence rails, cut down into planters and troughs, propping up verandas in the villages around town. The most matter-of-fact reminder anywhere of what came down on this plateau.
-
Phonsavan fresh market - the plateau's produce
food culture artsHighland vegetables, herbs, river fish and Hmong textiles, traded by growers who come in off the plateau. Go early, when the sellers and the mist are both still there.
Best areas to stay in Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Central Phonsavan (the Route 7 strip)
First-time visitors $Dusty main street, guesthouses and tour desks
Explore hotels in Central Phonsavan (the Route 7 strip) →
Around the fresh market
Budget travellers $Local, early-rising, plainest rooms in town
Explore hotels in Around the fresh market →
Out of town on the plateau road
Quiet nights $$Quiet lodges, pine ridges, long views
Explore hotels in Out of town on the plateau road →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
Getting to & around Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
Getting there
Fly into Xieng Khouang (XKH) from Vientiane and you are in Phonsavan minutes later; overland it is a long, winding haul up Route 7.
Flight
Xieng Khouang Airport (XKH)
The airstrip sits on the edge of town, so arriving is a short tuk-tuk ride or a guesthouse pickup, comfortably under 15 min.
Coach
Phonsavan bus station
Buses and minivans from Luang Prabang take most of a day on tight mountain switchbacks; Vang Vieng and Vientiane services are longer again and often run overnight.
Coach
Phonsavan bus station
Eastbound buses cross to Vietnam at the Nong Haet border for Vinh, which makes Phonsavan a natural break on an overland run between the two countries.
Drive
Route 7 branches east off Route 13 at Phou Khoun. The climb onto the plateau is slow and scenic, and it is a standard leg for riders doing the northern loop by motorbike.
Getting around
Tuk-tuk
The default hop around town and out to the airstrip; agree the ride with the driver before you get in.
TBC
Minivan tour or car with driver
How nearly everyone does the jar sites: the three cleared sites are scattered across the district with no public transport linking them.
TBC
Rented motorbike
Workable for confident riders doing the sites independently, though the roads out to Sites 2 and 3 are rough and dusty or muddy depending on the season.
TBC
Walking
Central Phonsavan is essentially one long street, so the tour desks, the information centre and the restaurants are all on foot.
Free
Day trips from Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
Muang Khoun (Old Xieng Khouang)
Half dayBombed old capital
The province's capital until the bombing emptied it. Wat Piawat's seated Buddha sits in the open inside a roofless shell, damaged stupas stand on the ridges above, and daily village life has simply grown back around the ruins.
Getting there
car | tour
About 45 min each way by car, tuk-tuk or tour
Tham Piu cave and the Muang Kham hot springs
Full dayMemorial cave
A stairway climbs a cliff face to the cave where villagers sheltering from the air war were killed by a single rocket; it is a memorial, not a sight. Tours usually pair it with the hot springs further along the same road.
Getting there
car | tour
1-1.5 hr each way east on Route 7 by car or tour
Nong Tang lake
Half dayKarst lake
A small lake pushed up against limestone cliffs with caves in the rock above it, and the softest scenery in a district otherwise made of grassland, pine and craters.
Getting there
car | tour
About 1 hr each way by car or tour
A little history of Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
Nobody knows for certain who carved the jars. They were cut from sandstone and other stone, hauled to hilltop clusters and set out in their hundreds across Xieng Khouang, most likely between roughly 500 BCE and 500 CE. The French archaeologist Madeleine Colani excavated here in the 1930s and found human bone, teeth and burial goods in and around them, and her reading - that they are funerary vessels tied to the treatment of the dead - remains the working explanation.
What happened later is far better documented and much harder. Xieng Khouang sat on the front line of the war fought alongside the conflict in Vietnam, and between 1964 and 1973 it absorbed one of the heaviest aerial bombardments ever flown. The old capital was destroyed, villagers spent years living in caves and ditches, and a large share of what fell never went off. Clearance teams have since opened marked safe ground at the main jar sites, which is part of why the jars waited until 2019 for World Heritage listing.
Iron Age communities carve the stone jars and place them in clusters across the Xieng Khouang uplands.
Madeleine Colani surveys the sites, recovers human remains and grave goods, and argues the jars are funerary.
US bombing during the Secret War destroys the old capital at Muang Khoun and leaves unexploded ordnance across the plain.
The Pathet Lao take power and the Lao PDR is founded; Phonsavan grows into the rebuilt provincial capital.
International clearance teams begin work in Xieng Khouang, opening marked safe paths at the main jar sites.
UNESCO inscribes the megalithic jar sites of Xieng Khouang as a World Heritage Site.
Know before you go
Payment
Cash preferred
English
Limited
Wifi
Limited
Power
Type A / B / C
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+856
Haze risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A Laos eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about Plain of Jars (Phonsavan)
▸ Is the Plain of Jars safe to visit?
At the visitor sites, yes, provided you do what the markers say. The main jar sites have been cleared and the safe ground is marked with painted stones: white means cleared, and you stay on that side of the line. Beyond those paths the province still holds unexploded ordnance from the war, so nobody should wander into fields, pick up or poke at scrap metal, or cut a shortcut across uncleared ground. That applies to the countryside generally, not only to the jar sites.
▸ How many jar sites can you actually visit?
Three are set up for visitors and appear on every tour: Site 1 just outside Phonsavan, and Sites 2 and 3 out in the farmland beyond it. Those are the cleared ones. Dozens of other jar groups are known across the province, but most are not cleared or not reachable, and the three together make a comfortable day.
▸ How long do you need in Phonsavan?
Two nights suits most people: one full day for the three jar sites with the spoon village on the way, and a second for Muang Khoun or the road east to Tham Piu. Add a night if you want to slow down or ride out to the plateau villages.
▸ Do you need a tour, or can you do it yourself?
You can do it yourself on a rented motorbike if you ride confidently, but most people take a shared minivan tour or hire a car with a driver, because the sites are scattered with nothing linking them. A guide genuinely earns their place here - the craters, the cave and the marker stones mean much more with someone explaining them.
▸ What were the jars for?
The best-supported explanation is funerary. Excavation has turned up human bone, teeth and burial goods in and around the jars, so they are read as vessels connected with the handling of the dead, probably before secondary burial. Local legend tells it better - that a giant king brewed rice wine in them to celebrate a victory - and you will hear both versions in the same morning.
▸ When is the best time to visit the Plain of Jars?
The cool, dry stretch from around October through March is the clear window: firm tracks to the outlying sites, clear light over the grassland, and mornings cold enough for a jacket at this altitude. August is the wettest month of the monsoon. Late in the dry season farmers burn off the fields, and haze can settle over the valley for weeks at a time.
▸ How do you get to Phonsavan?
Flights from Vientiane land at Xieng Khouang Airport on the edge of town, much the quickest way in. Overland, buses and minivans grind up Route 7 from Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng and Vientiane, and eastbound services carry on to the Vietnamese border for Vinh.
More in Laos
4000 Islands (Don Det)
The stretch where the Mekong stops being a highway and becomes an archipelago, hiding the widest waterfall on earth and the only railway Laos ever built.
✓ best Nov-FebLuang Namtha
Laos' original community-run trekking, still walked with the villages that manage the forest.
✓ best Oct-MarLuang Prabang
The most graceful small town in Southeast Asia - a royal capital of gilded temples and colonial shophouses, wedged between two rivers and ringed by green hills.
✓ best Nov-Feb