Local legend has a cheerful explanation for the stone jars of Xieng Khouang. It tells of Khun Cheung, a legendary king who won a great victory and ordered the jars carved so that his people could brew lao-lao, the rice spirit, in huge quantities for the celebration. Archaeology prefers a funerary purpose, but the story says a lot about how people here like to see their past, and it is a good one to share over a glass of the real thing in the evening.
Site 25 is one of the scattered jar groups that make up the Plain of Jars, listed by UNESCO in 2019, and it lies some twenty kilometres from Phonsavan among the grassy hills of the plateau. The jars were cut from sandstone and other rock, some with stone lids lying nearby, a few decorated with faint carvings. They stand at odd angles in the grass, tilted by time, some cracked by tree roots, some by bombs. Many sites also have stone discs that may have covered burials. Standing among them in the evening light, with cattle grazing in the next field, is a strange and gentle experience.
The plateau has a character of its own. At around a thousand metres, it is high enough to be cool, and the landscape is more open than most of Laos, with grassy slopes, pine groves, rice paddies in the valleys and limestone hills on the horizon. Many villages are Hmong, and the market in Phonsavan is the place to see their textiles and the produce of the hills. The bombing of the 1960s and early 1970s has left its mark on all of it, and unexploded ordnance is still a danger: walk only within the cleared and marked areas.
On a bike, the approach to a site like this is part of the charm. Expect a paved main road out of Phonsavan, then a side track of red earth, rutted and dusty in the dry season and sticky with mud in the wet, with chickens, children and water buffalo for company. A dual-sport bike is the right tool. Ride slowly through the villages; this is not a place to be in a hurry.
Fuel, guesthouses and food are in Muang Phônsavan, along with the information centre of the clearance organisations. Fill up there, carry water and a little food, and bring a warm layer for the evenings, which can be surprisingly cold between November and February.