CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
On the way it passes Site 23, Site 2, Site 25 and back through Site 2. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Imagine hundreds of huge stone jars scattered across a high plateau, some taller than a person, some lying on their sides, some cracked open by time or by bombs. That is the Plain of Jars in Xieng Khouang province, Laos, and nobody knows for certain who made them or why. Archaeologists believe they are about two thousand years old or more, and that they were connected with burial practices; local legend says they were made to brew rice wine to celebrate a great victory. Since 2019 a selection of the jar sites has been listed by UNESCO as the Megalithic Jar Sites in Xiengkhuang. Site 12 is one of the smaller groups, out in the countryside some twenty-five kilometres from the provincial capital, Phonsavan.
Read the complete Site 12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 12 is where the day begins. Next is Site 23.
Nobody agrees on who made the stone jars of Xieng Khouang, or exactly why. They are scattered over a high plateau in northern Laos, thousands of stone vessels, some of them taller than a person, carved from rock and set in groups on grassy hillsides, dating from perhaps two thousand years ago. The usual explanation is that they were used in funerary rites by an Iron Age culture, and archaeologists have found human remains and burial goods near them, which supports that, but folklore says they were brewing vessels for a giant king's victory feast. The UNESCO listing of 2019 covers a number of different sites, and Site 23 is one of the smaller, less visited ones, so I can tell you about the region better than I can describe the exact spot.
Read the complete Site 23 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 23 comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Site 2.
The Plain of Jars is not one site but many, and Site 2 sits on a hillside about fifteen kilometres from Phonsavan, the market town that serves as the base for visiting them. Phonsavan, with some thirty-seven thousand people, is a plain, post-war place of tin roofs and wide streets, rebuilt after the original town was destroyed in the bombing of the 1960s, and the jar sites lie scattered around it, along dirt tracks, in grassland and light forest.
Read the complete Site 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach Site 2. Next is Site 25.
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.
Read the complete Site 25 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 25, about halfway. Next is back through Site 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Site 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Site 2 sits at 226 km, about halfway. Next is back through Site 23.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Site 23 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Site 23 comes up about 365 km into the recorded legs. Next is Site 12.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Site 12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 12 closes the day.
Site 12 → Site 23 is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Site 23 → Site 2 is 102 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Site 2 → Site 25 is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Site 25 → back through Site 2 is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Site 2 → back through Site 23 is 95 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Site 23 → Site 12 is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.