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.
A 286 km round trip from Muang Phônsavan - roughly 5 h 40 in the saddle. The stops in between: Site 2, Site 12, Site 42 and back through Site 12. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
The Plain of Jars is one of Southeast Asia's great riddles: across the Xieng Khouang plateau in northern Laos, thousands of huge stone jars lie scattered over hillsides, in groups of a few or a few hundred, some taller than a person. They were carved from sandstone and other rock during the Iron Age, roughly between 500 BC and AD 500, and the most widely accepted theory is that they were linked to funerary practices, perhaps used to let bodies decompose before final burial. Local legend has a happier explanation: the jars were made to brew rice wine for a victory celebration of a mythical king. The sites were added to the World Heritage list in 2019, and Site 21 is one of the many numbered groups in the countryside around Phonsavan.
Read the complete Site 21 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 21 is where the day begins. 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.
Site 2 comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Site 12.
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.
about 100 km into the recorded legs you reach Site 12. Next is Site 42.
Northern Laos is a country of steep green ridges, and then, near the town of Phonsavan, the mountains open into a high rolling plateau of grass and pine, the Xiangkhouang plain, where hundreds of huge stone jars lie scattered across the hills. Site 42 is one of dozens of clusters of jars that make up the Plain of Jars, inscribed by UNESCO in 2019, and it lies north-east of Phonsavan in remote country.
Read the complete Site 42 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 42, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Site 12 sits at 129 km, 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 comes up about 249 km into the recorded legs. Next is Site 21.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Site 21 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Site 21 closes the day.
Site 21 → Site 2 is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Site 2 → Site 12 is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Site 12 → Site 42 is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Site 42 → back through Site 12 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Site 12 → back through Site 2 is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Site 2 → Site 21 is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.