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      — THE MELTING BUDDHA —

      The nearest town to the Plain of Jars is Phonsavan in Xieng Khuang province. There are two ways to get there from Vientiane. You can take Highway 13 north for 350 kilometres or so before turning east on Highway 7. About midway between Vientiane and the turnoff is Vang Vieng. On first acquaintance the place pleases you with the way it’s been kneaded in among the green-covered karst mountains. But it shocks you with its bigness as you’ve been passing through so many villages and hamlets along the way. They have names such Ban Phonmuang, Ban Senxum, and Ban Nammuang. Ban means village or simply dwelling. These are little brownish places, usually on some stream or river, with industrious but unhurried people (and animals). Laos has the lowest population density in Southeast Asia and one of the slowest metabolisms.

      Vang Vieng is far enough south that it might be called the point at which the north begins. This is one factor that fills it with Western backpackers, including thrill-seekers hoping to be sold opium or lesser drugs. Or greater ones for that matter, such as, if reports are to be believed, powerful machine-rolled marijuana cigarettes soaked in liquefied heroin. These were one of the commodities that used to be available to American troops in Vietnam, presumably part of some secret North Vietnamese attempt to further demoralize them. Few activities are more dangerously illegal than drug-taking in Southeast Asia, but the practice continues all the same, despite constant pressure from the United States and some of its allies. (Other allies have begun to rethink the issue, given that 40 percent of the population of Laos are tribal people and that many of them are dependent on opium, which is a commodity in decline in the face of amphetamines — which the Lao call by the Thai name, yaa baa or “craziness drug.”) Young Westerners, particularly those who push farther north and try not to stand out too starkly, have been known to lose all track of time. Doing so, they court a second kind of trouble, as long overstaying one’s visa is another of the most felonious crimes under the Lao criminal code, which has existed only since 1990.

      The alternative way of getting to Phonsavan from the capital is to fly in on a reconditioned Twin Otter. I passed on to M the warning not to be alarmed if the cabin suddenly filled with dark grey smoke, for that would be nothing more than the air conditioner catching fire again. The pilot followed the mountaintops, climbing and descending according to the height of each successive range. Every few minutes we would break out of cloud cover and see an ochre-coloured serpentine river twisted out of shape and getting smaller. At long intervals there would be a tiny village on the concave side of an elbow. The mountain ridges looked like sharp pieces of green glass.

      From the sky, I could see how the old bomb craters were evenly spaced in straight lines, with the lines crossing and recrossing one another as sortie followed sortie. A funny thing about bomb craters. In Vietnam, the pace of development, especially since the late 1980s, has turned attention away from the destructiveness of the past. The fierce determination and practicality of the Vietnamese is an equally important factor in the process. You still see unreconstructed craters, but many others have been converted to round paddies or incorporated into irrigation systems or simply made into ponds for ducks or cattle and water buffalo. The Lao seem different. They’re generally a more pessimistic and melancholy people. In Laos, what you see are barren yellow declivities in an otherwise lush landscape. People are routinely injured falling into them. So are animals, sometimes drowning.

      The airport at Phonsavan consists of a short runway and two dirty one-storey structures. The smaller building appears to adhere loosely to the concept of the first-class lounge, for what are known throughout East Asia as “charming hostesses” were leaning out the open windows. The larger one, the terminal, was a single room with a big hand-lettered advertising sign: LAO AVIATION — ALL PASSENGERS ARE COVERED BY INSURANCE.

      Nearing Phonsavan, one gets the first inkling that the Plain of Jars is not far off. Just west of there are fields with huge stone jars in the familiar shape, but left unfinished where they were being worked on. Their incomplete state suggests some sudden calamity, as do those moai on Easter Island that lie half carved in the quarry where they were being sculpted. One group of jars is close to what used to be Muang Sui, in its day a great centre of Buddhist worship that later became a staging area for U.S. bombing runs. After the American defeat, the newly reunited Vietnamese levelled the tainted place in the course of driving out the Royal Lao Army. Since then, a new town has been built on the spot and a great many Vietnamese have settled there.

      There are numerous limestone caves — entire networks of them — throughout this area, and many ruined or looted wats and temples. The most dramatic ruin consists of a few still-upright pillars and an enormous centuries-old stone Buddha the side of whose face started to melt, like an ice cream cone, as a result of the great heat caused by the phosphorous bombs that also of course killed the community of monks. Close by is another shocking reminder of both the American War and the one that preceded it. It is the remnants, just a couple of metres high, of a large red-brick hospital, built by the French, bombed to smithereens by the Americans.

      At first glance, and judging by Lao standards, Phonsavan is bustling right along, thanks to its role as the capital of Xieng Khuang province and investment by the nearby Vietnamese. Yet, paradoxically, it also seems little more than a sad and dilapidated Hmong market town, with rows of shophouses on either side of the partially paved roads. Bomb casings, particularly from the old 250-pounders (why none from the five-hundreds?), are propped up outside some of the small businesses or used in front gardens as fences or planters. There are still amputees walking the streets, though fewer than I feared. The government centre for the distribution of artificial limbs is located there.

      Along the high street we saw few restaurants. This was a concern as M and I needed to find a meal and a place to stay before tracking down our local expert on Plain of Jars lore. Among M’s sterling qualities, one of my favourites is the fact that she is such a game traveller. One can’t beat a private school old-girl for laughing at discomfort and being indefatigable.

      We found a low, dark eating-place, open to the street on two sides. In spots, the ceiling was only two metres high and one section of the floor was made of packed earth. The kitchen was an open stone hearth of the sort one sees in rural China. Sheets of sticky white plastic covered the plank tabletops and the seats were somewhat like milking stools. No one spoke French or English, and between us M and I didn’t have a word of Lao or one complete sentence of Vietnamese. So we had only the vaguest notion of what we ate, except that we hoped it wasn’t