Friday, 26 February 2010

The Plain of Jars --Mystery in Laos

The Plain of Jars is a large group of historic cultural sites in Laos containing thousands of stone jars, which lie scattered throughout the Xieng Khouang plain in the Lao Highlands at the northern end of the Annamese Cordillera, the principal mountain range of Indochina. In the context of the Vietnam War and the Secret War, the Plain of Jars typically refers to the entire Xieng Khouang plain rather than the cultural sites themselves.








Ancient Laos legends tell of the giants who drunk water from these enormous mysterious "cups". Similar sites were also found in Thailand and in North India. Their locations are strung along a straight line, which suggests that they were built on some kind of a trade route.



The Plain Of Jars is probably South East Asia’s most enigmatic tourist attraction. Situated in the remote north east of Laos, the mountainous communist country which has only been open to tourists for just over a decade, are hundreds of huge stone jars scattered across several square miles.




Jars of a deeply spooky nature

While most ancient Asian sites, such as the Angkor temples in Cambodia, have revealed many of their secrets, historians are still completely baffled as to where the jars came from, how old they are and what they signify. They are, in short, jars of a deeply spooky nature.



There are three key sites to see the Jars, three places where they are clustered together en masse, but there are apparently over 400 locations where they are to be found scattered across the plain.




Gathered together at the top of this hill, there were around 130 of them scattered about beneath the trees, mercifully undeveloped by any tourist organization. Undisturbed amongst the vast wheat yellow and sky blue horizon of the countryside, the jars did indeed seem mysterious, but there was also a sense of serenity too.



They were all at least a couple of metres long, and must have weighed several tonnes each, some upright, some leaning after being embedded in the ground, some completely toppled over:




All of them are virtually black, and their tall, narrow, hefty bodies make them look like crude cannons, pointing in every direction as if fearing attack from all sides. The darkness of the jars’ stone also makes them seem distinctly funereal and a little sinister:



The largest jar weighs around 6 metric tons:



The lids for these jars are also quite mysterious looking. They have as much texture and ancient feel to them as Stonehenge.





Some of them are filled with miniature Buddhas: which somehow feels very appropriate:


5 Incredible Lost Treasures We Will Probably Never See Again

Some people travel around the world for most of their lives, hoping to find legendary treasures and fulfill all their lives’ dreams. But unlike what we see in movies, most treasure-hunters never find anything significant. Here are 5 of the world’s most sought-after treasures:


Montezuma’s treasure



In the summer of 1520, the famous conquistador Hernando Cortes managed to fatally wound Montezuma, emperor of the Aztecs. Thinking he had won the war, Cortes asked his men to gather all of Montezuma’s riches, and attempted to leave South America with it. The angry Aztecs caught up with the Spanish near the capital of Tenochtitlan and engaged them in battle. After the battle, Lake Texcoco was full of dead conquistadors and Montezuma’s jewels.


Cortes and a few of his men escaped the Aztec’s wrath and returned a year later to take their revenge and find Montezuma’s treasure once more. Having learned about Cortes’ return, the Aztecs hid the treasure somewhere around Lake Texcoco. It is believed Montezuma’s treasure remains hidden near Mexico City, but no one knows the exact location.


One of Mexico’s former presidents even ordered the lake to be drained, but the treasure was never found.

Black-Beard’s treasure



Edward Teach, known by most as Black Beard the pirate, was a corsair for just 2 years, at the end of the 18th century, a time known as the Golden Age of Piracy. However, during this short period, he managed to gather a sizable treasure, consisting of gold, silver and jewels.


Unfortunately he never had the chance to enjoy his wealth, as he was decapitated by an English officer, in 1718. Before his death, Black Beard admitted burying his loot, but he never revealed its location. Treasure-hunters searched for the treasure on the islands of the Caribbean and in the caves on the Cayman Islands, but their searches came up empty handed.


At one point, a diver claimed he found one of Black Beard’s ships, the Queen Ann’s Revenge, but his treasure was not on board.


The Amber Room



The people, who saw it before it was lost, called it the eighth wonder of the world. We’re talking about a three square meters room with four beautifully sculpted amber panels as walls, gold-frame mirrors and four Florentine mosaics. The amber was studded with jewels and the room itself housed one of the most beautiful collections of Russian and Prussian art. It was created for King Frederic I of Prussia, but was given to Peter the Great of Russia, as a gift.


During World War II, when Hitler attacked Saint Petersburg, the Russians tried to move the amber room, but the walls were cracking, so they decided to cover it with wallpaper. Unfortunately, they failed and the Nazis found the prized treasure and took it with them to Konigsberg Castle, where it remained until the end of the war.


When Konigsberg Castle was inspected, the room was nowhere to be found. Some say the Russians destroyed the amber room when they bombarded the castle or when Konigsberg burned, soon after it surrendered, while others say that it is buried in a bunker somewhere.


The Ark of the Covenant



To the old Israelis, the Ark of the Covenant was the most sacred thing on Earth. It was said the precious chest was created by God himself, from acacia wood, plated with pure gold. The chest featured a lid with two gold cherubim looking at each other. It contained many holy relics, including the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments.


The Ark of the Covenant was housed in the Temple of Solomon, in Jerusalem, the capital of Judea. In the year 600 BC, the city was attacked and conquered by the Babylonians, after a conflict that claimed the lives of over one million people. 17 years later, when the Israelis reclaimed Jerusalem, the Ark of the Covenant was gone. The Babylonians may have destroyed the priceless artifact, but some believe it was taken by God, for protection.


The Treasure of the Pharaohs



When the tomb of Tutankhamen was discovered, in 1922, archeologists were amazed by the riches buried with the pharaoh. It took scientists years to examine all the jewels, but when they discovered all the other tombs in the Valley of the Kings, they realized they were all empty. Grave-robbers surely worked their magic on the burial places, before archeologists discovered them, but it would be impossible for a few petty thieves to transport all those riches.


Some historians believe the pharaohs’ tombs were raided during the twelfth Egyptian dynasty, when a certain Heribor was in charge of re-burials, during which time he had the opportunity to take whatever he wanted from the tombs. Many believe that when Heribor’s burial place will finally be unearthed, the lost treasures of the pharaohs will finally be revealed.

Discovering the World's Most Mysterious Places

In North Africa, there are 80 blocks of such pyramids scattered around the Egypt's Nile River, which have become one of the most miraculous places in the world. The highest pyramid called Cheops Pyramid and it was build by overlapping pile of boulders together. In the making of pyramids, Egyptians were not using any adhesive, glue or nails to attach the pile of boulders and one could even hardly find cracks or gaps among the rocks or stones from the overlapping plot. Nevertheless, the structure is extremely firm and strong that the sharp blades or swords could not even pass through. In addition, Egyptian Pyramids have experiencing 5,000 years of strong wind's erosions and yet these artifacts are remained not touch by the nature. They appeared to stand alone like warriors in the desert. These towering pyramids are such spectacular and superior buildings human had ever made on the Earth.
This is a mysterious place encountered in the Antarctic Island. People call it “a dry valley with no snow cover.” Antarctic is a place with fewer inhabitants and dwellers and thus some unexplainable phenomenon happenings in Antarctica remain mystery to the outsiders. Approximately 14 million square kilometers of the total area of the Antarctic continent have the snow cover. When viewing from the high sky, the central of the Antarctic is like a pot's lid plateau. Most of the areas vividly have their surfaces covered with snow with its thickness reaching 2000m and sometimes may attain the thickness up to 4,800m. In winter, the surrounding ice combines with the ice from the ocean to form up one smooth, large plateau to which people can hardly distinguish between the land and the sea.
Bermuda Triangle is located in Western North Atlantic, which comprises of seven major islands, 150 small islands, some islands composed of reefs group. Any high-tech devices or equipments will become malfunction when reaching this mysterious
place and thus the survivors may have encountered problems to communicate with the outside world. Because of its extremely mysterious characteristic, people have called this place as a devil triangle.

In China, people have named this desert as “Moguicheng” or a city of devil. “Moguicheng” is famous in Xinjiang, China. When someone is strolling towards the castle in a sunny day accompanying with a gentle blowing breeze, one may heard a nice rhythm coming from the distance. The melodies are just like 10 million shaking bells, and sometimes one may feel the music like gentle flicking of 10 million guitars' strings. However, when cyclones come, bulks of sands are rising up in the sky by the strong winds, the sky turns pitch dark suddenly like a hell, and the nice music no longer heard but turns into strange sounds. The sounds resemble the roaring of the tigers, trumpeting of the elephants, and sounds by pigs that are being slaughtered, babies' crying, shouting of the women who are going to die, and alternately the sounds change to shouting, mourning and quarreling. The storms are then swirling aggressively by shooting up to the sky accompanying by terrified wolf growling sounds in the cloudy nightfall. People are wandering who had built this city and where do the sounds come from?
This island is legendary full of Surreptitious and specter. Westerners prefer sailing by venturing many historically strange events occurred here in the history of seafaring. In 1707, the British captain of the Andean Julius had discovered this land; however, it was strange that he could hardly reach this land. He later affirmed that this was not an optical illusion, so he marked the “land” on the map. 200 years later, the admiral Makaluofu and his inspection team who were sailing to the North Pole on their icebreaker vessel called "Ye Ermake," accidentally came across this piece of land. In 1925, Navigator called Woershi, too, passed through this land and he memorized the outline of the land. Nevertheless, the investigation team comprising of scientists, who sailed to this land in 1928 never found any islands as claimed by the previous navigators.
This place is located in Henan, China, and local people called it “bingbing bei” or the back of the ice. When midsummer approaches, people tend to move to places that are cool and refreshing. Although the change of four seasons, namely summer, autumn, spring and winter is an unchangeable law, in certain parts of the world, this theory seems not to be applicable. They are some fortunate people live in “warm” zone. This phenomenon is applying to people dwelling in the eastern mountain areas of Liaoning Province, China. They are experiencing warm temperature while other areas of China are experiencing the changes of seasons. Thus, this area has named after this phenomenon as "temperature anomaly zone." This "geothermal anomaly zone" extends from 1.5m out of the town of the left riverbank of Hunjiang to the end part of the right riverbank of Hun River and to the foothills near Guandian Province. The entire length for this "temperature anomaly zone" is approximately 15km, occupying the areas of approximately 106,000 square meters. The advent of summer is always accompanying with a decline of temperature in the area of "temperature anomaly zone." When the temperature reaches as high as 30 degree Celsius during the summer, the temperature is minus 12 degree Celsius at one-meter deep into the underground of this area, and the ice froze underground. When someone dips a drop of water one-meter deep into the underground of this area, the water will immediately turn into ice.
Shennongjia is located at the intersection of Sichuan, in Hubei zone, with the meeting of two rivers, namely China's Yangtze River and Hanjiang River. This region comprises an area of 3,250 square kilometers, accounting for more than 85 % of woodland. The average elevation is 1,700m, with the highest point of 3,105 meters, and with the characteristic of various types of climate. When speaking of Shennongjia, people here will think of “savage.” Since ancient times, large numbers of documentations have revealed the existence of savage roaming around this area. Legendary, people could even hardly identify the authenticity of the savage. The effort of collecting evidence on the existence of savage was initiating by the relevant departments from 1977 to 1980. They had collected savage hairs, footprints and feces left by the savage. This proved to us that a kind of bizarre animal might have existed in Shennongjia not long ago.
This is the famous ancient city of Teotihuacan in America, which called “death to the road.” This region stretched from a so-called main road of “death to the road” to the north-south roadway. In the tenth century AD, Ards heroes who were the earliest team walking along this way leading to a castle found nobody in the city, and thus they believed that the buildings on either side of the road were gods' tomb lands. In 1974, a Mexican person called Dayton • Halisi said that he had found a suitable unit measurement for all these streets and buildings at this city at the International American meeting. This unit length is 1.059m using a calculation from a computer. For example, the units for the Teaodiwakan snake temple, the moon and the Sun Pyramid is the height of 21, 42, and 63 "units" respectively with the ratio of 1:2:3 based upon the ancient calculation.
People not allowed entering this Kunlun Mountains as its name suggested as "The Gates of Hell." This valley is a death valley, which further claims the Kunlun Mountains "The Gates of Hell." The remains found in this valley were the furs, bones, skeletons of wolves, bears and hunters and some scattered lonely tombs, rendering the world in the death of a ghastly terrifying atmosphere. The Xinjiang Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources of a geological team in China had recorded a true story in the year of 1983 on a group of hungry horse that was grazing the grass and disappeared suddenly in the "The Gates of Hell." A herdsman went into the prohibited area of "The Gates of Hell" to search for his horse. After few days, he was found missing but the horse emerged at the foothill of Kunlun Mountains. Later, the herdsman was found lying on a small hill with his clothes badly torn off, barely footed, eyes widely opened with an angry look, a shotgun gripping in one of his hands showing that he was reluctantly to die. The miraculous thing was that no wounds or signs found around his body to show that he had attacked.
Canada Niagara Falls is the world's most mysterious places in the world. Niagara Falls constitutes a part of Canada and the border of United States, the New York State and Ontario, Canada, separating from the Niagara River by flowing northward from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario with a total length of nearly 30 miles. Located in the north, covering an area of 250,000 square miles, Niagara Falls is a smooth exit to these lakes. Its maximum water flow reaches 250,000 cubic feet per second. Niagara Falls is indeed very awesome.
This Geysering is a magical spring found in the upper part of the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet, China. The spring bursts out in a short while and stops for a while before following by other bursts. The burst goes on, stops and goes on. In other words, its eruption cycle is continuous for a few minutes, auto stop after a few dozen minutes; and followed by another burst and so forth. It bursts like an eruption with a huge, shocked sound. It vents out some high temperature steam from the mouth of the spring. The spring then expands immediately into one to two meters in diameter, and rushes out as water column as high as 20m into the sky. In addition to China's Geysering, in the place near Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, the Geysering is renowned in the world with its diameter of 20m. When there is drizzling rain, this water column can even soar up as high as 70m into the sky.

10 Divine Apparitions In Unexpected Places


In May 2009, mother-of-three Claire Allen, 36, saw this image in a Marmite jar when she was preparing toast for her youngest boy.
A number of parishioners at St. Mary's church in Rathkeale, Ireland, noticed the outline of the Virgin Mary in a tree that was cut down to clean up the grounds. Over 2,000 townspeople have signed a petition asking that the stump remain where it is, calling it a "divine intervention," but a local priest, Fr Willie Russell, thinks otherwise, saying, "There's nothing there, it's just a tree. People shouldn't worship a tree.
In 2004, a Florida woman made U$ 28,000 after selling a toasted cheese sandwich that appeared to show the face of the Virgin Mary on internet auction site eBay. She had kept the half-eaten snack for 10 years and said it was "miraculous" it had not shown any signs of mould or crumbling in that time.

Note: The $28000 bid was later determined to be not legitimate. The highest legitimate bid was $71.

Jesus was spotted by Pittsburgh resident Jeffrey Rigo on June 11, 2005. Stepping out of the shower that day Rigo yelled, ‘Jesus Christ!' My girlfriend asked me, ‘Oh, my God, what is it?' I pointed and responded, ‘No, Jesus Christ!'” Rigo cut out the piece of plaster with the image on it and put it up on E-bay with the description “a section of plaster wall bearing the apparent face of the Son of God.” It sold for $1,999.99
In 2008, an unexplained image in a hospital prayer garden window of Orlando, Florida, moved some people to tears and drew groups of people to a hallway before vanishing. A crowd inside the Florida Hospital Medical Complex snapped photos of the image apparently showing the profile of Jesus Christ crying.
In Arizona, a patient at a dentist's office saw Jesus on an X-ray. The dentist, and staff that the X-ray contains an image resembling Jesus
In November 2006, photographer and artist Jessica White's dog, called Angus MacDougall, had Jesus appearing on his... well, bottom. The dog is a very cute three-year-old terrier mix. The image of Jesus can be "clearly" seen in the fur surrounding his anus
Look carefully... Jesus in a chocolate?
Michael Cartwright and his friends were in Tanners Hall, a pub in Darlington, England, when they saw what looked like the face of Jesus in the foil wrapping of a bottle of Bulmer's cider.
An image of Mary was reported to have appeared in the glass facade of a finance building in Clearwater, Florida, and attracted widespread media attention. The building drew an estimated one million visitors over the next several years and was purchased by an Ohio Catholic revivalism group. A local chemist examined the windows and suggested the stain was produced by water deposits combined with weathering, yielding a chemical reaction like that often seen on old bottles, perhaps due to the action of the water sprinkler. On March 1, 2004, the three uppermost panes of the window were broken by a vandal.

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