The Chinese have
economic ties with Laos; they’re building roads in return for timber. I can’t
say that the engineering is the best; water drainage is poor
The result on rivers and the environment is obvious
This is the payback;
six wheel drive Chinese ex-military logging trucks collecting the prize
Logs are then
trimmed into square sections and trucked out on grossly over loaded, over wide
and over long loads
While trying to find a camp for the night we decided to try next to one of the many hydro dams that have been built in the last 5 years. This one was only finished four months ago. The security gate was locked but the guard asked the ‘boss’ who took a liking to us and showed us over the hydro plant and gave us a great park for the night
A beautiful sunset over the new dam
The drive north was trhough some interesting limestone karst mountains
Life can be tough work
At Ponsivan a visit to the Plain of Jars was intriguing. No
one knows how or why these were built but their age is estimated to be around
2000 years and weighing up to 6 tonne. Best speculation is that they were made
for burial purposes
How long each took to make and how they were made from solid
basalt makes you wonder
Ponsivan was the
location of some of the heaviest bombing by the Americans during the Vietnam
and Secret War. As with this example bomb craters are everywhere
The remnants of war have also been put to good use. With 30%
of all ordinance failing to explode and a price of 20c for scrap steel makes
for a dangerous game of salvage
How about 6x
500lb unexploded bomb casings as foundations for your home?......
……or for growing
a crop of spring onions…
We drove up one
valley to a cave where the Pathet Lao hid from the American bombing. The drive
in was superb with heavy rain forest, mist covered hills and sharply rising
karst limestone cliffs…….
….and finally the first cave which was a medical depot but closed to our entrance
With the wet
season just starting the paddy fields were being prepared for the next crop of
rice
This was an interesting table of meat. How about this animal lying next to the pork and eggs! I don’t know what it was but looked like a cross between a dog, a possum and a fox! Certainly not my dream of a delicacy!…..
……or perhaps some rat. Yes!!! Sun dried rat!!....…..
……so Marina
decided to continue with her own cooking and did another class, this time in
Lao cooking but without the animal thing above
But with so many
restaurants along the Mekong why cook? Here we enjoyed a Lao bar-b-q
Fishing the Mekong
Luang
Prabang is a world heritage city with many beautiful Watts. This is the Sene
Watt
The giving of the alms is a
traditional ceremony to give food to the monks every morning at 6 o’clock
A visit to a traditional silk weaving factory……
….which produces some beautiful fabric
The
final road north to the Chinese border had some very rough patches
This was rather indicative
of Laos; still harvesting and thrashing rice by hand. In Thailand it’s all
mechanized
A visit to a school to
deliver some books as a gift brought some great interaction with the children
A bunch of kids were on the run from the foreigners!
Our
last camp at Boten, Laos before crossing the border. An economic zone that
hasn’t worked. We are in the parking area of a four story shopping mall with
escalators installed but never finished being built.
Hi Miles and Marina, love your blog look forward to the next one. Exciting trip all well here. Have just bought a Pajero hope to do some trips out west and the centre . Are you back traveling buy your self again? all the best and safe traveling Kevin & Mandy
ReplyDeleteHi Kevin and Mandy
DeleteThanks for your comments and good to hear from you! From the group of five that we organized our travel through China with we are now down to being with two other couples which we get along great guns with. All went well in China but glad to be with a smaller group and that works by choice. In China we had to stick together as we had arranged with the government. While we get along well with these two couples we will also probably all end up following our own travel plans. In the mean time we enjoy each others company and support
Hey great to hear that you have a Pajero - good vehicle and I'm sure you will have some great trips
Cheers
Miles n Marina