Feb 19 – Drive to Xiengkhuang

We are in for a very long day’s drive to Xiengkhuang, home of several sites of the Field of Jars.  But first, just outside of town we saw a couple of elephants headed to work. 

The drive of 218 miles took about 10 hours with an hour stop for lunch.  That’s a speed of about 22 miles per hour.  The road was riddled with potholes.  On most of the outside curves there was nothing but holes and dirt…the paved surface was gone.  And there were huge numbers of large trucks.  

This route is a main route used to transport goods from Laos to China and we saw a number of large trucks.

 But the drive was beautiful, very mountainous.

Large patches of pampas grass.

A field of young pineapples on a steep slope. 

There were with occasional small clusters of homes (some very colorful) and small villages beside the road…

and harvested fields, 

and tableaus of rural life.  

We did stop at a small village where we wandered up the street…

and stopped to give small gifts of toiletries to some of the locals. 

Many of the homes were on stilts with family work and storage going on under the house.  Most of the buildings were made of wood. 

Buildings especially made for storing grains. 

Some firewood stored under a house. 

A soccer ball made of woven grasses. 

We also watched a man working on bamboo, making sheets that would be used as siding.  The stalk of bamboo was cut into lengths and rolled open.  When rolled flat the pieces that held the bamboo together now protruded from the bamboo.  The man had a large machete type knife and was cutting then off.

There were tons of chickens and some ducks and geese in the village roaming free.  The guide said that they roam free but they know where their home is so they all go home at night.  Lots of baby chicks and ducks too.

As we were leaving four little girls came to wave us off. 

We arrived at our hotel in Xiengkhuang around six.  After settling in we all headed down to the dining room for dinner.  Mary had a very nice pumpkin soup and Paul had fried rice and some vegetables.  Noting fancy but good enough.