Laos Part 3 - The END

After visiting the caves in Vang Vieng, and spending the night in the hotel with all the rules...see previous post...we headed  through the mountains to visit the Plain of Jars.  The drive through the mountains was beautiful, a little scary and actually cold when we got to the top.  Here are some photos of our drive through the mountains.  They may not be exactly on the road to Xieng  Khuang, where the Plain is located, but all are of the mountains through Laos.                                                                                                                                                                   

 

We were driving along and saw these young girls tossing a ball back and forth.  They are of the Hmong tribe of Laos.  They were very sweet and didn't mind us taking their photo.  Their clothes were mostly the same, but they had different styles of head dresses.

As you can see from the photo above, there was a lot of rice farming in the valleys.  Most of the crops were already in, but even so the landscape was amazing.

Driving in the mountains was a little dangerous, not so much because cars were going 100 miles an hour, but because there was zero curb.  We were all a little shocked by how closely the children played to the road.  So, you'd be driving along, enjoying the scenery, and LOOK OUT!!!  A two year old is playing on the S curve of a mountain road:

Needless to say it was a little freaky for us!  At the top visibility got a little dicey as well.  Dad and Shawn must have told our drive 100 times to slow down, and be careful and watch it and so on and so on and so on.  I don't think he (the driver) minded too much because he didn't speak much English so he couldn't understand them anyway.  Mom and I could though so that part of our journey was a little...stressful.  In all fairness you couldn't see hardly anything.

We did drive in this fog for about an hour. 





















Eventually we came out of it and made it to the Plains. No one really knows exactly what these jars were used for.  They are around 2000 years old, and there are various theories as to what they were used for.  Some say they were used as sarcophagi, or for fermenting wine, or for rice storage.  There are some lids lying around for a few of the jars along with vases that may have contained human remains.  By and large they are still a mystery and may be related to some stone megaliths nearby.  It's been difficult to study all of the jars...there are unexploded ordinances all over the place (UXO), or land mines, so needless to say people don't really want to stroll around the area or dig around the area to find evidence.  There are around 20 known sites but these three are the largest and the sites that are pretty much cleared of landmines.  We stayed ON the paths!

The fog here made everything look very eery.  The jars were huge as this picture shows.

The girls were not immune to having people want to take their picture...even at 6am in rural Laos!

This picture shows Mattie pointing in the direction of safety.  If you look at the stone or brick in front of her you can see one side of it painted white.  The other is painted red although it doesn't really show in this photo.  These bricks were everywhere and indicated the safe zone.  Basically, stay inside the white area.  Everything outside the red is not safe of UXO's.  The amazing thing about the Lao people is that they were very kind to Americans, even though all of these UXO's were our doing.  During the Vietnam War, the U.S. dropped hundreds of bombs on Laos.  I won't quote the numbers because I'm can't remember exactly but the numbers made me want to start apologizing! 

 

Here we are at the top of the mountain eating diner.  We ordered chicken, and we got a chicken.  Look closely at Phoebe!  Yummy!

 

 

After we left the Plain of Jars and had chicken feet for lunch we headed to Luang Prabang to go on an elephant trek and see the surrounding area. 

Phoebe about to take off with Grandpa on her elephant ride

We got to ride our elephants in the river.  It was pretty amazing.

mom and mattie, dad and phoebe

mom and mattie

So we walked down the path and all was well.

Then we hit the steep part.  All I kept thinking was that I was going to die in Laos, death by elephant crushing.  Poor Greta probably couldn't breathe because I was holding her so tightly.  The elephants did fine and none of them slipped and plummeted down the mountain with us on their backs, so all was well.

Poor Emma was sick so they went to ride first, alone without the mahout.  Nobody else got to do that so it was special for Emma, but they were disappointed they didn't get to ride in the river.  Shawn took Emma back to the hotel.

Who needs an umbrella for shade when you can just pick a banana leaf?!?!

 

 This is the little girl who  you can pay to set the bird free.  From what I understand, the birds are trained to come back to the little cages and then visitors to the Wats (temples) will pay to set them free.  Absolutely no disrespect intended, but it's a Buddhist thing.

The little girl from the photo above this one was one of the children we saw while visiting Pak Ou Caves.  These caves are crowded with Buddhas and an impressive sight. You had to take a boat across the river then climb the stairs to get to there.

Luang Prabang has a long standing tradition that every morning the monks walk in a line around the city to collect alms from the locals and tourists.  The line went on and on and on and was amazing.  Mattie ended up participating as you can see from the photo below.  Some of the monks were very small boys, around 10 years old or so.  They live in the Wats and study.

 We were a little shocked to see this toddler wielding this knife.  I'm thinking a little later he probably starting to run with it. 

They were very tired.  Isn't Shawn just the best dad in the world?  Ok, it's a three way tie for number one. 

The photo below is my attempt at being a  Lao woman by carrying  Greta with the cloth thingy.  It worked awesome, and I could switch her from side to side and to my back and front.  Juli and Christy are probably laughing at me right now because they both used the awesome slings for their babies.  I forgot the Baby Bjorn though so we bought this from some Lao women selling their wares.

          Phoebe, without fail, put her shoes on the wrong feet every time!  Shawn was being a supportive dad.

We saw some kids on the side of the road all working in this building.  We decided to stop and see what they were doing.  We think what they were doing was bundling up flax or some other kind of crop.  They were so sweet and dad took his camera and took pictures of all of them and then showed them.  We took the photo below of the sweetest little girl...

This is by far my favorite photo of a little girl and the one below is my favorite photo of an old woman.

Now before you think we're perverts or something, we took this picture not because of the half naked men, but because of the way in which they were taking their shower.  All throughout the mountains they had these pipes that clearly trapped water so that the locals could have clean, running water.  It must have been freezing, but you saw people all the time bathing.  The men and the women would all be standing there, the women covered up with a sarong or something and the men in their skivvies.  You can see the pipe in between the two men in blue albeit very little blue. 

Back on the road again.   

glad I'm not this lady

Or these ones, although they are making roofs out of straw.  Definitely noble.

But especially this lady.  I find it interesting that she is chopping wood right next to her satellite dish.

Now these boys were having some fun.  It's not really evident in this photo, but they were playing soccer.  Instead of shirts and skins, it was CAUTION tape or no CAUTION tape.

This photo was just too sweet to leave out.

Phoebe adores her Bampa.

And of course they all adore their Grandma.

So we made it back to the capital where we took the plane back to Bangkok, Thailand.  We decided to hang out at the airport for most of the day instead of trying to navigate the city.  Dad and Shawn just couldn't help rearranging the children's toys.  They deemed it unsafe in various locations so they simple moved it.  Looks dangerous huh?

So that's all.  We had an amazing 10 day trip.  Thanks to mom and dad for being so awesome and so much fun on this trip.  Finally finished Laos 2009/2010! 
Sa-ba-dee (goodbye (and hello) in Lao)