We've been in some pretty remote places over the last few days with no Internet access so here's the a delayed "Day Four" with more to follow:
Today was the wettest day we've seen so far. It was raining the entire morning and was just about monsoonal so the call was made that we would delay our departure by an hour to see if it cleared up. It didn't. The call was made that it was too dangerous to ride so we all got in the vans and went to the Plains of Jars. This is a very interesting place and a little difficult to describe. It is a wide area where hundreds of stone "jars" have been placed there over the years. These "jars" are hand carved out of stone and transported to this location over 40km away from where they were made. Why? As a final resting place for the dead of course. There are a group of people in Laos known as the Mong and it is their ancient tradition to place the bodies of their dead into these "jars", with some of their belongings, and lay them down to rest in this location. It is not a practice that is used much any more though. It is also a bit of a mystery as to why this particular location. This site was also heavily bombed and while the area where the "jars" are has been cleared of UXOs, there are still clearly marked areas that haven't been swept clean and are no-go zones. There are still plenty of reminders of the war at the Plain of Jars, with many craters created when bombs were dropped, still visually impacting, as are the trenches used by the local troops to move around in. It was a very wet visit, but definitely worth it.
We jumped back in the vans and went back to the hotel to get all our gear and make another assessment as to wheter it would be OK to ride. As is was still raining quite heavily, it was decided that we would get in the vans and drive to the next city on our schedule. The views were great as always and all the usual suspects were out on the roads. Despite those obstacles, I and several others wished we could be riding. There has been a strange familiarity of the scenery for much of the trip so far and today it occurred to me; it looks and feels just like the countryside of Brazil. The houses with shops underneath, mechanic workshops, kids running in the street, dogs, cats and all other animals around the place. Anyway, I digress. We stopped to have lunch along the way to our next stop and were able to get on the bikes after that, but only for a short ride to Muang Kham where we would be staying for the night. Once we settled in, we all got back on the bikes to go and visit a cave that was supposed to be a safe haven for farmers and villages during the war. They had fled to this cave and set up schools, medical facilities, etc. inside to continue to function as a society in relative safety from the war going on outside. The atrocities committed at this location by the US army is not really content to be discussed here, but ask me about it some time and I'll relay the story to you. Among many feelings that this cave manifested in me, I was awestruck by the size of it and the engenuity of the people to make it a small subterrainian village to protect themselves. On the ride back, we stopped alongside a villager's house where there were two women using a manual loom to create intricate patterns on some dresses they making to sell at the markets. She informed us that it took 2-3 days to make one dress and if you saw what they were creating, you would imagine that it should take much longer.
We made it back to the hotel to freshen up and clean all the mud off us. It had started raining while we were at the caves and combined with the muddy roads and the fact that it had been raining all day anyway, we were extremely dirty. Chris Mastaglio, director of ChildFund Laos, joined us for dinner and gave us a quick briefing afterwards on the logistics for visiting the villages that ChildFund is working in. He also gave us an update on all the work that ChildFund is doing in these villages. Our fundraising efforts were towards the clean water and sanitary project, but they are also setting up schools for the kids of the area, teaching them about hygene and health in general, giving children (especially girls) a voice in the communities that are highly traditional and highly patriachal, sporting programs for the children, ensuring children are well nourished and more. We are getting the first taste of the work being done by ChildFund in Nonghet tomorrow where we will stay for two nights.
We didn't get a chance to go to the hot springs today because of poor weather conditions and lighting. We will ride there tomorrow morning before heading to Nonghet. More updates tomorrow. By the way, my finger is good in case you were wondering. It has gone all shades of black, purple and green, but it still quite swollen. :-)
The photo below is a view of the mountain where the cave I described above was.
Today was the wettest day we've seen so far. It was raining the entire morning and was just about monsoonal so the call was made that we would delay our departure by an hour to see if it cleared up. It didn't. The call was made that it was too dangerous to ride so we all got in the vans and went to the Plains of Jars. This is a very interesting place and a little difficult to describe. It is a wide area where hundreds of stone "jars" have been placed there over the years. These "jars" are hand carved out of stone and transported to this location over 40km away from where they were made. Why? As a final resting place for the dead of course. There are a group of people in Laos known as the Mong and it is their ancient tradition to place the bodies of their dead into these "jars", with some of their belongings, and lay them down to rest in this location. It is not a practice that is used much any more though. It is also a bit of a mystery as to why this particular location. This site was also heavily bombed and while the area where the "jars" are has been cleared of UXOs, there are still clearly marked areas that haven't been swept clean and are no-go zones. There are still plenty of reminders of the war at the Plain of Jars, with many craters created when bombs were dropped, still visually impacting, as are the trenches used by the local troops to move around in. It was a very wet visit, but definitely worth it.
We jumped back in the vans and went back to the hotel to get all our gear and make another assessment as to wheter it would be OK to ride. As is was still raining quite heavily, it was decided that we would get in the vans and drive to the next city on our schedule. The views were great as always and all the usual suspects were out on the roads. Despite those obstacles, I and several others wished we could be riding. There has been a strange familiarity of the scenery for much of the trip so far and today it occurred to me; it looks and feels just like the countryside of Brazil. The houses with shops underneath, mechanic workshops, kids running in the street, dogs, cats and all other animals around the place. Anyway, I digress. We stopped to have lunch along the way to our next stop and were able to get on the bikes after that, but only for a short ride to Muang Kham where we would be staying for the night. Once we settled in, we all got back on the bikes to go and visit a cave that was supposed to be a safe haven for farmers and villages during the war. They had fled to this cave and set up schools, medical facilities, etc. inside to continue to function as a society in relative safety from the war going on outside. The atrocities committed at this location by the US army is not really content to be discussed here, but ask me about it some time and I'll relay the story to you. Among many feelings that this cave manifested in me, I was awestruck by the size of it and the engenuity of the people to make it a small subterrainian village to protect themselves. On the ride back, we stopped alongside a villager's house where there were two women using a manual loom to create intricate patterns on some dresses they making to sell at the markets. She informed us that it took 2-3 days to make one dress and if you saw what they were creating, you would imagine that it should take much longer.
We made it back to the hotel to freshen up and clean all the mud off us. It had started raining while we were at the caves and combined with the muddy roads and the fact that it had been raining all day anyway, we were extremely dirty. Chris Mastaglio, director of ChildFund Laos, joined us for dinner and gave us a quick briefing afterwards on the logistics for visiting the villages that ChildFund is working in. He also gave us an update on all the work that ChildFund is doing in these villages. Our fundraising efforts were towards the clean water and sanitary project, but they are also setting up schools for the kids of the area, teaching them about hygene and health in general, giving children (especially girls) a voice in the communities that are highly traditional and highly patriachal, sporting programs for the children, ensuring children are well nourished and more. We are getting the first taste of the work being done by ChildFund in Nonghet tomorrow where we will stay for two nights.
We didn't get a chance to go to the hot springs today because of poor weather conditions and lighting. We will ride there tomorrow morning before heading to Nonghet. More updates tomorrow. By the way, my finger is good in case you were wondering. It has gone all shades of black, purple and green, but it still quite swollen. :-)
The photo below is a view of the mountain where the cave I described above was.
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