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We left Vientiane around 9 AM heading for the Viet Nam border. We will spend the night at a small village about 2 hours drive from the border. The drive to the village is a long one lasting about 7 hours. We travel southeast along the Mekong river for about 4 hours with Thailand to our west. We finally turn northeast following rte 8 towards the Viet Nam border. Along the way we stop for toilet breaks at happy rooms, lunch, pass a major hydroelectric power plant and finally arrive at our destination, Nam Theum bridge, Laos.
To get to the village, we take "B-52 Boats" which are boats made out of B-52 petro fuel tanks which were ejected from the planes during their Viet Nam war bombing runs....this is a successful recycling project...boat has no keel so you must be very still and avoid capsizing the B-52. The mountains you see in the picture were the home to the village we visited...the VN war and unexploded ordinance forced them to move to their current location about 20 miles west.
Our final destination is the village, Sopyuag. What a wonderful evening...the village is full of children who we entertain and they entertain us. Ben and Tuo play the guitar, we sing a few songs and the kids join in...what a great night.....After spending time with some village families we have dinner. Our guide, KY, cooked us a delicious meal which includes stuffed tomatoes and cabbage each stuffed with a mixture that included pork, lemon grass, pepper, sticky rice, and onions...delicious. Dessert and a shot of rice wine made an appropriate end to a wonderful day.
Attached are random pictures of our village home stay including embroidery items which we purchased
After dinner we walked to our home stay home which is a very nice cabin raised on 4x4 pilings. The bedroom is one large room...there are 3 of us...Simon/Elizabeth and me along with the host family. he floor mats are comfortable and we fall asleep shortly after 9:30 PM. The only problem is waking up in the middle of the night having to go to the squat toilet...it's dark, you can't find your shoes but you do have a flashlight...I can hit my target...
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