Bangkok to Luang Prabang in 6 days

After we climbed onto the boat, four baskets of these live chickens were loaded onto the roof of the boat for the 5 hour ride down the Mekong.


Our boat arrives in the distance. We board across a plank on the beach.


Our truck taxi is loaded as we wait to leave Hongsa.


Dick waits in the "transportation station" that is more like a cross between a chicken coop and an animal pound.


Our hotel in Hongsa.


The pig fat is shared among all the children that are in the room.


A weary mother is served the last piece of pig fat.


This was the mother of all 10 of these children watching a movie.


This man was happy to have us visit as long as we came with a bag of pig fat. Upon our arrival he quickly cut some of it up and forced it into a green bamboo tube which he then put on the fire for 20 minutes or so. He turned it from time to time. A small crowd of people gathered for the spoils that disappeared in less than a minute.

While waiting for our truck taxi to the Mekong, these two went by on a motorbike carrying a satellite dish.


These are the braziers that are in virtually every home and hut all over SE Asia. They are also what street vendors cook on often carrying them around with burning fires in them. These were made from sandy dirt (not clay) mixed with the husks of sticky rice and water and wrapped up for two weeks. It is then processed like clay. Very interesting.


This was one of several shops in this town where there were salt wells. It was refined over heat and sold in kilo bags. Apparently it was very tasty, but we were not prepared to carry it around for 2 months until we got home.


We came upon a gathering at a local sidewalk restaurant. They were eating raw beef chopped with blood mixed into it. We didn't try it.


This was the local bus from Phrae to Nan. Much more comfortable than our 2nd class AC Train from Bangkok. The AC didn't work and the windows didn't open.




We stopped at a local reservoir that was also a fish pond. Once a year villagers pay $1 and can keep what they can catch.


When in Nan we took a jeep to visit some rural villages. The first stop we made was the parts shop to get a new lug nut for the tire. They didn't have one that fit, so they decided that 5 was enough. Good luck to us.