We spent a couple of hours at the Elephant Village just watching. The first thing that happens each day is that the handlers bring them back from the forest where they spend the night. They take quite a bit of encouragement to get out of the water!
When they get back up to camp they are bought to a feeding station. One of them had an itch and used a tree to scratch it. It reminded me of Jungle Book, but not sure if it was the bear or the elephant that had the itch …
We drove south from the Elephant Village towards Vientiane, following the river. It was interesting to see that at the end of the wet season, locals start to plant on the edges of the river in the fertile silt. Lots of rain would be a disaster!
Further down the road was a local bus. With all the dust and no windows, we would not like to go too far in that.
We turned off on to the road to Phonsavan and drove through the mountains for about 90km. The land started to flatten out and again rice was the main crop. The drying was done in big bell shaped stacks which looked great spread out across the landscape.
Some of the rice is thrashed by hand to separate the rice from the stems, here a machine was used. It seems like farm contracting goes on here just the same as home.
There is lots of evidence in the area of the Vietnam war, bombs are displayed around in the little town and here a bomb crater forms a handy pond!
We continued on to Phonsavan and out on the road leading south west to the Plain of Jars site one. Just before the gate we took a track to the right and asked in the house if we could park for the night. It was just on the bank of a lake which was used as a fish farm. A really quiet spot and only 100m from the entrance of the jars site.
troopytracks 