Thakhek - Savannakhet - Phin

Another long day on the motorbike. From Thakhek we took a secondary road to Savannaket. The road was rougher, but went closer to the river. It turned to be a good choice as it past some interesting things.

During first part of the day we had many views of the wide Mekong River and the life of people beside it.

There were many small ethnic villages similar to what we saw in the mountains: some seemed ok while some were very poor. It seemed to depend on the land they were on and what they could grow. The better-off villages had rice fields while the poor ones seemed to be trying to survive on a small plot of banana trees in the forest.

Being a secondary road, it got very rough in places.

At one point we passed a complex that turned out to be an important site. It was the Sikhittabong Stupa, originally built in the 1500's. Inside a temple a Lao woman offered to take a pcture of me.

The location was once a populated area, and it is now callled the Ancient City site with a few replicas of old style Lao houses.

We stopped briefly in Savannakhet and then continued on. This is a large city on the Thai border. The highway from Savannakhet to the Vietnamese border is fast and very well paved but full of trucks.

We kept going until it got too late and stopped in the small town of Phin for the night. Next to our hotel was a restaurant and bar with pool tables, and all the youth of the town spent their evenings there.

In the morning we found a place that was open early and had our usual breakfast of Pho. While we were there the monks came by in their daily collection of food donations.