The Two Faces of Traveller’s Laos

I was trying to figure out how to explain our trip after Luang Prabang, the jewel of Laos. I guess the short thing to say is that we then went off to Vang Vieng, spent two nights, and then continued on to Phonsavan. But that’s not the whole story, not even close.

I don’t really want to go too much into our time in Vang Vieng for a lot of reasons. The first is probably that I don’t want to encourage anybody to ever go there. (Side note, if you’ve never heard of this place or only know a little bit, check out this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/07/vang-vieng-laos-party-town) Did we have an entertaining time there? Sure. It’s pretty much like Spring Break in Laos. Did we float down the river, eat lots of hamburgers and drink lots of beer? Naturally. Was the scenery incredible? Yes. That was the main saving grace of Vang Vieng, the main thing that made it worthwhile to go there. Was it an accurate representation of anything Lao? Absolutely not.

I hesitate to even consider the place in Laos. Yes, it is in the national borders and there are a few Laotians that live and work there, but the place doesn’t seem like the rest of Laos in the slightest. I didn’t see one Lao restaurant or even one Laotian there for relaxation or any purpose other than working to entertain and feed drinks to the obnoxious foreigners. The main language of the place is definitely English first, French or German next, and then Lao a distant fourth.

The more I keep writing about Vang Vieng, however, the more I get disgusted with the place and everyone who goes there to support it. If you ever go to Laos, I suggest steering clear of this place, I guess this is how I can make amends for having gone there and supported this disrespectful side of travelling. Read the article I posted above if you want to know more, I’m just going to continue writing about what happened once we got on the bus to go to Phonsavan.

Well, we hopped on the bus after two nights in Vang Vieng and like everywhere else in Laos the scenery was amazing for much of the journey. Once we started getting closer to Phonsavan and onto the Plain the landscape began changing. There were fewer trees and it was a bit more arid. This reference may not help too many people, but it reminded me a lot of northern New Mexico but flatter. The bus ride took about six or seven hours to Phonsavan, capital of the Xieng Khuang province in Northeastern Laos. The city of Phonsavan itself isn’t anything special but it’s the history and what lies around it that made it the most special and important place to me throughout the trip. A little history lesson will follow. If you don’t want to read about one of the biggest (and least known) blotches in America’s foreign policy, skip the next paragraph.

Phonsavan is a relatively new provincial capital, having been created in the 1970’s following the US’s pullout from the secret war it led here alongside the much more public one in Vietnam. The formal provincial capital, located just down the road 20 km was leveled so completely by the Americans that it was deemed a better decision to just start a new town from scratch. You see, the CIA ran a secret guerilla and aerial war against the Pathet Lao (communists) and their North Vietnamese supporters. After the dust settled and the Americans were gone, a power vacuum emerged in their wake and was to be filled by the Communists. Then, some startling statistics began to emerge. Between 1964-1973 the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than on Germany and Japan during World War II, and much of it was focused on the Xieng Khuang province. On top of that, the number of bombing runs averages out to one bombing run every eight minutes, for 9 years. Laos is now, the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in history. If this isn’t bad enough, experts estimate that 30% of the bombs dropped never detonated and are still laying the fields, waiting to explode.

So we arrived in Phonsavan knowing a bit about this history but coming for what most people do: to see the Jars. Large stone jars are situated in many different sites in the area and their actual purpose isn’t clear. Some suspect they were originally funeral urns—albeit incredibly large ones—though I prefer the local myth: there once was a group of giants who ruled the area and after a large victory in battle the chief supplied copious amounts of lao-lao and these large stone jars were the containers.

Well, we got there and found the Kong Keo guesthouse. Unfortunately, Mr. Kong couldn’t support himself and his family just on the guesthouse business so he now lives and works in China and sends money back to his wife who currently runs the guesthouse. Well, we met a couple very nice Dutch girls who invited us to this Indian Restaurant in town. We decided to check it out and it was decent and not too pricey. That night, we sat around a little fire pit outside the guesthouse and got into a discussion with a few other foreigners there including some Swiss people.

The next day we got up and found some breakfast before trying to go about and find a way to do some exploring in the area. We failed trying to find motos (they were only manual) and ended up just booking a tour the next day through our guesthouse. The Indian food from the night before was also a bit too authentic as Paul and Patrick weren’t feeling too good and ended up resting up for most of the day. Later, Henry and I went to MAG’s (Mines Advisory Group) Phonsavan office to find out some more information about UXO (Unexploded Ordinances) clearance efforts in the area. This group seems to be a fantastic organization and if anything I said earlier about the bombings tugged on your heartstrings (or sense of shame if you’re American, like me, and couldn’t believe this had happened) you should really check out their website and some more information on them. We watched a couple videos there about the bombs and UXOs still left around and then went back to the guesthouse. We hit up a really good Lao restaurant that night, again with the Dutch girls who, strangely enough, didn’t seem that interested in exploring the Plain of Jars or seeing any of the impact of the secret war. They were content to just hang out and then slowly move on to the next place in a couple days time.

Well, Patrick was feeling pretty rough on our last day in Phonsavan so he stayed at the guesthouse and rested while the three of us joined up with a number of other travelers for the tour that our guesthouse was putting together. We first went out to a site where there was a huge crater left over from the war. Looking about the countryside, we could see the hills in the distance were pock-marked with similar craters. Also, we were instructed where we could and couldn’t walk due to little markers on the ground. One half of the marker was red the other half was white. Everything on the white side up until another marker had been cleared of UXO and was safe to walk on while the other side potentially contained UXO—and almost always did have some. Indeed, as we were walking back to the van we saw a bombie (small unexploded cluster bomb) laying on the ground in the uncleared side 15 feet from where we were walking.

We then moved on to the “bomb village” which was a village where many of the residents had used old bomb shells and other artifacts from the bombs to help construct their village. Sheet metal was used for roofs and bomb casings were used as flower and vegetable beds as well as stilts for the houses. Quite industrious. After this we went for a pretty decent hike/trek. We went down into a valley and to the bottom of a waterfall where we had lunch. After lunch we had a really cool hike up through the waterfall and back to the main road where we met up again with the van.

The last thing on the agenda was to see the Jars. We went to the biggest and closest Jar site, Site 1. The scenery around was pretty but nothing spectacular. Long yellow grass blowing in the wind and some rock outcroppings lying around. The jars were somewhat eerie and certainly puzzling. I had an idea of what to expect going into it which may have been to my disadvantage. I wasn’t underwhelmed or anything but Paul and Henry were much more taken impressed with them than I was. To me, they were a bunch of jars—some huge—sitting in a field and no matter what I theorized or people said, I wasn’t going to know what they were for. Very mysterious and somewhat confusing.

We didn’t get up to too much our last night in Laos. Paul ended up taking my dose of cypro and Patrick was still resting up for most of the night. Henry and I ended up playing cards with the Dutch girls and then sitting around the fire until late into the night.

We spent three nights in Phonsavan and yet the past two days were some of the most fulfilling for me of the whole trip. Did I do anything terribly constructive? Not really. But I learned a lot about the area, the people, the history, our government, and what made this country what it is today. I also learned a bit about myself and what’s important to me in this life. I thought a lot about my friends and family back home and in Cameroon and I missed them. I wanted to send some emails off to a few people but we didn’t have internet and I’m not entirely sure what I would have said if we did have it. This was the night of January 18^th and we only had 11 days left until we parted ways.

Beer and wats in Luang Prabang

As could probably be expected, we didn’t spend too long in Oudamxai and left the next morning, bright and early for Luang Prabang. (Or Louang Prabang, or Luang Phabang, or any one of the dozens of ways we saw this city's name spelled/transliterated.) The bus was a big long proper bus with two seats on each side and an aisle in the middle. I only note this because after we got on the bus, the bus guys started loading the interior of the bus chock full of merchandise or food. As most of the seats were full, they lugged huge bags to the back of the bus and started stacking them on top of each other and eventually filled up the aisle to about shoulder height (while sitting) all the way to about the middle of the bus. As we were towards the back of the bus, it meant no stretching my long legs out into the aisle. One more interesting thing happened on the bus, we saw the older guy and younger girl from the restaurant the night before. Well, they were actually directly in front of me and across the aisle from Paul. We started up a conversation with them and they turned out to be an Aussie father-daughter combo. They were super nice and down to earth and pretty cool people. They were only sharing one backpack between them and it was both of their first time off the Australian continent. When we got to Luang Prabang we shared a taxi into town and we ran into them a few more times over the next couple days.

The taxi took us to the backpacker district in Luang Prabang and we stopped at a Western-style café and had some coffee and sandwiches before going to look for a place to stay. We found a pretty nice hotel at an okay price and as we weren’t willing to look around more and a lot of places seemed to be full, we took it. We ended up having to jump rooms a few times as the rooms we initially got ended up being reserved but the staff was very nice and accomodating.

That night we walked through the night market which was very tourist-oriented but had some decent snacks and some really nice fabrics and craftwork. Touristy or not, this place was really cool and quickly taking hold of us. After the night market, we found a nice bar and got some actual mixed drinks. It was a nice break after all those Thai and Lao lagers and crappy alcohol. I got a crepe after that with cheese and ham which was pretty good. Crepes are a thing definitely geared towards westerners in SE Asia, but that fact doesn’t make them any less tasty so I wasn’t too much of a snob about eating them. We then went to a restaurant on the bank of the Mekong River where the people who hadn’t gotten crepes had a mediocre meal and I had some mango sticky rice—my last of the trip. On the way back to the hotel we picked up some wine for the next few days as we knew we’d be staying in Luang Prabang for at least a few days while we tried to sort out or Vietnamese visas.

The next day we moseyed on over to the Vietnamese consulate which we’d heard about way back in Chiang Khong. Walking up to the place only took about 15 minutes and it was on the other side of the small mountain/large hill in town which placed it pretty much on the other side of town. The size of Luang Prabang definitely came more into focus then, as I’d expected it to be much bigger. Anyway, the Vietnamese visa procedure was pretty straightforward and not nearly as complicated as we’d been told. The consulate was also pretty lax on security, I think an elementary school in the states is generally better protected. Well, they told us to come back in two days so we said alright, see ya later.

We decided to walk back a different way which took us to the other side of the mini-mountain in town. We saw a pizza place so we sat down, got a few pies, ordered a round of beer, and played a few rounds of euchre. After this, Henry and I wanted to check out some of the statues of Buddha and the wat on the top of the mountain. There was an entrance fee to go up and Patrick and Paul were feeling a bit stingy (or maybe just not interested) so Henry and I checked it out. There were some large golden Buddha statues near the bottom and a different one in a different position for each day of the week. At the top of the mountain was a fairly small wat with nothing too spectacular about it, save for the view. We could see all of Luang Prabang from the top in a 360 degree view and also the surrounding mountains and countrysides with the two rivers coming together just north of us. Henry and I took some pictures and then walked down the mountain and right up to the Royal Museum which was closed that day. More interesting, though, was the incredibly ornate and beautiful wat accompanying it. We could only look at it from the outside, though, because it was closed maybe because of lunch time or something to do with the closure of the Royal Museum. We then walked around, lost but not really caring. It’s something everyone who goes to Laos comments on but it really is easy to just relax, kick back, and enjoy the slower pace of life there. We found the Hmong day market (located very close to the night market) and wandered around there for a bit before heading back to the hotel to regroup.

We had a little wine later on with Patrick and Paul and then walked across town to the bank of a different river where we’d heard about this really tasty barbeque. I’ve never had Korean barbeque but I think the idea was pretty consistent with that. We ordered a few different types of meat at some tables overlooking the river and somebody came by and put some hot coals in a metal tub which was sunk down in the middle of our table. Then, somebody else came by with a cover for the hole that looked a bit like a metal volcano with a moat around the bottom. We were supposed to then pour some broth in the moat at the bottom and fill it with veggies and crack an egg into it. Also, we then put the meat on the cover and let it cook and let the fats and juices drip down into the soup which we’d ladle ourselves a cup full from time to time. It was a delicious meal and we had no problem spending a couple hours there cooking our food and drinking some beers and tea.

The next day Henry and I rented bikes and rode around Luang Prabang. Again, this didn’t interest Paul or Patrick so I think they walked around and got a good meal at one of the luxury hotels that are popping up in Luang Prabang. I’d spotted a golden wat a little outside of town the previous day so we decided to try to find our way out there and it turned out to be pretty neat. It was a round one and had murals and about four floors. Each floor got progressively shorter and smaller so by the time we got to the top one, the two of us were a little cramped. On our way down, the caretakers alerted us that is was prayer hour and we’d have to leave while the wat closed for prayers. We then got lost on the way back to the center of town but, again, we didn’t mind and liked it. We found some really good lettuce-wraped snacks. Think of a spring roll but wrapped in a lettuce leaf and not fried. We then found a book exchange in a different part of town and I got a book to replace the Paul Theroux one I knew I’d have to give up soon because it still had not dried out from the trek and was beginning to get moldy. Henry and I then found a different restaurant down by the Mekong and had a good, quiet time just looking out over the slow moving river and talking a little. We ordered a couple dishes and split them: a grilled deer one and a wild boar curry. Both were amazing.

When we eventually got back to the hotel I decided to relax for a while in our room while Henry, Paul, and Patrick sat around and started hitting the wine again. We went to the same barbeque place from the previous night and ordered about twice as much food, having no problem finishing it all. After that, we decided to go to a bar and it was about this point that I realized how far behind I was in terms of wine drinking because arguments started getting more and more heated and tempers were starting to flare. I tried to play more of a moderating stance trying to get people to cool down or occasionally taking sides with somebody who seemed to be getting the brunt of it from the other two to try to balance things out. Mostly, though, I just tried to get people to cool down and talk about something we didn’t have to argue about and take personally. One thing about Luang Prabang which is probably a good thing is that bars and restaurants have an 11:30 PM curfew. I think this is good because it keeps the town from turning into a party town like so many other touristy places and it rescued us from potentially having several hours more worth of arguments. Apologies were given the next day and I think everyone realized that we’d just been spending a lot of time together and probably one too much beers had been consumed.

The next day, our last in Luang Prabang was pretty calm. I went to a bakery in the morning and then went and picked up all of our passports equipped with our spankin’ new Vietnamese visas. I then met up with Henry and Paul and we got some lunch at a nice pasta place that was near a restaurant where Henry and Paul were thinking of taking a cooking class at. Eventually they decided not to. I’m not sure if it was the price or just a general desire to relax for one last night but we ended up doing just that. We all kinda did our own thing for the most part and getting some much needed solo time. We had one more meal down on the Mekong for dinner and packed up all of our bags and got ready to head out the next day for the infamous party and tourist hub of Vang Vieng.

“Free Wifi” in Oudamxai

After the nine hour bus ride from Phongsali down to Oudamxai, we were pretty beat. We had heard of a good hostel to stay in but as our guidebook was a bit old and we were exhausted, Henry and I camped at a nearby café and each had a beer while Patrick and Paul went searching. They found one not too far away and we made our way over there pretty soon after.

Oudamxai was a weird town. Our guidebook said to spend as little time as possible there because it was a dirty, ugly town that catered to Chinese businessmen/sex tourists rolling through Laos. Well, the town actually seemed kinda nice. The streets were fairly clean, and new hotels and buildings were scattered around creating the atmosphere of a town on the rise. I think I remember hearing about a big stone quarry somewhere nearby too and, as the transportation hub for anyone going north of Luang Prabang, it was a must-stop for most people.

Our brand new hotel was one of the nicer places we stayed on the whole trip and at about eight bucks a room, it was a pretty good deal. The floors were tiled, we had hot water (that worked!) and HBO on the TV. Henry and I shared a room and we watched a little TV and relaxed a bit. At one point, I wondered if there was any wifi there, so I got up and opened the door into the lobby and asked the manager there if there was any free wifi. He was talking with a short woman who looked a little shy of 20. They kind of looked at each other questioningly and then looked back at me. I gathered that they had no idea what I was saying, so I tried asking if there was any internet. When that didn’t work, I mimicked typing on a keyboard and then opening and closing a laptop. They started rattling off in what I assumed was Chinese or Lao but could have been any language from the area. As I was about to give up, the guy abruptly walked away and the girl came straight up to me as I was standing in the doorway. She was standing uncomfortably close and I began to suspect that maybe something wasn’t going quite as I planned. I kept repeating “wifi” and “internet” as Henry giggled at me from the bed. After a few awkward moments, she entered the room and then just sat on the bed and looked expectantly from Henry to me. Henry immediately sat up and scrambled off the bed as I started saying “No, no. No thank you. Please leave.” or something to that effect. Well, the girl wouldn’t leave and neither of us wanted to get close to her to push her out of our room because, hey, prostitutes are people too, and what was probably normal at this hotel with other foreigners was just not what we were looking for. After about a minute of me motioning for her to leave the room and her looking very confused at us, she left. Guess I figured out what “Free Wifi” meant at this hotel.

Anyway, we walked around town to stretch our legs shortly after that and eventually came across the traveller’s hostel we’d heard about. It looked like kind of a crap shoot, but we still had some dinner and played some cards there. The dinner was pretty mediocre, a true falang restaurant—tamed down “Lao” food for foreigners. I definitely recognized some dreadlocked people at another table from a previous place we’d been, but from where? No idea. There was also a white man around maybe 45 with a much younger white woman at the table next to us who kept staring at our card game in a slightly uncomfortable way. Maybe they wanted in, maybe they wanted to chat, who knows. We were all a bit grumpy after the bus ride and didn’t feel like being too social. Later, we went back to the hotel watched a little TV and went to sleep (after the hot showers, of course).

The Slowboat to Phongsali

We left Luang Namtha on the 6th and headed out on the bus to Oudamxai. We got to the station a bit early and got some pretty good seats. Right before the bus left, though, a bunch of other travellers who’d been in town showed up and all grabbed the last seats on the bus. Remember the Frenchie that I’d tried to convince I was French? I’ll give you three guesses as to where she sat… Right next to me. Needless to say, we didn’t chat too much on that trip.

The ride to Oudamxai was only a few hours and then we had to immediately transfer to another bus to Muang Khua which was further east and towards Vietnam. We only ended up having about 20 minutes between buses which kinda sucked because it meant we didn’t have time to get any lunch and seeing as how we hadn’t had much breakfast to speak of we were all a bit grumpy and irritable by the time we finally arrived in the town of Muang Khua five hours later. The first thing we did in Muang Khua was get some noodle soup at a little roadside stand and it turned out to be some of the best we had in all of Laos. We also hadn’t really eaten all day which may have helped in our general appreciation of the meal.

After eating, we found a guesthouse (one of the two in town) and set up shop. The guesthouse was pretty rustic and Patrick and my room came equipped with a squat toilet and a hot water shower that I couldn’t figure how to utilize properly which sucked because it was quite cold. (Turns out there’s a switch outside the bathroom that turns on the water heater. It also turns out that Patrick had been trying to get the other two into bets on whether or not I’d be able to figure that out.) There was a balcony overlooking the Nam Ou river which made for some beautiful sights. At one point Henry said something like, “Man, it’s hard to believe that just across that river is Vietnam….” Vietnam was still a good several hour trip away. There wasn’t a bridge across the river but there was a “ferry” which was essentially a floating barge with what looked like a tugboat downstream from it but pointing upstream. The barge would take on a few cars or maybe a semi and then the tugboat would start its engine, spew out tons of black smoke, and push against the current and take the barge across the river. It seemed terribly inefficient to me but then again, what do I know about that kind of stuff.

We played a lot of cards here during that evening and Henry and I went on quite a winning streak, sweeping hands and winning something like four or five games in a row. Patrick got really pissed off at us and even implied/accused Henry and I of cheating. He was really out of line and luckily we hadn’t been drinking any beers or tempers likely would have flared. As a result we all silently agreed to not play cards for a few days and just let matter drop.

We ate dinner at the guesthouse and then tried to walk around town. Unfortunately, the town essentially closed up after sunset so we were stuck hanging at the guesthouse with a number of other travelers who were rolling through. It seems that a lot of them had had our idea to go up to Phongsali by boat at one point but had heard from too many people that it was really cold up there. Well, we were quite cold almost everywhere in Laos so we figured why try to run from it. Then somebody told us that it’d been getting down to around freezing at nights and we were like “bring it on!” We then decided at this point to go find some lao-lao to keep us warm on the boat ride the next day. Well, we found some and we had a little taste when we got back to the guesthouse and it was terrible. I’ll be the first to admit that lao-lao is generally an acquired taste, but this stuff was terrible. I’m not sure if it was just poorly distilled or mixed with water or what, but it was not good. We gave some to all of the other travelers at the guesthouse and most people thought we were being really nice and outgoing. And then they tried it. Well, we also ran into this Lithuanian guy we’d talked with at the night market in Luang Namtha a few nights before. I’ve forgotten his name but he was a very cool guy and it was quite funny chatting with him again.

The next day we got up and found that the slow boat to Hat Sa hadn’t left yet. Well, we reserved four spots and then ate a little breakfast, paid, and wandered on down to the ferry pier. We hopped on the boat and then tried to get comfortable for the ride up north. Like most trips in northern Laos, the scenery was quite stunning (I feel like I’m getting kind of repetitive saying that) and it was really special seeing it from a unique and different perspective on the river. After about an hour and a half, though, the boat trip got kind of old and we were stuck on a cramped, covered, glorified canoe for another four and a half hours. Well, at least the views were gorgeous and we got the need to travel by boat out of our systems.

We arrived in Hat Sa in the afternoon and had a little soup before deciding to head to Phongsali and skip over this little town. Unfortunately, the driver of the covered pickup was trying to charge us around 4 times the normal price, even when I pointed to the board next to his truck that showed the price. As there weren’t any other trucks around we had to pay and it really ticked me off when I realized he was giving the few Lao people on board their change for the correct price when they got off. One of the few times we got significantly screwed in Laos. This was, however, one of the most stunningly beautiful drives I’ve ever had in my life. We were driving along mountain tops and above the cloud line in many places. Laos really is a beautiful, beautiful place. To top it off, this was the first dirt road we’d been on since leaving Cameroon. I got a little nostalgic.

To driver dropped us off outside of Phongsali, the capital of the farthest north region of Laos, and we had to walk about a kilometer into town. When the town came in to view from around a corner it was amazing, like something out of a book. The town is built on a mountain and when we arrived the cloud line was just below the town making it look like it was surrounded by a sea of white mist. We found a hotel that didn’t have much going for it and found some very good food that night at a restaurant a little ways away. The language barrier was very high in this town so we had a very hard time ordering food and accidentally ordered four of the same dishes. Oh well, it was delicious anyway.

The next day I woke up before everyone else and walked around the streets for a while. It was very beautiful and an adorable little kid tried to speak English with me from one window: “Hello!... How are you?... What is your name?...Pleased to meet you!... Thank you!” One of the highlights of the trip, actually was that adorable, friendly little boy. For most of the day we just relaxed and walked all around town, taking in the stunning views. We had a couple beers at one bar overlooking a big, long valley surrounded by mountains. We’re also pretty sure they were trying to kill a pig next door. One woman kept screaming what sounded like “Sh*t! Sh*t!” though I think it was probably somebody’s name that sounded similar. As far as I know, a dirty word like that doesn’t exist in the Lao language.

We had some good food for a late lunch and started talking to a couple Americans at a table next to us—the only other people in the restaurant and possibly the only other foreigners in town. They turned out to be on their honeymoon and the woman was an RPCV but from which country I forget. Somewhere in Africa, I want to say. They were pretty outgoing and when we left we joked with each other that only an RPCV would go on a honeymoon to Laos.

That night we had some more dinner at the place from the previous night though the staff was incredibly rude to us. Not too sure why but they seemed not only annoyed at our presence but that they would have been much better without us there. They rarely looked at us and when they did there was a hint of venom when we asked for anything. More utensils came with a loud clang on the table and trying to get more tea was like pulling teeth. We weren’t sure if we’d done something to accidently offend them or what exactly had happened because this was clearly not polite behavior there or anywhere. The food was still pretty good, though.

The next day we got up pretty early for the long, grueling bus ride back down south to Oudamxai. The ride took about 9 hours and it was pretty terrible. We seemed to stop an exorbitant number of times and the road was only paved for about the first 20 kilometers and then the last 40 kilometers. That left well over 100km of dusty, bumpy road to travel. The only good part about it was that the scenery was again pretty stunning. (Sorry I’m getting so repetitive describing the scenery but it’d be pointless to actually try to describe it. I’m not able to do it justice.)

Trekking in the Nam Ha NPA

We left around 8:30 in the morning on January 2nd for our trek. We found the trekking company because they had a little office right next to the guesthouse. They had a specific 3 day/2 night trek which sounded pretty good to us so we decided to do it. It was a bit expensive but it turned out to be well worth it. Our two guides, Khong and Chang, were very nice. Khong’s English was pretty good and Chang didn’t know much English but always had a smile on his face.

We chose this trek because we wanted to have some time in the jungle/forest of Laos but also wanted to see a bit of the ethnic hill tribes. Laos has a very high number of ethnic minorities including Akha, Black Tai, and (probably the most famous) Hmong. Many of the tribes immigrated from southern China or Tibet through Myanmar and Thailand and some continued further south or into Vietnam. The hill tribes have a history of being subjugated by the governments of all these countries and consequently keep mostly to themselves.

The trekking company drove us out for about a half hour into the Nam Ha National Protected Area and then dropped us off at an Akha village. There was a marriage about to happen and the bride and groom were in different houses and dressed in traditional marriage clothing. That consisted of black fabric with many different colored embroidery going horizontally with mini mirrors and glass beads interlaced in it. Pretty cool stuff.

We took off and had a pretty good hike that day. It was described as “moderate” in the brochure so we weren’t expecting anything too strenuous but at a few points the hike got pretty difficult and we wondered what a “difficult” hike would have been like. The views were amazing, though. We had a pretty good lunch before the first big climb. The presentation was pretty cool as Khong got a banana leaf from a nearby tree, rinsed and wiped it off, and then put out the various greens and meats in little piles. Finally he portioned out a bit of sticky rice for each one of us. Again, the meal was fantastic.

We came down around 3ish to a Black Tai town which would be our resting spot for the night. The place turned out to be Khong’s village and we stayed at his uncle’s house. He made a joke when we got there about it being the “hotel” of the town. Well, the house was built on stilts (like every house in the village) and consisted of one room when you enter where they cooked and ate and in the other, much bigger room were a long line of mattresses on floors with mosquito nets above them. In one corner, shielded from view by some sheets that were hung up, was the family’s alter to their ancestors and the spirits. We were told not to go over there out of respect for their tradition.

Showering wasn’t really high on our priority list because we were just hiking and knew we’d get just as dirty the next day. We weren’t sure, however, if not showering and walking around smelly would offend them, so we opted to be on the safe side and shower. Well, Patrick went first and it turned out the way you shower there is strip down to your underwear and then stand near the faucet in the middle of the village where everyone gets their water. We found it pretty hilarious because as Patrick was showering people kept coming and taking some water from the spigot. Well, the other three of us just filled up a bucket after that and went and had a bucket bath in the latrine so we could have a little privacy.

We had another great meal that night and after dinner we also got our first taste of lao-lao, the traditional rice whiskey which we’d heard a lot about. Well, it’s essentially moonshine but didn’t taste nearly as bad as I thought it would. It was quite strong, though, and had a kick to it. Khong poured everyone a drink and there’s a lot of ceremony around it such as toasting to the spirits, tapping the glass on the table and then downing it. Then you pour another glass for everyone, toast to friendship, tap it on the table and down it again. After that, you were free to have as much or as little as you wanted.

We went to bed pretty soon after dinner and woke up early to get started again. The previous night it had rained which was unheard of because it was the dry season. And some people don’t believe in climate change. We had a nice cup of lemongrass tea and then some more greens and fish with sticky rice. Needless to say, it was delicious. We set out for that day’s hike which was also very beautiful. At one point we hiked down a bit into a mini canyon to see a waterfall. The waterfall was pretty small and unimpressive and after a few minutes down there Khong said, “okay, let’s go back up!” Um, excuse me? It was an incredibly steep descent and we had assumed that we’d be continuing on by some other route and that the measly waterfall was just on the route, not an attraction in itself. Not the case. We had to walk back out the way we came. Well, we decided to have lunch at the waterfall and then continue on afterwards.

That night, we stayed in an Akha town that was built along a river and the scenery was stunning. Little mountains popping up everywhere and the town was built up against a very steep mountain. We all took “showers” in the river which was cold but surprisingly refreshing. After this, we walked around the village a little bit which, to our surprise, had a couple pool tables. Due to language barriers we weren’t able to tell any of the villagers that we wanted to play so we just settled down and had a BeerLao instead, the national beer of Laos. Later, we went back to the house and just lounged around for a little while playing some cards and relaxing.

That night’s dinner was very similar to the previous night’s except there was one more dish that was a bit unsettling. Throughout the day, Khong and Chang had been picking these orchids that were along the paths and it turned out that they made a dish with those that was incredibly bitter. The taste wasn’t bad, mind you, but it wasn’t something you wanted to eat a lot of. During and after dinner we again had some more lao-lao and poor Chang had to go to sleep right after dinner because I think he had one glass too many. Khong, though, was having a fun time chatting with us and trying to learn our game of euchre.

The next day we had some leftovers from the night before and then headed out a little after 8. It had rained again the night before and had soaked some of the clothes we’d left out on the clothesline to air out. After about a half an hour it started to rain a little bit. Just a drizzle at first but then it started to pour. Khong put on a pancho and when he found out we didn’t have any rain jackets with us he cut down some big banana leaves for us to hold over our head. They actually worked out pretty well at first but then when it really started coming down we all pretty much just ditched them as we were thoroughly soaked. We put the few electronics we had on us in Khong’s bag under his pancho and just set out through the rain. It was a pretty miserable day of walking and we had to cross some streams and rivers at least a half a dozen times. By the end we had stopped even trying to walk on the stepping stones and just walked straight through the ice cold water. It’s not like we were going to be getting any wetter. A few times Khong tried to get us to stop for lunch but we were pretty cold and miserable so we decided to just push on. We arrived back at the main road in a Hmong village around noon, having done the estimated 7 hour hike in under 4.

A covered pickup was waiting for us and we changed our shirts to some dry-ish ones from our bags and hopped in for the freezing half-hour drive back to Luang Namtha. Once we arrived, we got a couple more rooms from our previous guesthouse and then ate our pre-prepared lunch with Khong, Chang, and the tour organizer. We ended up spending another day in Luang Namtha where we had our guesthouse do our laundry and tried to dry out a lot of our things. Patrick, Henry and I ended up leaving our shoes there as they were already in pretty poor condition and showed no signs of drying out. I ended up ditching the Paul Theroux book I’d bought in Chiang Mai a few days later because it also showed no signs of drying out and had even started getting a bit moldy.

The last day of the trek was pretty cold and miserable but we still had a great time overall and it was nice to get some physical activity after almost a month of very little exercise and too much Thai food. Have I mentioned yet that we were all noticing how much weight we’d but on in Thailand? Well, since the portions were so small there we were eating around 5 or 6 meals a day. We had become master sport eaters there and were well on our way to doing the same in Laos. The next couple places we went to proved to be a bit more difficult to find food at any hour of the day.

New Years in Luang Namtha

We woke up the next day and packed everything up. Then, Maleewon drove us up to the port in the northern end of town in her little pick up. As we were leaving, Don said something to us like, “Now make sure to not get into any trouble over there in Laos!” Sure thing, we said. Henry, Patrick, and I rode in the bed of the truck and Paul rode in front and Maleewon said with a devious smile, “it’s only him that gets in trouble!”

We went through Thai immigration and then hopped aboard a little speed boat that ferried us across the Mekong to the Lao side. Patrick ran into some passport problems there. See, with Peace Corps we are issued an official Peace Corps passport, similar to a diplotmat’s passport, except that it won’t really open any doors for us. Most of us also have our own personal passports and Patrick and I had been using those while Paul and Henry had been using their official PC passports. Patrick ran into a problem when we were getting our Laos visas in Bangkok because the pages of his personal passport (with his Thai visa/stamps) were full, so he got the Laos visa on his PC passport. We hoped that neither country would look for the other’s immigration information but sadly we were wrong. Long story short(er), Patrick had to go back to the Thai side where an official just stamped his personal passport “USED”, which sucks because we’re supposed to turn in our PC Passports once we get back to the states and this now means Patrick can’t just apply for more pages for his personal one but instead has to apply (and pay) for a new passport. Bummer.

After the immigration hoobulah we found a pickup taxi to take us to the bus station. An older man who worked with the taxi men helped us along and it was pretty interesting because he spoke a bit of French, which was better than his English. This was one of the first signs of the relics of French colonialism which we came across. At the bus station Patrick and I each got a bowl of noodle soup and it was quite different than Thai noodle soup. The noodles were not nearly as good and the broth was mostly just water with a bit of oil. When our bus pulled up we were immediately a little tickled as it was a coaster, very similar to what we used in Cameroon. Sure enough, they packed it up and the two Europeans who were also in our row (which consisted of Paul, Henry and I) were kind of pissed at me when I made everyone squish so I could sit down too. All I had to say to them (but unfortunately I couldn’t at the time because they didn’t speak English or French) was: get used to travelling in a third-world country.

Speaking of it being a third world country, this was instantly apparent after crossing the border from Thailand. The houses were mostly made of logs, on stilts, and sometimes even with thatched roofs. The road we were on was recently paved which made for a pretty smooth ride and the scenery was gorgeous. It was funny how crossing the border could bring such a different change in scenery and prosperity. I think I read somewhere (maybe Theroux?) that the best way to enter a country is by land, that way you can see the differences of a country directly as you enter and also see how the minute differences become more apparent the further you get from the border.

We got into the trekking center of Luang Namtha a little before sunset and we spent some time just playing cards and taking the town in. Across the street from our guesthouse was the Luang Namtha night market. We had some roasted/rotisserie duck that night for around 4 bucks. It was amazing, possibly the best duck I’ve ever had.

The next day we got up and walked around town, trying to get a better feel for it. I noticed what I thought was a fairly apparent Soviet influence as the streets were very wide and broad. I’d never been to another Communist country before but I remember reading somewhere that a key element of Soviet city planning was wide boulevards so that military parades and movements could happen with relative ease. Well, as we were walking around an Italian dude waved to us from across the street and then came up to us and asked if we were the Americans at the night market the night before. As you can imagine, there aren’t too many Americans in Laos, given the history with the Vietnam War and the concurrent, secret war in Laos. Well, we told him yes and he said somebody had found an American passport at the market the night before.

I had mine on me, and Patrick and Henry both were positive that they had theirs. Paul looked through his backpack and, sure enough, it wasn’t there. Our guess is that it fell out of his pocket and then luckily some person found it, made it known to the community around (there really weren’t THAT many foreigners in town so it was a bit easier to spot us) that he had it, and then he told the tourist police. Well, it was quite an ordeal getting it back and getting everything squared away. Luckily, though, Paul didn’t have to pay any bribes to get it back. I was guessing he was going to be set back quite a bit but fortunately he wasn’t and ended up buying the guy a case of beers for the New Years celebration that night.

After all this, I talked with my parents on skype for a bit and then the four of us booked a trek leaving on the 2nd. We also went to a restaurant called Minority Restaurant which was run by a family of Black Tais, an ethnic minority in the mountainous hill country of Northern Laos. The food was delicious and they had a wide variety of typical Lao food, traditional Hill Tribe foods (such as Black and Red Tai, Akha, Hmong, etc.) and even a couple burgers and sandwiches on the menu. We all tried some different hill dishes and we were all pleasantly surprised by how good it was. Many people talked about how boring Lao food is, but from this meal on I can only disagree and point to all the flavorful, unique dishes we had for our three weeks there. The food was surprisingly different than Thai food but it was almost always delicious.

Anyway, that night our guesthouse bar/restaurant was closed for the holiday so we went to the night market again and this time got roasted pork ribs with sticky rice and some bomb sweet and spicy dipping sauce. Later, I went and found another guesthouse that was open to watch the Manchester United game. When the game was over, around 10, the bar seemed to be closing so we decided to go see if we could find another place to post up for the countdown. Well, we walked out to the street and NOTHING was open. If we wanted a party, we sure chose the wrong place to spend New Years. Every bar and guesthouse was closed, except one. It was a bar run by two New Zealanders (though I’m sure fronted and quietly owned by some Lao people) and they were working hard to get the party atmosphere going. Well, it worked pretty well and they had a deal on jello-o shots which all the travellers (probably around 30 total—just about all of them in the town) seemed to have been hitting pretty hard before we got there. We were hanging out and having a fun time when we started talking to this threesome travelling: two French girls and an Irish girl. I tried to convince them I was French which the four of us and the Irish lass found funny but the Frenchies were certainly not amused. Note to self: French women don’t like it when an American pretends to be French. Eesh, it was only a joke. It’s not like I was putting on a thick accent or making fun of France or anything. Anyway, we made it to midnight and then the kiwis kicked us out around two at which point we didn’t really have any other option than to just go back to the guesthouse and crash. Unfortunately, Patrick had the key to his room and he’d wandered off somewhere beforehand so Paul shared Henry’s and my bed. Patrick later said he came back and was going to wake Paul up but found the sight too amusing to disturb: the three of us sharing a queen sized bed.

The next day we didn’t do much other than relax around town (our guesthouse still mostly being closed due to the holiday) and get some more meals at the Minority Restaurant and the night market. We played a couple games of Settlers and then turned in pretty early so we could be ready the next day for the start of the trek.

Thailand and Angkor Wat, a photographic explanation

Here is the story of the first half of our trip through Southeast Asia. My camera was acting up during the first parts of the trip so many photos are from Paul's collection. Enjoy!




Bangkok, Photo by Paul



Henry and I sleeping on the train to Surat Thani, Photo by Paul


The view from our hotel in Ko Phagnan, Photo by Paul


Angkor Wat


More Angkor Wat


Patrick and Henry in Sukhothai, Thailand


Chiang Mai, photo by Paul


Crystal Temple, Chiang Rai, photo by Paul




Paul, Henry and I at the Crystal Temple, Chiang Rai, photo from Paul's camera