Luang Namtha

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ooh...a traffic light! I was wondering why our bus stop before entered the town center, seem like Namtha took another step further to became a city! but look around the surrounding...well...the road work from the airport is almost finish, town still expanding and more houses, but the town still the same...quiet! wondered where the economy come from? where are the money? there must be something behind the scene! for us tourists...those bunch of trekking agency, guesthouses and cafe around the night market is the business center. not much had been change from my last visit 2 years ago. but room rate along the main street seem to be unified to 70000kip for the same old room and same old service. lucky there still couple of places offered room for 50000 that I could afford to lazy around for bit longer time. pretty soon I build up my daily routine, eat my brunch(a bit too cold to go before 10)in the day market, the standard Lao noodle soup that came with basket of vegetable. purchased some banana and tomato, some sweet jelly puding for snack, back to guesthouse for some reading, out exploring after 1, by 4 I got to be in the market for the tasty egg roll, before 7 have my noodle with gravy in the night market, might added a bottle of beer laos and couple of spring rolls. the day end with a book back in my room. seem lazy and waste? well...I am not the only one, there was an American and a Korean guy stay longer indoor in the guesthouse in the day. of course they had their own reason to long stay in Namtha(Korean guy said 9 years now in Namtha ), anyways...they are busy in their preparation work to build a sauna house for a village nearby, at this stage...an experimental hightech chimmy is underway, of course...need to see the testing result. seem like still a long way to go until the stage for the wall of the sauna house. I took a bicycle the other day for a look around, when was my last time on a bike? no wondered shortly after an hour my butt was numbed, one knee after another electrify with pain from every push, and my back was crying for mercy. but I was already somewhere in a dirt trail where better kept on with the loop instead of double back return. I resolved it by taking more break and walk the bike often, in fact it gave me more time to absorb the area around. at the moment people was busy in collecting the hay stick(I am not sure what is the name of this grass), the price go for 1200kip/kg, a kid can easily loaded a bundle of 10kg on the scale in the collecting post. although there wasn't that much farm work at the moment, but some already start their seeding work. still in general there were festive atmosphere in the area, it is the wedding season, day and night, banquet and party are everywhere, you could heard bandsound rhyme in any corner. huge amount of beer laos had been consumed. yeah...that should really help the economy roll!

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