Advertisement
Published: February 11th 2007
Edit Blog Post
At first glance Luang Nam Tha isn't much at all, however I did come to really like the little town after spending three days there.
On the first afternoon I had a little walk down the main road and found an internet cafe which did the yummiest cakes, I thought that I would be good and not have the really delicious looking chocolate cake and have the banana cake (which was really tasty) but every other day when I returned there was never any chocolate cake left - I was most disappointed!
The first morning I had more of a walk around the town and I tried to use the phone to call a place within Laos, I thought that I might need to buy a phone card but it seems that you have to go into the telecommunicatons centre, fill in a piece of paper with the number details on, they dial and then pass the phone through the glass to you - so bizarre when everyone has mobile phones. After this I decided to hire a bicycle and have lunch at the Boat Landing Restaurant 6 km out of town at surprise surprise the towns boat landing
(although it wasnt actually bein used at the moment because the water level was too low). The restaurant is apparently one of the best in the whole of Laos but my lunch was nice - no better than other places though! I met a US/English couple there and I joined them for lunch and we then cycles to this stupa a couple of kilometeres away. There are two there, an old one which was bombed by the Americans (after having been built in 1628) and a new one next door which is 15 years old, it was quite interesting to see the two next to each other. The man you paid your entrance fee asked us where we were from and he shook his head when they said they were American - but only a jokey way I think, there does not seem to be any obvious animosity towards Americans, well not that I have witnessed anyway. The couple that gave me a lift from Oudomxai arrived while we were there so I got to ask there guide a few questions about the stupas which was good. We then cycled back into town by a different route - I am
very unfit because I had to get off a couple of times as we were going up hills and my brakes made such a loud noise when i was coming down the hills that people came out of the fields to see what on earth it was and then laughed when they saw it was me!
Back in LNT I had lovely piece of lemon cake and then went for a Lao massage which although felt nice afterwards I think is a mild form of torture! There was a sauna there as well which smelt really nice but I have never seen the point of paying to sweat.
At dinner I met a big group of people who it turned out were mostly doing the same Gibbon Experience trip as me - such a coincidence. The next day we all hired bikes and headed out to the Boat Landing for lunch again, however this time they were running low on various (quite obvious) foods. After lunch we cycled to the other side of town and out along a dirt track to a waterfall. The waterfall itself was a bit disappointing but the cycle out was really nice through
padi fields and little villages where everyone came out and waved (although we did set a few babies of crying at the sight of us!).
We had all wanted to do a trek through the nearby jungle and had gone along to the biggest trekking agency but they werent running any tours which we thought was a bit strange. Anyway it transpired that the manager of the agency (and the boat landing restaurant hence no food) had been abducted a couple of days ago, a 12 year old saw a car pulling over in front of his bike and pulling him into the car. Our guide on the trek, that we eventually went on, thought that it was the police that had taken him because one of the tours had had some kind of accident with a government official and he had ending up dying. Either they had left him or didnt pay compensation to the family but the police werent happy and the guide didnt think that he would be coming back! There have been posters up everywhere - even the capital city 17 hours away!
We did go on a 1 day trek though which was
really nice, it was through padi fields (although no rice was growing at this time of year which was a bit of a shame) and up into the jungle and back into town again, passing a few villages on the way. It rained at the beginning of the day but it wasn't too bad. We had a really tasty lunch of sticky rice, laap (minced pork salad) and a tomato sauce and we had it in this little hut right at the top of the hill with an amazing view over the valley. In one of the villages on the way back they were making silk scarves so i bought a couple for about 3 pounds for 2.
It was another early night as we were heading off to Ban Don Chai early in the morning.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0486s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
cat
non-member comment
good to see photos of your little trek LOL
The 2 day'er trek that I ended up going on nearly killed me!!! Up hill and down dale - well i never! I will email you my blog address - I crossed over to Vietnam yesterday and the entry should be there - I feel crazy being here for Thuet/ New Year (? spelling) and can't wait to see a few falangs. Bye for now, Cat