Luang Nam Tha

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So we arrived in Luang Nam Tha on Wednesday evening which basically consisited of 1 main road with a few guesthouses on so it wasn't too difficult to find something we liked. Got a double room with hot water, fan and tv for 40,000 kip which is just under 3 pound, bargain! After settling in we headed out to find something to eat as hadn't eaten hardly all day on the bus, a guesthouse a few doors down had a pretty cool restaurant that was reasonably priced for a tourist place. We had a little walk around although the main area is pretty small with not a lot going on. There was night market mainly food and full of locals which we wondered around before heading back for an early night.

Thursday we ended up sleeping in quite a bit and having a late breakfast/lunch. We mainly came to Luang Nam Tha to look into booking another trekor trip into the hill tribes, but after doing a bit of research we realised it was a lot more expensive than in Thailand which wasn't what we were expecting, plus neither of us really fancied another trek after our difficult one last time!! So after deciding we were going to book onto a tour we decided to rent out some bikes and do our own little tour. Once off the main road you end up in dirt tracks running through all different hill tribe villages. We followed one track which led to a waterfall. The ride was so nice though, we probably got to see more than what we did during our trek in Chiang Mai. Since we were just biking through we could see all the hill tribes daily life with nothing being put on for tourists. Its crazy some of the villages, really living at a basic level with all the women washing their clothes in the nearby river, the children walking the streets carrying around crops and wood and the men constructing a new shack or something. Everyone is really friendly and as we were biking through they were shout "Sabaidee, Sabaidee" (Hello). The scenery was stunning as well with views of all the mountains, villages and rice fields. Ah it was a lovely afternoon!

Later that evening we went to eat in one of the other guesthouses that had a buffet on for 20,000 kip (about 1.50 each) which was pretty tasty and I finally had a yummy thai green curry 😊. Ste is pleased the beer is cheaper here than in Thailand, they have these big bottles of Beer Lao (original eh) for 10,000kip (about 70p). SO after some tasty food and couple of drinks there wasn't much left to do except another early night. We met someone once who told that everything in Laos finishes at 10pm, we didn't actually expect that to be true! It didn't matter anyway as we had another early start to get a bus to Luang Prabang tomorrow, had to get up at 6am!

So for our little introduction of Laos so far we like it. Seems a bit less crazy than everywhere else, cheaper than Thailand 😊 and the people seem really nice although some people in the guesthouses don't speak great english so can be a bit confusing at times, think we have got far too used to everyone speaking perfect english in South East Asia...how did we ever cope in Russia??


Lots of Love
Layla & Ste xxx

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