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Published: July 11th 2006
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Sunset over Thailand
Taken in Houay Xai, Laos In Chiang Mai I met up with my friend Hisham who I met in Phnom Penh in Cambodia. The plan was to head to HouayXai In Laos to do the gibbon experience. I really have a hard time talking about this still... arghh.
The Gibbon experience is a 3 Day trip where you basically live in treehouses and zipline through the jungle canopy all day... gibbons are small apes who were once thought to be extinct and the I think the program helps to protect them and their habitat. Apparently they sing in the mornings. And all of this makes up the gibbon experience - which I continually hear is just an unbelievable experience. I was really excited to do this so when we learned that they hadn't received Hisham's email stating when we'd arrive and that they were fully booked fo the next week i was incredibly dissapointed.
we still can"t talk about it.
So instead we headed up north to take a differnt route to louang prabang than the usual slow boat trip.
We caught a bus to take us up to Louang Namtha which is a rough drive. We were told it could take anywhere between 6 and
18 hours... that should give you an idea of the state of the roads. Luckily it hadn't been raining too hard so our journey only took 9 hours with just one 1 hour hold up to wait while a logging truck got hauled out of the mud. The ride was very dusty and bumpy but really really beautiful so overall I was surprised by what a bad rep the roads here get... until, I kept hearing later that that stretch of road is now impassible because of the mud so it turns out we were quite lucky!
we only stayed one night in Louang Namtha and made the journey via Oudomxai to an extremely small town named Muang Kua. There was a canadian couple on the bus with us and we ended up staying at the same guesthouse... oh wait there was only one open. Turns out we were the only tourists there and this wasn"t a good thing. The best part about taking this route to Louang Prabang, aside from the beautiful scenery on the bus rides, is the boat trip from Muang Kua to Muang Ngoi where we were headed next. However, it costs $60 to rent a
boat. So really thank god for the two other canadians.
So our time in Muang Kua...Muang Kua is very small and there is not really anything to do but wait for the boat. So we had no choice but to drink a lot of Beer Lao and get to know our new friends.
The next day we woke up early and went down to the docks in hopes of finding the other hidden tourists of which there were none... or maybe some laos who were also heading downstream. NOPE. $15 each for the 3 hour ride.
So we get on our boat and suddenly three laos start packing their stuff on. we were like... waaaaiit a minute. apparently they were the father and mother and uncle of the driver. BULLSHIT. Man, I thought Laos was supposed to be different! So first Sioban (pronounced Chevonne) made an attempt of getting some of our money back - they talked amongst themselves and just laughed... then i spent 10 whole minutes trying to reason with them. seriously... it wasn't even about the money, it was the priniciple. I am just done with getting ripped off. In the end, after I repeatedly tell them
"not good... bad...not fair... no no no", we get $12 BACK. better than nothing.
so we push off the docks and start drifting and when they try to start the engine.. nothing. we get stuck for 2 and a half hours on the river bank in our very leaky boat in the pissing rain and finally annother boat comes to take us back. we eat and get back on the baot... it's now 1pm. still won't start. we change boats... then change boats again... and again. now it's 2pm and the family decides not to go so we have to give back the money...
we finally leave and set off on, yes, an extermely beautiful 3 hour ride that was miraculously worth all the hassle.
Muang Ngoi...just idyllic. No cars, tons of bungalows and the sleepy chocolat brown but beautiful nam ou river. It's a place that I'd love to go back to and spend a week just swinging in my hammock doing nothing. But, as you know, I just had spent a week doing that so we only stayed a couple of days.
While in Muang Ngoi we threw on our shoes and braved the seriously muddy and leech
ridden paths for a cave. The cave was nice enough... a little stream running out of it... We decided to hike another hour or so to a small village which was really worth the leeches and mud. We had been slugging through the forest and suddenly reached the rice fields at the edge of the village. Wow, it was just beautiful. I felt good because I think this counted as trekking. hahaha. But really it was so beautiful. Definitely up there again on my favorite moments here.
That evening we sampled the Laos Laos... whisky... or more like engine cleaner. It is just VILE. I can't believe we drank it really. We played dice and managed to finish the bottle in record time.
The next morning I woke up feeling pretty rough and found my jeans and tshirt covered in mud... all the clothes from the hike were wet and stunk like ... wet. And we had to catch the boat in less than an hour.
We of course made it and rode to Nang Kio where we caught a pickup to Louang Prabang. The pickup was jam packed with what we counted as 28 people, loads of poultry, 2
buckets of eels, a box of baby ducks, and what looked like a rabid large guinea pig. It was by far the most uncomfortable 4 hours of travelling I've ever experienced but nonetheless entertaining.
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