Muang Sing + Luang Namtha

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13/01/2010 - 16/01/2010

Being in the north in Thailand I entered Laos in the north (or nordish) as well and I would work my way down to the south as such, last stop 4000 islands. Entering Laos was easy, just take a small boat to cross the river and receive your visa on arrival, 35 dollars, made in 10 minutes.
I have to admit, things really change once you cross that river, very different from Thailand: the English level off the local people is much lower, not so cheap as I expected (sometimes more expensive then Thailand, of course this was in the border town), but luckily not so busy and noisy!!
From the border town, Huay Xai, I made my way more up to the north to Muang Sing together with Micky (ESP/FR) whom I met on the bus. I was already craving for a good trekking for quite some time now and according to the bible this was THE place to do it. But sadly enough my feet injuries were still haunting me and wouldn't heal, on the contrary it got even worse; my left foot began to swell and felt all warm...badly infected!so no trekking... next day we met some spanish people and ignoring the pain I went along with them on a bicycle ride. It was good fun and we biked all the way up the chinese border.. the surroundings are amazing and we stopped at some small local villages as well.
in the end I do had to go the hospital, it was as off I had 2 ankles. It happened to be a big party at the hospital, so it was not easy to find a sober doctor, one even proposed I just had to drink some beers😊, after I found the less drunk doctor and I got my antibiotics and pain killers;

Next day the spanish group went on a trekking whereas I moved on to Luang Namtha. I arrived together with Vale (IT); Namtha is like the bigger version of Muang Sing. So what we do? Yes, got a bike and exlpored the city and the small villages. Vale's sense of orientation was not much better then mine so logically we got lost couple of times.. in the end we did quite some kilometers, saw some temples, chinese market, villages, etc. In the evening we deserved a good cold beer.....

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Photos

at the chinese border
carlos, carlos, alvira, mickey and me