SamNeua region


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January 21st 2009
Published: February 17th 2009
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21/1/09

One bus per day leave for SamNeua around 7 am. The market was rather busy during early hour in ViengTong, I mean...compared with during the day. The weather seem like with certain pre-setting, foggy until well past 10am, then the sun came and clear blue sky. But in fact, if we ascended couple of hundreds meter then we would be above the fog, like today the bus climbed up through the winding roadup hill to over 1500m, the sun was there to greet us already, it was just after 8 o'clock, and some of the view are quite beatiful too, I was glad I did it on a day bus. 2 hrs later we drove pass the Phonsavan junction and into the SamNeua road on highway 6. 90km still ahead of us. 3 more hours curving on the narrow road we approaching SamNeua(@950m), the Phoutanou bus station is on top of a small hill overlooking the whole town, the view on one side was so pretty. An easy walk downhill into town.but...what about on my departure day???
SamNeua was far more bigger than I had expected, also was the market place, bigger than Oudomxay and LP, very lively. The staff in the tourist office was very helpful, got my plan sort out and SamNeua could be wait for the last. Anyway...got some times before dark, went to visit the weaving house, as they said the product here are the best in Laos, indeed ,even I was no expert, but the finishing, the color and the pattern design are pretty good. Most of them can use as scarf, the price are from 280000 to 350000, I think it was cheap for an art piece like that, generally the woman need at least 9 days to finish one.

Note
Bus ViengTong to SamNeua 43000kip

Internet 10000kip/hr

23/1/09

"9000", I over heard this figure yesterday at the Nathong bus station when a Lao man asked for the price to Viengxai(@850m). But when I went to enquired myself the number accumulated to 10000, I looked at the woman behind the counter for a few second with my mouth half open. No sound coming from both of us, I then steered my eye balls to the Lao man standing few meter away, the woman just look away and caring her own business.
The Nathong bus station is more than 3km from town, a tuk-tuk would burned 15000 kip out of your pocket if you couldn't walk. I still grumbling about this non sense development about bus station far out from town center everytime I walked to a bus station. Public transportation should be build to made convenient to the public, now you need more vehicle to deal with the journey. If in fact they want to help provide job for more poor people, then they should setup a standard shuttle bus line with standard price, not like now whoever could afforded a motor(already rich if he own a motor), just sit on his fat ass and charge whatever the like. Only the decent villages were suffering. loading their luggage and belongings from one car to the others just because of the silly out of the way bus station. And you know the most cynical thing I hate about? When the bus drop passenger off in the far away bus station. The driver will drive the bus into town center!
The small village ViengXai is about 30km from SamNeua , famous for its caves that held out the 9 years bumbing by the US during the Vietnam war, and the so call birthplace of the Pathet Lao government. They said during that 9 years secert war, the America had dropped more bumbs in Lao than the total bumb that had been dropped in 2nd world war. And where the money came from as they couldn't got the finance supported through paramount because of the secrecy of this war, some said the CIA cultivated drug and money rolled in from many direction. "it was all about drug" an English man said. See...this war not only Lao people suffered, the American suffered too as the drug find its way back into the US that produced millions of addicts. Anyway, back to the caves, you need to joined up in the tourist center and a guide with limited english will lead you through most of the caves, 30000kip each(now no charge for camera) and only depart 2 times a day at 9am and 1pm. Now there are 7 caves opened to public, "only 5 of them are interesting" the guide said. Anyway, the tour will ended by 11:30, so there wouldn't be enough time to see all the caves. First we went to Kaysone Phomvihane cave and Souphannouvong cave as they are in one direction, both are standard cave hide out setting, with showing you where the famous man bedroom, toilet, office, meeting room etc, and the most important are the emergency room when there was heavy bombing, a strong room with thick wall, steel airtight door, and build-in fresh air in-take pumping device. And in Souphannouvong cave there even had a medical room for casualty, rumours said the medical team and equipment are all from Cuba. The more interesting are the Khamtay Siphandone cave, which actually had many tunnels linked with other chamber caves, the Xanglot and the artillery cave. They were huge, the most spectacular was the theater where you could identified from an old picture show how it was about concert and entertainment during wartime. For me after the 5 caves I was about enough for the tour, I wouldn't wanted to visit more even there was still time. The sky was clouded and with tiny teardrop like rain, it was a pity that we couldn't see more scene while on high cave, should had done it yesterday when the sky was blue and sunny, yeah...if...who would had know!
still, there are many foot paths leading out to all direction that one could exercised one legs, but don't went off trial! I saw an UXO office in town! The best walk should be out through the Thavisay Hotel, followed the main road to the end of the village, just hit the top(you could carry on further) and the whole Viengxai would be under you eye! you would see the surrounding are all big mountain, only couple of karst hills dotted the small town.
Every Friday garbage truck would come to collected and made the weekly round, no wondered people were all busy in cleared up their houses and the street during the day. But where would be the receiver end? Suddenly the sight of a garbage terrace flashed back in my mind. Approaching SamNeua 2 days ago, on the side of the road was a garbage dumping site, which was left burning by the hillside on the terrace steps. Would it be there? Same problem in every developing country I guess.


Note
Songtheaw SamNeua to ViengXai 10000kip, depart almost every hour.

Laoloum is lao people that live in lowland, skin colour more white.
Laoteng is lao people that live in highland, skin colour more dark. And they are actually Khamu.
When you heard the name Laoxiong, that the Hmong, but it wasn't a polite way to identify them.

The name ViengXai had been given when the Pathet Lao came out from the caves since after the Pairs accord, and the town was being build. ViengXai mean "City of Victory".

24/1/09

Very cold and with the persisted dusty rain. I decided to hang around for another day, as I quite enjoy the lesson with the friendly couple in the restaurant, and the receptionist in the tourist center. I spend most of the time sit with either of them to learn Lao, in the restaurant they couldn't speak any other language but Lao, "no Thai no Viet" like they said, so I just pick any item on the table and in the kitchen, in return, they were eager to learn how to said all the items that was list on their menu...in English! Followed their finger I recited "fried noodle with egg... Noodle soup with beef... Vegetable noodle..." then it came to the laap, "LAAP" I said, they look at me for a while, then "AN_GEEK" they said, I told them same same, english and lao. They looked disappointed. A lots of laugh but they seem to pick up fast. When with Brond, the Hmong receptionist it was easiler as his English was adaptable, so I learn more useful words and phrases from him, it would made the rest of my journey far more easy. In return, he wanted to learn Chinese. "I used to knew a Hmong girl from China" he said, but the girl later married a Chinese man. "I want to learn China, and find a Chinese girl friend "he admitted. He knew some phrases already like... I love you... Thank you so and so. And whatever he would learn I will asked the Lao phrase as well. A great way to pocket more Lao dialogue. But of cause I wasn't just sit there all day, during lunch break I searched another trail up hill for panorama from another angle, finally I was on top of a hill full pf pineapple plantations, although the fog and rain soften the scene, but it was still rather pretty. If the weather was like few days ago, hiking in ViengXai area could be very good, mountain not too high nor too steep, and could walk for very far.
There wasn't much succeed in market hunting so far, although someone did mention Saturday market, but said there would-be purely Lao people there. "the Hmong, they dress like us"! The local told me. But I did saw couple of Yao on the last day in ViengXay before I got on the songtheaw. They dress same like the Red Yao in Jingping, Yunnan, only without the red headdress. maybe they do, but no telling and the men are wearing indigo cotton dress with a column of cross-stitches in front covered the buttons area. All of them wore baggy pant. A man told me"ha-lak", said their village is 5km away. Should had find out earlier. Might come back again if there still time when I finish the north area.

Note
All guesthouse offered room for 50000,with bathroom and hot shower.
Only Naxay 1 has rooms in a wooden old house for 20000, bathroom outside and cold shower.

25/1/09

Spend a sunny day on the bus trip to MoungEt(@270m). But morning in ViengXai still saw white smoke from my breath. On the songtheaw back to SamNeua, an old man told me "MoungEt! No cold no cold". Good reassurance to me, as predicted by the prophet. Sun broke out already when waiting for bus in SamNeua, I was happy to get rip of my heavy gears excepted my long-john. It was actually a bus for this journey and thank G for that, as the whole trip was on a dusty road. We set out by 12:30 with a full bus, got myself a window although not in front row, but good to got some views. "bai-teng-nai?" everyone in the bus exclaimed, yeah...we were heading back in town indeed, no explanation we stop before the bridge and the driver ran away into the side street like he was ran away from a time-bomb. Soon he came back with another smaller bus and told us to move over there, chaosing...everyone fought like refugees crossing the Thai border, armed with luggage. I was lucky to be able to squeezed in the tiny space on the last row with my backpack stuck on my knee. I really hate this, I thought it would only happened in China. We wasted so much time, well packed luggage now had to removed from bus to bus, why didn't he brought this bus to the station at the first place? The Yao man (who could spoke good english) set next to me told the secret, with big bus, they could sell more ticket at the station,then once on the road with the smaller bus they pay less toll fee and consumed less gasoline. "there will be far less people on the return trip" the young me said. It was all clear up and it made sense with a business mind, still...its really Chinese! Now we had a fuller bus with everything stuck in the aisle, but no one seem to care or complaining excepted me...the rich tourist. "I used to speak better english when I was study in Vientain" the Yao man said, as now he work in SamNeua, not many chance to meet foreigner, he took out a copied document, which was an copy of the oxford picture dictionary, "I translated it to Lao on my spare time", said it was his habit, I was impressed. Told him it would be a good material to use in the tribal area for the childern. But he said no one interested about this. He was going home for new year, and it also cleared up another question for me, he said most of the Yao had Chinese ancestor, "so we celebrate new year like the Chinese", he said also the Vietnamese in this area too. No wondered there were couple of parties in town when we arrived in the evening. Although the road was unpaved and dusty. But most of the villages along the route seem wealthy enough, clean tidy wooden houses, the valley was smoother than the upland, paddy field carpeted both side of the NamMa river. But what kind of economic they had here? Just by grow small plot of land? The Yao man again said "I think many people went out doing labour work in the big town to get more income, the average income per family is about USD 500/year". I learned that there are Hmong, Yao, Lao and ThaiDam in the Et area. But need to wait until tomorrow to see as it was totally dark when we arrive at 8pm. But the starry sky was impressive!

Note
Bus SamNeua to MoungEt 31000 kip

26/1/09

I finally settled myself in NangBan guesthouse, they let me have the room for 30000, even got hot shower in the common bathroom. I only seen 2 guesthouses in town. Find the Songkone guesthouse in the dark last night, hated it right at the moment the owner showed me my room, when opened the door, one of the bed wasn't made, a sign of ex-sleeper was there before. But the man just "ha" then went in and flattening the bed. That was it! No sign of giving another room and no bargained, totally "where else can you go" attitude, he then showed me where the bathroom(shower from cold water tank) and with 3 fingers "samsip" he said, gave me the key and walked out. So the first thing this morning I tour the small town and hooked with this Vietnamese guesthouse.
Again...bad news with my market hunted, same...no market in this area too. But they did offered info of where about the tribal villages. "2 km this way has Hmong vilage, and 2km to that direction has Yao village" with his finger pointing to the way I came yesterday. I was wondered why every villages seem like 2km away? Was it just a standard answer for distance? anyways...I picked the 2km Hmong direction upstream along the NamEt for today exercise. Sky was cloudy but still clear, actually good for walking out as it wasn't hot, beside the walk on dusty trail, I enjoyed today's trip very much, passing village every 2km indeed! While the Chinese and the Vietnamese were celebrating their new year, the Lao had already busy in their plantation works. I always like agricultural scene, be it harvest or plantation, a happy and lively picture. Kids are the spirit in the whole picture, running around half nake, bathing in the mud field, buffaloes wasn't that much needed nowadays with the machinery, its became the play mate of childern. Plantation in China is a community action, neighbour came to help each other, but here seem like every family could managed, right...not one child policy in Lao. Village live went on harmony too, women weaving cloth while men weaving bamboo roof panel, old women preparing seaweed and men sucking bamboo pipe like those in Yunnan. Tuoluo still the favourite games for kids here, second came the flying flip-flop, and those were the only noise in the village. When time for food, ball of sticky rice rolling between fingers, bite a piece of meat, salt and chilli, need more taste? Easy...the woman took a long bamboo, walk out to the roadside, in between different trees, strike up a few times, different kind of fruit and leaves in her hand. Immediately I remembered "vitamins C" from last year in Phonsali. I past through Hmong village, ThaiDam village and Lao village, I could still spotted some girl wearing costumes, the Hmong women has tight shirt open from the middle, zebra stripes on arm but in colors, the typical embroidery panel on the back of their neck, it should be long pant with front and back apron like I saw in old photo, but here they mostly wear the saloong like any other tribal women. ThaiDam and Lao I couldn't tell by dress, only until they identified themselves then I would have know. Back and fore 5 hours walk, including a climbed up a small hill for view. Tired but enjoyable.
MoungEt town is small, situated at the junction of NamMa and NamEt, once cross the NamMa, you are on the way into Vietnam to Sonla. in town there only a couple of houses around the big open area of the market, where buses arrived and departed. Although the smallness and marketless. And most eating places beside serviced noodle, then again was noodle. I still wouldn't mind to hang around for few days, it was easy going here, reasonable price for most of the thing, hot water shower, and this one really work and work good!

27/1/09

Still clouded and it was cooler than yesterday. I decided to walked another 2km village trip on the other direction, looking for the Yao. But less than 2km I saw the familiar Yao costume already, the vibrant embroidered on their trousers, I tried the kid by the road side, took a picture and show it to his mother outside the house, then other kids came around and it all began like what I had expected, they all want their picture taken, hurried home to got rip of their Lao outfits and changed into their Yao costumes, I never like posed picture but...there was no market I could made some shooting, and beside...some of them really presented interesting pose. Looked around her house I didn't see any pictures on the wall, perhaps I could send them back some photos. But how to asked for an address? "pai-san-ni" that was the only related word I knew mean post office, then I pointed at the number plate above the door, still...getting no where, then the daughter went inside and brought back a thick red book, dusted off a trail of smoke before handed it to me. The Chinese"Tong-Xing"! Kind of encyclopaedia for the superstitionist, it told you what should do and what shouldn't do in certain date, and also contain a lot of info for Chinese celestial signs, its renew every year, my mother brought one every year, and I think most of the Chinese family got one too. Anyway...the daughter wanted me to look through it, I asked her did she knew any of the Chinese writing in there and she just swing her head sideways. Haha...probably she thought this book could solved any problem and gave all the answer, very funny! Suddenly I remember I got another address from other Lao family which I would send them pictures, I showed them the piece of paper, together with the "pai-san-ni" and my arm swing back and fore, "China and Lao" I pronounced, finally they all understood and the daughter wrote out an address. I really hope the address could be deliverable, as I saw the happiness in the mother's eye when she kop-zhia-lai-lai me many times before I left.
Not only saw the Yao costume today, I also saw the ThaiDam costume when I went further from the main road, as the road was so dusty, so I went uphill when I saw an exit, then I reached a ThaiDam village 30 mins later. Actually their dress are quite similar to the water Dai in souther China, dark tight long sleeve shirt with column of silver buttons in the middle, long dark skirt, the head scarf are heavy with embroidery. Sometimes you seen the Lao had the same head scarf too, it made distinguished the 2 tribes rather difficult if they wasn't in costume.
Went more uphill but not much sight could be seem. And to escaped the dusty road on the walked back I sneaked down to the riverside whenever it's possible, or I would advanced by balancing myself on the ridge of the rice field.


Note
for 100000 kip you can charter a small boat from MuongEt to XiengKhor on the NamMa.

29/1/09

Skipped XiengKhor as it was too close to MoungEt, and the stop in Sobbao(@240m) yesterday was brief, just another town in the middle of the dusty road. They charged 20000kip for this 45km trip while 19000 more could land you in SamNeua 80km away, I wasn't the only one complained about it, all passengers stop in Sobbao made some noise, but...whoever own the car is the ruler.
Same kind of those noodle restaurant in town, although here they offered something more by displayed tiny dishes of different meat for choice, but...ready made cold dishes not my taste. Guesthouse choices were limited with no standard, pick the Sopbao guesthouse at least they got a balcony overlooking part of the market area, I spend most of the time sit there watch the tiny world goes by, or reading or writing. Just didn't want to walk out there eating brown dust. All the vegetation on both sides of the road were heavily coated with dust like pastry, you could imagine what your lung would be like if you stay out too long. There was much more traffic here in Sobbao, trucks, buses, motor bike, to ventured out you really need a gasmask. But still...I strolled around a bit, couldn't find any nice spot by the river, but I did ran into someone backyard while they were brewing lao-lao, I always like the taste of fresh warm lao, lovely! Again, being an Asian face in a small out of the way border town, I attracted the policeman too, I always wondered why they wanted to see my passport, got invited back to the station, but none of them spoke more than a few words of English, "passport, passport" they demanded anxiously, kind of like waiting for the big lottery number with saliva dripping out the corner of their mouth. Flipped through my passport for almost 5 minutes still they didn't know where to look, I showed them the stamped and the dated of the visa, but the month was writen in English, 13 Jan 2009 to 11 Feb 2009, no problem, after a small thought, a calendar brought on the table, yes...date corrected and no problem. "name, name" they demanded again, but I already lost patient with this game, I just pointed at my passport with a nod, "it is all there" I said, I didn't like it this way, if this is restricted area, then you should stop people coming here at the entrance, it is open area, how could you picked tourist from the street, there was no regulation about needed to register in town I guess. I wondered if they dare to INVITE a westernerif there ever have one show up here. Finally thwy just wrote out something in a book, handed me back my passport and finished. What a waste of time. But...that was exactly what I got here! Perhaps they should try to invite me again and served me with coffee!
Old injury of my ankles was hurting, so it was a good idea to lazy for a day with no walking, and came down to SamNeua this morning. What a long journey, almost 5 hours, stop and stop and stop, the woman conductor seem only could help in collected money, so our driver had to climbed out from the packed bus to help loaded more luggages inside or on top of the bus, wasted a lot of time. On the way I saw 2 times small group of colourful dressed Miao people gathering on an open field, playing games that similar to the Miao in Yunnan while in Flower festival, but I hadn't seen they erected the pole which is the significant of the event, still...perhaps it was the Flower festival as it was the same time in China too.
Sky turned grey and cold today, you would never know how to dress for the next day. There really nothing you could do in SamNeua, beside strolled around the market, then you find yourself walk into the market again. Luckily they got more choice for snacks, but still not something you would write home about, dig around, find a local noodle place made good coffee lao, and they did served it hot! Yes...also you could do internet and....I really couldn't provided more suggestion.
Seem like after ViengTong, there was no mint in this area, I hadn't taste any so far, walked into the market, no, nothing. Strange, it supposed to be the most basic ingredient in their food. I went to the post office to see if the MoungEt address was corrected. Of cause no one could speak much english. But I just showed them the address, "is the address correct?" I asked, the man looked at it, "no, MoungEt, bus station", he thought I wanted to go to MoungEt. I tried again and again with different expression, no way, then I saw an envelope on their table, I put the address on the envelope "HongKong to Lao" I imitating to post a letter. "kaw-zhia-baw? "I asked, ha...he seem to got it, nod his head and said yes yes. I think it couldn't go any further anyway. Thank him and I went over to the tourist office, the good english speaking guy wasn't there, I showed the address to whoever behind the reception, he read me the address in broken english, "to Ms so and so, XXX village, Et district. My father is so and so" that was it! I asked him was this address sendable? He huum huum...yes he said, again I asked would he write an address like this? He said yes too, but from his expression I didn't think he knew what my question was. I thought it couldn't go any further from here as well. Just hope they will receive my photo!



Note
Sobbao is the closest town for the border crossing to Moc Chau in Vietnam. There is no public transportation to the border.


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11th October 2009

Great read
Hi, This blog is a great read. I am soon travelling to Laos and will probably be making the same loop past Vieng Tong and Sam Neua, so it's interesting to read your tales and see some photos. Thanks for sharing, Cecilia http://www.travelpod.com/members/cecilia74
12th October 2009

thank and hope this can help you find your way around. and do update me later after your journey have a nice trip in Laos
9th July 2010

Koi mak lai lai
I live in Laos now... this was by far one of the best blogs I have read! I haven't made it to SN....yet...soon. Hopefully next month. I learned more from your blog than LPlanet. : ) -Pim
26th October 2010

I'm living in sam neua right now, but some of picture are to old, Ex. market area , now they buided the new bridge and new market Pls update
22nd December 2011

Samneua region
Now Smaneua has many update thing please following
22nd December 2011

thing changing in the world fast!!!!
thank you and of course... I hadn't back visit Laos for a long time wish I can go there soon

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