31/1/09 Again...spend another sunny day on long bus trip yesterday, left the station by 8:30, and we rolling on mountain top for long time, pass the ViengTong junction then we stop at NamNeua for lunch, a nice little village with 2 guesthouse. A lot of girls did weaving in front of their house. Carried on we entered XiengKhouang area, the land lived mostly Hmong people. A huge plateau appeared when we approaching MoungKham, from there to the east will get to the Vietnam border, we turned right heading to Ponsavanh 50km away. The whole trip was travelled on paved road in [View Full Entry]

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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, [View Full Entry]

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It took about 4 hours from ViengKham(@350m) to ViengTong(@650m) yesterday, the road condition wasn't that bad as we drove over two 1100m mountain, the more east we drove the more undeveloped, you began to see the use of small generators in the river. Stop in ViengTong trying to tracing market, but when enquired with the locals, "no market in the area"! Tried the Chinese and they gave the same answer. They don't do market here! Disappointed and I looked hard in the area see if any walking trail existe so I coukd spend time with. Same like in ViengKham. Most of [View Full Entry]

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"130000 kip to SamNeua", I then asked how much to ViengTong, the answer from inside the box was 110000. "What!" I spat out. There was almost 160km in between the 2 places, what a rip off, so I paid the 25000 kip and stop at ViengKham instead yesterday. A small village spread from both side of the highway with the river run parallel on the left. Although there was a bus station, but it doesn't seem like operate anymore, although there was a post and telecom office, but it doesn't seem like operate anymore(later find out because of weekend), and although [View Full Entry]

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14/1/09 Bus to Nongkhio won't leave until 10:30 due to lack of passenger. I was in no hurry but just don't like to wasted time in this way as you couldn't go anywhere, all you can do is stand and looking at the bus. Rather cold and foggy in the morning, not until the sun broke through by 10 then I feel some warm. After Pakmong the road became more straight and flat and the speed pick up, the scene near Nambak was quite pretty when we drove through,then Nongkhio wasn't far afterward. Not much I could recognised about the town [View Full Entry]

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8:30 our bus left for Oudomxay, at the same time I saw a new bus line destinate to Huyxai which depart every 2 days from Mengla. Seem like the cross country service getting more frequency. We drove on the new highway smoothly but about 20km before Mohan our bus came off the highway through a tiny opening, which was rather danger as it was only inch from the cliff. The explanation was a 15 yuan exit fee waiting at the other end of the higway. The border crossing was as smooth as it could be, USD 30 dollars plus 1 photo. [View Full Entry]

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11/1/09 Dashuigou was my last market stop before heading to Laos. Just another typically Chinese ghost-town exist only on market day, a simple one street town which extended westward from the old quarter, but the area offered some pretty rice terrace scene, took a short hike to Longpu direction, you could walk and walk, I saw no end with villages in between, the mountain side are all rice terrace, seem like a god place to stay a few days to do some hiking. Back to the market today, dominated mainly by Luchun Hani, but here you kind of seeing the evolution [View Full Entry]

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19/11/08 A friend drove down to Mengzi yesterday and asked if I wanted to come along. Quick check in the map if there are any market, of course but my eyes actually fall on Kaiyuan area. A small place I would like to check out. Off we go but stop quite often as he need to do many stopping for other friends, tangerine...100kg, mango...50kg....rice....25kg... It was a hot day, already November but still it hot like ass! Especially while at valley along the red river, the engine of the van got over heat and we need to rush to looking for [View Full Entry]

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9/8/08 Yunlong Prefecture was another important trading post in the old day. Could go back 2000 years. In the area they got some very good salt-mine, and in ancient China salt could rated with gold or silver, so horse-troops made journals here for salt and the area became prosperity. And since Tang dynasty they began to built bridges all over the region to made travel more easiler for traders, not only for salt, as they got many other mineral mines too. And today Yunlong Prefecture is one of the good area thst could see many old bridges, like the official promoted...the [View Full Entry]

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3/8/08 Weixi town (@2200m)was built on a slope, so you always find yourself walking up and the the road. Transportation in the area mainly done by minibus, as most of the road condition were ok, only small part of bad road in every 10km, perhaps it was anotherway for speed control???!!! Not much info about thing to see and do in the area, the highest noise was come to visit the so call "3 River running parallel ", but....how could you see the 3 river unless from the plane? Anyways...visited a catholic church in Xiao Weixi which was created by French [View Full Entry]

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