The authentical Laos experience - non-touristy and remote Sam Neua in Houaphan province

---

In our effort to experience the real Laos, we hopped on the bus to Sam Neua in east Laos. Trying to get off the beaten track wasn't really comfortable and wasn't that cheap either. After exhausting 16 hours on the bus, we arrived to a small town in the middle of mountains and dense forests. Coming to the mountains pretty much means we spent the whole time on a bus bumping up and down and left and right as the journey is just turns and cliffs and downhills and uphills and more turns and luckily for lots of people on the bus, there are vomiting plastic bags available in an unlimited amount. Only a few tourists come here to Sam Neua, usually only to change a bus and cross the border to Vietnam. We definitely didn't meet anyone else who would make the long journey just to be out of reach of other tourists and restaurants with western food. To start with the down point, we couldn't really find cheap accommodation (as there is obviously no competition as there are no tourists to be competeted for) and getting around is even more luxurious and expensive as there are no local buses or any other means of public transport to anywhere.

On the positive note, it was an amazing authentical experience. We got into the wilderness of remote area where lots of different tribe minorities still live the same way as they did in the past. There is lots of tiny villages along the roads, with a few humble houses on stilts and women weaving their traditional textile. Children in front of the houses waving at us and smiling. The Houaphan province is apparently the birth place of Lao PDR (People's Democratic republic) and it was definitely very heavily bombed during the Vietnam war and there is still lots of UXOs (unexploded ordance) in this area today. We went to see the Vieng Xai caves where all the communist leaders where hiding and it was strange feeling to see bomb craters all around. They were huge. And it was even more interesting by the fact that we made the trip to the caves together with a really nice american lad Chris whose father was actually fighting in the Vietnam war. Honestly, me and Davy, we don't know much about the war but you just can't understand why people were (and are) killing each other... no matter what... We also visited Hintang, an archaeological park and prehistoric megalitic site with mysterious groups of menhirs. One could say that a whole day trip to see a bunch of stones is not worth it, but there was definitely something special about that place.

The whole area surrounding Sam Neua is as I mentioned already covered with dense forest and jungle and just looking at the mountain hills, one would imagine that they are full of wild life. Sadly, they are really not. As we were told, they were tigers and elephants simply everywhere just maybe 40 years ago. Now there is just a small population of tigers remaining in one of the national protected areas of the Houaphan province. So again it is hard not to wonder how is it possible that we, people, killed all the wild animals and let them to be close to extinction. Talking about animals, it is just insane what you can see being sold at the local market. For me, the local market was just an absolute highlight of the Sam Neua stay and perfect insight into the local life. You can see women from the minority tribes selling what they grew, cooked or what they caught. And that varries from boring things like pumpkins and noodles to crazy selection of death rats, dried rats, live frogs and unbeliavable variety of different bugs. At this stage, I lost all my courage of trying new things and very honestly I have to admit that I joined Davy and we pretty much ended up eating only yummy donughts with filling (at least something local), vaste selection of crisps and watermelons for three long days 😊

So that was it, maybe not the most pleasant experience with the hassle of travelling there and around and the sad reality of war and animals close to extinction but the most real and intense experience of the local life of touristically unexplored part of our planet and that is, I guess, what the whole backpacking is about.

---