Northern Laos

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Well guys, i'm still in Laos and still loving it here! Last Wednesday we left Vang Vieng and headed up north to Luang Prabang by bus taking about 8 hours or so. The bus journey was quite funny with lots of erratic driving and the bus driver buying big rats from street vendors along the way and storing them for dinner i think!! Luang Prabang is a really beautiful city (well big town i guess). Its a Unesco Heritage listed city. The first night we visited the local night market. Its really relaxed and the vendors dont bother you at all. I bought a few t-shirts here but they have lots of handicraft, jewellery, lanterns, rugs, shoes, slippers. Its a bit bizarre as the whole town virtually shuts down at 11.30. All the bars are cleared and the streets are deserted and pretty dark too.

The next few days we rented bicyles and toured around the city. There's lots of cosy cafes and restuarants along the river with really good local food. We visited the royal palace museum and some of the many,many temples that are in the city. Some of them are really beautiful but i think you get a bit tired of seeing the same thing over and over. In Lao there is a saying "same, same but different", which is quite an apt summary for me. You see it on plenty of the t-shirts that they sell to the 'falang'. WE cycled out the country to see some of the local villages and the children are a delight. They all wave and smile and shout 'sabidee' (hello) the 'falang' (foreigner). A lot of them are quite shy and they burst into fits of laughter when you wave at them. The next day was climbing up to one of the temples when i heard a guy behind me shout my name. It was quite funny - was Liam O'Reilly a guy from home that i know...small world!! We met up later on for some beers but he's heading in the opposite direction to me. The food in the night market is gorgeous. I had the best bit of chiken ever here...so juicy and tasty. I also tried some buffalo, pork, noodle soup, spring rolls, and pancakes.

On Saturday my travelling bud, Ray, left for Bangkok and Sydney while i took the bus further north to Luang Namtha. I left a 9am and arrived in about 7pm, the journey being quite similar to my previous bus experiece. There were quite a few local people on the bus and not so many westerners. We got stuck for about 90 minutes because of an accident - its really strange here they wouldn't push the car to the side of the road until the police came even thought it was just a minor scrape. Lorries and buses could not get by but cars and motorcycles could squeeze by. Luang Namtha is quite a small place but the big attraction here is the trekking in the Nam Ha National Protected Area. On Sunday i rented a motorbike for the day and visited some local attractions - waterfalls and some local statues. It was a nice relaxing day and spent lots of time chatting to locals in the different villages i was passing through. That night i met a Dutch girl and we booked a 2 day trek starting Monday morning. There were 6 people on the trek in total - a couple from Canada and German couple. The trek was amazing. We walked for about 5 hours the first day, stopping for lunch along the way. The guides carried the food - chicken in a spicy sauce, cucumber and beef, green beans and of course sticky rice. We ate off banana leaf that was jus chopped down by our guides. That night we stayed in a village in the jungle. About 25-30 families lived there. We bathed in the local river, the water being so clear and got to visit the local school and have a look around the village. It was harvest time for the rice and we went out to the fields to see them extracting it form the plant. We passed several people bring bags of rice back to the village - looks like back-breaking work, 30 -40 kg of rice on your back balanced with a rope around your forehead! Later on the locals took a duck and caught it for us. Our guides the killled it, plucked it, cleaned it out and cooked it all in about 30 minutes!! Was pretty cool watching it. They also did the same with a chicken. Apparantly they only kill the animal when they're ready to eat it. Had a fabulous meal and played some card before heading for bed.

Next day, today, we trekked for about 6 hours starting out at 9 after a breakfast of sticky rice, egg, home made tomato sauce and green beans which was surprisingly good! The scenery in the forest was pretty good but we didn't see any wild animals. Anyhow must go now as our trekking group is meeting up for some dinner and beers. Tomorrow i get a bus from here to Thailand border and head on for Chaing Rai for a few days!!

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