Luang Nam Tha, Laos

---

On Dec 2 we traveled from Chaing Rai in Thailand to Huay Xai in Laos. The Mekong River is the border and there is no bridge so after we left Thailand we took a motorized canoe across the river to Laos. Getting the visa for Laos took about 45 minutes but was uneventful. Interestingly, the prices for the Laos visas were posted and payable in US dollars only.

Our plan at that time was to take a two day boat trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. A man right outside of the Immigration office offered to sell us boat tickets to Luang Prabang for 270,000 kip (270KK = $34). Just a few feet up the street we were offered the same trip at a travel agency for 250KK. Once on the main drag we found a hotel and they offered boat tickets for 230KK including transportation to the pier. We read online that the tickets were 200KK if you bought them at the boat dock so it pays to shop around.

It was only 3:30pm but we had not eaten lunch so we decided to stop for a snack. We ordered BeerLao and fried noodles with beef. One lady took our order, brought the beer and prepared the food; a real one-woman show. We sat on the deck watching the sun set over the Mekong and reading the guidebook.

We were lamenting being on the tourist track so I suggested that instead of going to Luang Prabang south of here we go to Luang Nam Tha north of here. The guidebook talks about a lovely National Park with wild tigers and elephants. We had two beers in us and were feeling footloose so when the travel agency guy associated with the restaurant came by we asked about tickets to Luang Nam Tha. He offered us mini-bus tickets for 100KK each. After a bit more reading (and a bit more beer), we bought the tickets.

Our journey to Luang Nam Tha the next day took 5 hours. At one point we saw a full sized bus on the side of the road that looked like it had rolled over several times…I am glad we were not on it. Luang Nam Tha is a small town that reminds me of an old western. It is dusty with two or three story buildings lining the street for about four blocks then it tapers off into houses. It is well set-up for tourism; everything we needed was in those four blocks. There are, however, still many tourists. I find it humorous that we came here to get off the beaten path and there are still so many of us.

The next day I walked to the morning market. This was a real working market with products ranging from toilet paper to vegetables to bedspreads. There was a lot of food, both vegetables and meat. I watched as people bought and sold live meat and fish. Most animals sat placidly as they awaited their fate but one duck decided to complain. It was quickly silenced by the purchaser who simply held its beak shut.

About 9am we set out on a three day two night trek into Nam Ha National Park. There were eight tourists (including us), two guides and two porters. The other six tourists were:

• Serge and Anik from Belgium
  
• Steph and Nina from Switzerland
  
• Ange from Canada
  
• Aman from Great Britain

Our guide was Ponsak and the assistant guide was Jai. There were two women who were hired from the village where we started to act as porters but we were never told their names. They carried their loads in baskets on their backs supported by bands on their heads.

We rode in a pickup truck for about forty minutes to a village where we started our trek. First we walked through the village then we walked along the rice paddies where the villagers were busy with the harvest. We stopped for a break at a hut where a man was cooking soup in a section of bamboo that looked like a tube. There were three little girls awaiting their lunch and Steph gave them each a crayon and a piece of paper. It was fun to watch them color.

Then began the up hill section of the trek. It got pretty steep in sections and, as expected, I was the slowest person in the group. (Did I mention that we are the oldest people in the group? Oldest by several years in fact.) But we arrived at camp by 3pm so it was not a problem.

We stopped part way up for lunch. The porters brought a bunch of leaves and put them in the middle of the trail and Jai (the assistant guide) brought banana leaves and laid them on top to make a table. The lunch had been precooked and wrapped in banana leaves. They simply unwrapped the parcels and we ate. There was sticky rice and three other dishes plus bananas for dessert. There was food leftover so everything except the rice was just thrown into the jungle, including the “table”.

As I said earlier, we reached camp about 3pm. The camp consists of a stilt house with half walls and a storage room in one corner. The roof appears to be bamboo. There is a kitchen and dining area with a couple of tables and two fires. Finally there is an outhouse with a gravity flow squat toilet….much nicer than I could have hoped. In the storage room of the stilt house were mattresses and mosquito netting so we set up our beds.

Then we had the afternoon free. Ponsak had shown us a vine good for swinging and we figured it was probably our only chance to swing on a vine like Tarzan so we did it. We also went down to the spring and rinsed off and put on clean clothes. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around the fire talking then we ate dinner which was cooked at the camp but very similar to lunch. Ponsak was handing out shots of lao-lao, a rice wine flavored with a leaf so the color is bright green like anti-freeze. He also had lao-hie which was yellow and sweeter. I took one shot of each but most people had more.

After dinner we sat around the fire talking, looking at the stars and drinking. We went to bed about 8 but were neither the first nor the last to go to bed. With a group this large there was a lot of noise (both snoring and talking) all night. The funniest was Steph and Nina coming to bed after drinking too much lao-lao. Nina kept talking in a very loud voice and Steph kept saying “shhh” in an even louder voice. Then about two minutes after they lay down Nina was snoring loudly and steadily.

The next morning I was the first one up and I went to the fireside and journaled. It took several hours for everyone to get up and both Steph and Nina had hangovers. Ponsak had a mild hangover as well but shook it off. Breakfast was sticky rice and omelet which was quite good although I am rapidly growing tired of sticky rice. (Note that what we called ‘sticky rice’ in the US is simply steamed rice here. Sticky rice is a different variety of rice that is much more starchy and sticky.)

We were on the trail about 10 and had only three hours to walk. It was through the jungle with only intermittent views. The jungle is not what either of us expected because it is not very wet. That is probably because it is the dry season and they have not had rain in 2 ½ months. Despite guidebook promises of tigers and elephants, the only animal sign we saw was civet cat scat and bear scat.

After three hours of up and down we arrived at the Lahu village. The village has 17 houses and 149 people. The trekking company owns a lodge here. It is one room with a platform for sleeping along one wall and a few benches along the other. There is also an attached lean-to where they cook over a fire (There was no chimney and it got pretty smoky inside). They had mattresses and mosquito netting like the previous night but they also had blankets and pillows…luxury.

We were the star attraction in the village. Ponsak told us that tourists had only been coming to the village for five months and that explains why the villagers were not bored with us. They came to the lodge just to watch us. They were lined up along the wall and crowding around just staring. We, of course, were equally curious so there was a lot of good natured staring at each other.

We arrived about 1pm and had lunch then spent the afternoon wandering the village, interacting with the adults and playing with the children. As a group we had several different interactions with the people. I pulled out my postcards and my world map (thanks Charlotte) and showed it to both the children and adults to lots of appreciative comments. Steph and Aman gave away more crayons and paper. Serge held an impromptu Lahu-English language lesson primarily for parts of the body. Ange pulled out some stickers that were a big hit. Many of us used our cameras…people like to see what the picture looks like.

Each house in the village is made of bamboo and is about 20x20. I saw the inside of one and it had a fire pit for cooking but no chimney or even a hole in the roof. The smoke just drifted out through the roof and walls. It had an enclosed bed where the parents slept and a raised bed where the three children slept. In the middle was a circle with low logs and low seats for sitting and eating and in the center was a low table. They had a solar panel and off the power they ran one light and an mp3 player.

There are three types of animals in the village: pigs, chickens and dogs. All of the animals run freely. The pigs are large black pigs and all of the large sows have litters of piglets. There are also several midsize pigs which I suspect are teenagers. There are many chickens wandering, several with broods of chicks and many, many roosters. The roosters crowed most of the night. The dogs are not pets as we know them but rather are tolerated and allowed just about anywhere in the village. The disgusting thing is there are no toilets so everyone, villagers and tourists, just goes in the woods and the pigs and dogs eat the excrement. I try to tell myself that is more sanitary. There are two male dogs battling for dominance so there is an on-going dog fight. Pigs are grunting, cocks are crowing and mp3 players are playing; in summary it is not a quiet place.

Dinner was chicken soup and one of the villagers brought us a live rooster. This gave us the opportunity to observe the process from live chicken to chicken soup. I did not see the actual slaughter but Aman said it was quite humane. The soup was tasty and there was a lot remaining to share with the villagers.

After dinner we set up the beds and mosquito netting under the curious gaze of the villagers then went outside to admire the star-filled night sky. While we craned our necks at the celestial display, I explained to Ponsak what the Milky Way was; I don’t think he believed me. Then we went to a lao-lao party.

The party was a bunch of local men sitting around the low table described earlier. There were only two cups and they repeatedly filled with about a half shot of lao-lao and passed to the next person in the circle. We sang songs to each other and laughed and talked a lot. After about six rounds I called it quits.

The next morning the villagers began arriving shortly after sunrise to watch us get up. I now know how a zoo animal feels but, as John rightly reminded me, it is better than being ignored.

We spent the morning very slowly getting up and packing our gear, all under the watchful eyes of the villagers. I understand their interest when I was using the computer to show pictures of South Africa to Nina and Steph but why the fascination when I am putting on sunscreen? We left at 10:30 and in the meantime we just interacted with the locals or talked among ourselves.

About 10:30 we set out and three hours later we were at our destination, another village. At the village Ponsak bought two papayas for us to share then we ate lunch with a family. They provided fish and we (actually our guides) provided several other dishes and we ate while seated on bamboo mats in a stilt house. They also passed around a glass of beer like they passed around lao-lao the night before. The way people share glasses and eating utensils I bet colds spread very quickly here. All that remained on our trek was a short ride back to town. It was a great trek.

The most common mode of transportation in SE Asia is the motorbike and John had wanted to drive one ever since we hired two bikes and drivers in Sapa, Vietnam. So the next day we rented motorbikes and after a (very) short lesson on riding one we set off. The primary purpose was to learn to ride motorbikes and the places we visited were just excuses to ride. First we headed for a waterfall our host had told us about. We rode on the paved main road for a few kilometers then turned onto a dirt road. It was mostly flat and easy going. After about 4 km we reached the waterfall. We paid the 4KK admittance fee and walked up to the falls. They were nothing to write home about…just 30 feet tall. Like I said, the purpose was the motorbike ride.

After lunch we went for another ride and, when I turned back, John continued on and was able to go as fast as he wanted (only about 45 mph). That night at dinner I asked John whether he had gotten motorbikes “out of his system” or if he had “caught motorcycle fever?” I am grateful to report that when we get home we won’t be buying a Harley.

We spent the remainder of our day in Luang Nam Tha relaxing, reading, packing, and surfing the internet planning our journey to Luang Prabang but that is another story.

---

Photos

Jungle
Sunlight streaming through the canopy.

Cooking in Bamboo
The cook was using a section of bamboo as a pot.

Lahu Village
There are17 homes in this village.

Tongues
It is hard to get the people to smile for the camera so I settled for getting the kids to stick out their tongues.

Pigs and Chicken
I loved the scene of the pig nursing her piglets and the chicken makes me laugh.

Sunset Silhouette
From right to left there is a house, a solar panel and a woman.

Lahu Ladies
Two Lahu women in their customary costume.

Beth and the Motorbikes
Sounds like a 50's Band

Language Lessons
Serge learning the names of parts of the body in the local tribe's language.

Comments

[Betty Blakney]

Adventure
Dear Beth and John, You are really having the adventure of a life time. So glad that you are keeping well and enjoying it all. Love, Betty