Nong Khiaw and history

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t took mi about 8 days before i was ready to venture out of Luang Prabang and took a bus up to Nong Khiaw which is 3.5 hrs north by bus. I crossed the bridge to Ban Sop Houn, where miracuously i picked a guesthouse which is run by Church (yes his real name-by the way i think about everyone has an 'h' in their name). While i was checking in i received a message from my french friend Ghislaine (from Chiang Saen) and was mumbling her words in french (usually i understand the language better when i hear it ...) and the next moment Church started to talk with mi in fluent French ...


This town exist of one main street with bunch of guesthouses and restaurants, again geared towards tourists (as the tourist industry income is so much more than any of the prior existing jobs, like farming and fishing ...) ... a bit a pity, however totally understandable everyone in town who can work in this service industry does ...

Anyway the second day Pheng (who lives up north) joined mi with a young friend Phick and together we explored the Poktha caves, a hideaway for the governing body of Luang Prabang province during the heaviest time of the secret 'unofficial' war with inwhere almost 3,000,000 bombs were dropped in Laos ... now having travelled around here for bit and spend some time with the locals it has become even a bigger question to mi that the international community had let this happen ... more pictures in next blog about this ...

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Photos

the bus map
u know ur getting towards rural Laos as No, u can not get a nice bus map, it's scribbled with chalk ...

connected to Nong Khiaw
Every time m surprised again ... no matter how little they have, some don't even have shoes, they all have a telephone ... rates r cheap here

on my way north ...
next to the lao-generated / chinese consumed electricity line ...

arriving as the busstation
and hiding in the shade as it's over 100F/35C

min nong khiaw bungalow on stilts
Never had a house the floorboards were separated enough that every living and crawling insect can enter ... oh and then of course it leaked left and ride

view from my bungalow ...
ain't bad hey? this time i opted to stay for half the price in the garden ...

view Nong Khiaw
from the communal deck from the Sunset guesthouse, run by Church who i conversed in French with ...

opening up - yippee spring is here
flowers, flowers and again flowers everywhere and most are new to mi ...

main street Ban Sop Houn
X from the bridge is little village with most guesthouses and little resto, this view is getting more and more common to mi ...

my ban sop houn neighbors
... resulting in sharing my being with local life ... everywhere around mi there were families, this house belonged to a REAL old couple ...

cooking classes
i noticed the sign, then the house behind it with the 'sexy' girl pictures and was confused for a moment if in that building was the cooking class or a whole kind of other service

kids luv to pose ...
and this girl set mi straight ... she laughed if i asked if the building was the cooking school ...

Always foreign camaradery
this one with a Bangkok resident

Sunset at the river Ou ...
which i later on in the week travelled up finally to arrive in no one's land ...

view from the bridge
behind the buildings with white/silver roofs is where my bungalow was ... the sun/resto deck right above them ... just breathtaking

check'ing' on the bridge
Everyone is taking pictures and immediately checking them ... i for that matter just shoot and edit at night ...

coming out of herbal lao sauna
sort of like a turkish steam bath with a mix of herbs boiling in a BIG cauldron above a charcoal fire ... steam leading thru a bamboo pipe up to little wooden box with two very uncomfortable little narrow hard wooden benches ... here i met a russian lady who answered 'uuuhhh?...' when i asked where she came from ... ofcourse i spend the next day with her and laughed lots ...