Towards the Hill-Tribes
Northern Laos
Luang Prabang’s northern bus terminal is dusty, dirty and without buses. From here it is the back of trucks with a steel frame roof, designed to safely carry 25 people. (There is a little sign on the side of all such transportation resembling a speed limit sign). What this actually seems to mean is that the truck will not leave without its full quota of passengers as listed within said speed limit type sign despite the official schedule. This is what privatisation does for you… But will of course, should the opportunity arise, cram another 7 or 8 people in over the said safe limit (clearly noted upon the fore mentioned sign) they will.
The official departure time comes and goes, and we still are 11 people short, and an hour later we only need 8. Almost two hours after the scheduled departure time we have taken to trying to cajole westerners and Lao people alike to join our bus as opposed to going where they wanted to, this was not succeeding as well as we hoped. Just as we (the collated group of travelers onboard, now all hot and sweaty) were considering to pay for the empty seats, a whole bunch of Lao people with all kinds of personal belongings turn up to invade our sacred space. At least we were now up to the minimum seated capacity (in reality the safe maximum) and in fact considerably over.
So we were off, at last, only to stop about five miles out of town to pick up another three men and, AND, a huge Toyota 2.0 litre car engine that had been just been made into a long tail boat’s outboard engine! This precious piece of machinery (which many of the local people on the truck had to get off and admire… coz it gleamed of chromium and looked kinda impressive) had to travel within the people carrying space, partly because the owner wouldn’t let it out of his sight, and partly there was no way on heaven and earth we could lift it the 2� meters to set it on the roof! Actually with that huge weight above my head bouncing around I would be afraid it would come crashing through and splatter my brains into all four corners of the truck’s back space. So be it, we hefted this mean mother of an engine into the already chock-a-block passenger space and eventually moved of again another 40 minutes or so later.
The trip was thankfully not a long one, nor was the road particularly bad, and three hours later we arrived at our destination Nuang Khaw, where we stopped for a night as we tentatively arranged to meet our French Canadian friend to go trekking with. As it was he had already absconded with a forwarding address. We suspected Muang Ngoi, but as that place threatened to be as quiet and dead as the one we were already in we hop skipped onto a boat heading north the next day, destination Muang Khua, the stop off point halfway to our final destination in Northern Laos, Phongsali.
As with buses, boats don’t leave without a minimum passenger quota, or they don’t leave at all… Or… you hire the whole boat. We arrived at 08:00 at the boat landing, only to find this particular day we were alone in our wish to head north. What to do, wait and see if someone wanted to go tomorrow? What if no one did? Our visa expiry date was looming towards us, and we really did want to get north and trek the hill tribes. After a brisk banter of furious haggling we achieved what we thought was a fair compromise for the price of hiring a boat to take us to Muang Khua. We didn’t notice the driver rubbing his hands in glee chuckling silently to himself as we climbed down the riverbank to our transportation modus.
The boats that traverse the shallow waters northwards are a version of the long tailed speedboats, with the engine set forward in the boat. The prop on the end of the long tail is level with the end of the boat and protrudes through the hull of the boat. Sort of an in-board version of a long tail. The luggage and passengers are then positioned so as to balance the boat in such a way that the prop doesn’t hit the stony floor of the river. The driver sits right on the front of the boat with his make shift Bakelite steering wheel attached to a primitive form of a pulley steering. Effective and squeaky.
We left just after 09:00 as the sun was beginning to break through the mist that clung to the hills either side of the River Ou. The air started to warm and far off north the hill tribes beckoned us. The scenery was astounding as we made our way up the River Ou, the walls of a steep valley rose around us, slowly cut from thousands and thousands of years of water flow, from torrential rains and high monsoon waters. Majestic craggy cliffs populated with a cosmopolitan myriad of trees. An infinite number of shades of green, leaves, vines and waterfalls of dripping plants that look so beautiful but suffocate the trees feeding from their bark, slowly killing them. So often death is beautiful in nature.
As the boat droned it’s way northward I sat out in the sun just behind the driver and in front of the covered sitting area to read my book. As I settled down a flash of something passed close in front of my eyes, as a pair of swooping swifts darted across my vision. Sweeping, dancing and flying with grace they seemed to flirt in the sky, showing off with aerobatics, making low flying close passes in unison with the boat and I. Behind the deft and graceful flyers as I looked up to watch I saw linear stone of the cliffs patterned behind them, with wild banana palms beneath. No roads, this is the main byway around here, the wilderness highway. I remember feeling good, lucky, even heavenly if there is such a place. This is what I came to Laos for. Imagine, here we were, just Eddie and I, in our own boat, cruising up this river into the wild Laos, the scenery captivating and the presence of our friendly swifts mesmerising. How lucky can we be, just another of my favorite things…
The boat slid effortlessly up stream, climbing stretches of rapids that frothed around the vessel, tugging us back with no avail. Sometimes we really got the feeling we were going uphill. The boat tilted up the gradient of the water flowing down over the rapids, winding around banks of sediment, sandy outcrops and islands of rock supporting their own micro flora and fauna. And the river just continues to flow, cutting it’s course for us to follow.
Occasionally we passed small settlements, mostly supporting a handful of inhabitants. Water buffalo wallow in the stiller waters by the banks, submerged so just the top half of their heads and the humps of their backs show, like in their own little communities too. A few other boats passed us, but no travelers, I think we were the only white faces on the river that day, along with the smiling faces of the kids, as bare as the day they were born, running out into the river shouting and diving into the wash of the boat as we pass. Wild ducks watched warily as we passed, not too close but close enough to be under the watchful eye, tails twitching and wings tensed at the ready for flight.
Our driver stopped at a larger village to top up the fuel tank, and in honor of our arrival we were surrounded with onlookers, mostly children, the older ones hanging back. Presents of fruits were given to us and they posed Kung Fu style for my camera. Their old, worn, hand-me-down clothes and genuine smiles of happiness and laughter, these sights always amaze me, so happy with so little. I am so envious, will I ever be able to achieve that kind of contentment, or is it born out of never knowing any better? Surely they know about the towns and the TV’s and the lifestyles of others, but I suppose that if you have never experienced it, you don’t miss it. Is this real Laos I ask myself?… An old lady grins a patchwork of teeth and spaces while doing washing.
I could tell later that we were nearing civilisation to some extent, the villages were getting bigger. There were more boats passing us by, ferrying passengers from the market upstream in Muang Khua. The villages have basic electricity, not from a grid but from little personal turbines set in the rapids. Like a reverse longtail engine and propeller, the rapids are funneled into a bottleneck where a “turbine” is situated, the water turns the prop that turns a ball of copper wire within to magnets that generates electricity. Kid’s stuff, basic science that comes in a fun box at Christmas to play and experiment with is here being used as personal electricity for a couple of small lights in a house in the middle of nowhere. Ingenious, no; not ingenious but using your noddy to make the best with what is available.
And so we arrived at Muang Khua, another step of the journey completed, and a step that has put me in contact with what I feel could be real Laos. I even feel comfortable here in this small market town. It’s real, there are no bars here, no pizza joints, the day ends when the sun goes down and starts before sunrise. We stay in a guesthouse that overlooks the river and we spend the rest of the day watching what goes on below us at the water’s edge.
The boats that come and go, the different people from different tribes that come and go. Different tribal costumes, different tribal characteristics, faces, mannerisms. Decorations, head pieces, scarves, leg bindings, colourful embroidery and plain black coverings that hide the body and form beneath. As the sun sets, the banks go quiet. People go home, depart by foot or by boat. The shops close and the streets empty. Just the murmur of quiet get together’s emanate from behind closed doors where dim lights leak through cracks in the wooden walls. The only disturbance is a woman that screams for awhile that wakes the neighborhood, but not their interest…
Two days later and a load of laundry done, we pack and ship out with four travelers that turned up the day before, the next leg up river to Phongsali. Our trip from Muang Khua was noticeably cooler in the morning, the boat more crammed and slower with more travelers and Lao with produce onboard. The mist hung longer in the hills and the air had a slight chill. Even the water seemed angry, the rapids steeper and whiter and most passengers were splashed wet as we struggled upstream. We stopped frequently unloading and loading the Lao with sacks of rice and belongings, and still the villagers turned out to watch, play and talk amongst themselves on the sand beaches. There seems like more activity up here, more women washing, children playing, buffalo wallowing and men making or repairing boats on trestles. And so it goes on; local life, our boat, the day, until we reach Hat Sa; the getting off point for Phongsali.
The truck that was our transport was overcrowded. We had jumped on it after it had unloaded a diesel generator in the absence of a local covered pick up. We were 7 travelers, 17 locals, what seemed like a herd of pigs and fowl of various description in wicker cages, as well as a caged cute but scared puppy (which we understood was to end up part of a celebratory meal…). Plus, several sacks of rice and bags of cabbages, boxes of cooking pots as well as luggage (and a partridge in a pear tree). Put all these ingredients together and mix well in the back of a ten ton tipper truck on a rough road in conditions so cramped you could just about wiggle your toes, cook at mid day heat for an hour and you have baked sardines, shaken not stirred. Eddie clung sadly to the wicker caged puppy dog, stroking and soothing it the whole trip.
Our first priority was to locate a guide in this town of Phongsali; we were not the only people who wanted to trek up here! Phongsali, a town larger than any we’ve seen on our way north since leaving Luang Prabang, is well developed and serviced, even buzzing with activity, quite up-to-date considering it’s stuck up in the mountains a day trip by bus or boat from anywhere not a village. A public address system played music and news like a common radio for those who wanted to listen. Old men in caps sucking on well used pipes with skin like dried prunes sitting on benches seem to be the only ones interested…
Locating a guide in this metropolis in the mountains should be easy, however, many inquiries later this was proving not to be so. Hot and knackered, wet from a sudden down pour (clothes now steaming), we returned to our guest house, slunk down in chairs and ordered a beer, asking our host on the off chance they might know an avenue to follow. Typical, always the last place you look, that should have been the first, comes up with the goods. They arranged for us to meet a guy that evening.
We were lucky as it turned out, no one else had any luck locating a guide, and we seemed to have bagged the only English speaking one in town. Because of our specific requirements (slow and easy going) and our direction (up to the hill tribes, not up river) we were reluctant to share our find, we felt a little selfish but we didn’t want to change our long thought out plan to include others. So the next morning, having not had sight nor sound of our French Canadian compatriot, (we found out later he never made it north due to a stomach bug) we set out early, with our guide Toot, to seek our goal in Northern Laos. Off the beaten track to where not many travelers make it to (not surprising really, considering the lack of guides, which is surprising considering the obvious demand…), our “real Laos”.
Toot is 18; he learnt English at school in Phongsali and practices on foreigners to learn more. He learned about the hill tribe trekking route from speaking to the tribal villagers that come to Phongsali to trade produce for rice at the market. The villagers’ main produce is bamboo saplings he tells us, that they boil and sell by the basket load in markets and at the road side for about 1500 Kip a basket (not a lot), depending on the size of shoots. When you peel off the tougher outer layers you get to moist flesh underneath that tastes quite bitter sometimes. The shoots are dipped in a mixture of salt and ground chili just to heighten this wonderful taste. The younger the shoot, the less bitter and more palatable to my mind.
As Toot practices his English he saves the money he makes for his family and to pay for his own education at the University in Vientiane. He hopes to make it there next year. I don’t begrudge him what I feel is a high cost for his services because of this. He looks too young to be out guiding in the hills but proved to be very capable as well as knowledgeable about the tribes. I wonder why there aren’t more people with the aspirations of Toot?
Breathing deeply, I fill my lungs with the fresh warm air that lies in these hills. It smells earthy and I imagine it tastes mossy. We’ve walked a couple of easy hours along a rough vehicle track that ends in this quiet rustic village of wood and bamboo huts on stilts. It’s very brown here, the huts, the trees, the leaves on the ground and the dirt beneath them. It seems deserted, bar marauding chickens and hens that cluck and bob their heads in time with their steps like a piece of string attaches the leg to the head, watched over by proud multi-coloured cockerels. Little fluffy chicks twitter and scramble after their guardians, struggling up banks and sliding back down. The hens scratch at the ground and step back to peck, and the chick’s dive in and then out again. We are sitting in front of the village’s meeting house under the shade of a great tree, watching this serene scene before us. Further away sows laze and grunt as piglets nuzzle the enlarged teats in their soft underbellies. It’s quiet and peaceful here, only a light breeze rustles the trees and the sounds of the animals are coherent.
“Sabaidee, sabaidee, sab-ai-deeeeee,”
Shrill voices of small children pierce the air as a group of them spy us. They seem the only inhabitants of the village; I wonder who’s the chief? “Sabaidee, sabaidee,” they shout over and over again in a chant that turns into a song. Little grubby faces peer from behind trees, but they won’t come out. I try to take a photo of them but it’s like pointing a gun and they run at the sight of it. As soon as I put it away they re-appear; it’s like a voodoo charm that makes children disappear. Toot looks on, not speaking; He only seems to speak when spoken to…
As we leave the village the children run after us, keeping their distance, singing;
“Sabaidee, sabaidee, sab-ai-deeeeeee,”
Toot’s idea of flat walking is anything less than a gradient of 30� up or down it seems… When eventually we get to go down hill, it really is down hill. The path is so faint I wonder if we are one of the first 20 people to walk it. Actually Toot tells us it’s a water run off during the monsoon, not a path at all, that might explain why it’s so bloody steep then! We have entered the jungle, and it’s thick jungle, and humid. There are ants everywhere, big red ants with pincers, that hurt. My legs are starting to shake and ache with lactic acid build up, we’ve been going down hill steeply and steadily for about 45 minutes, and Toot is as happy as Larry up ahead.
We hear footsteps behind us and stop to let by a group of Lao army soldiers wielding well-worn rifles and machetes pass. They are walking at a pace in green canvas shoes that are the standard army issue in Laos. There are about eight of them in total and a couple stop briefly to talk to Toot who doesn’t look too happy… Toot tells us later that they are off into the hills hunting deer (The same hills we are going, scary thought). Eventually we reach the bottom where a small river runs by, and the army guys have camped here for lunch. We do too. They are laughing and chatting and have stripped down to their underwear to have a wash. A fire is burning and they are cooking bamboo shoots in it. As an after lunch game they catch little fish with their hands that blow up like a balloon in a defense mechanism, they think it’s amusing to throw these on the fire because it makes them pop. Is this part of basic training? Or do you have to have a mental age of a child to join?
We watch warily further up the bank waiting for them to go, eating peanuts and bananas that we had brought along with us. Eventually they move on and so do we, to find that what we have climbed down we have to climb up, and some more! We wade across the river and up another vague path that starts out as another steep water run off but soon turns into a more visible path. I am carrying a joint pack for both Eddie and I and fade fast. For the first half an hour I have to stop every 10 minutes. We are sweating profusely and drinking gallons but we have another two hours to go Toot says, the last bit being flat. We all know what he calls flat!
At last we reach our first village stop over, it’s been hard but I feel I have achieved something here. I really do feel out in the middle of nowhere. I haven’t seen another white face since we left this morning, and I didn’t think I would for the full three days. This was off the beaten track. The village was full of children; as usual we became the center of attention. All the elders were out working, tending cattle and crops etc. Only one old man and a few elderly women were visible apart from the children. Toot talked to the old man and we were directed to a nearby house where we were invited to sit down on the porch and rest. Thank God (if there is one…). A bowl of old sticky rice was produced which tasted of earth (The local spring water it was boiled in, Eddie seemed to like it…), and a bowl of lush looking red fruits that once tasted made your face involuntarily screw up and your mouth go dry while watering profusely from the incredible sourness of this fruit. I quite liked them actually, you got used to the sourness and anyway, whenever I screwed up my face it made the kids laugh, and I liked that.
My socks steamed when I removed my boots, and my feet were blanched white and wrinkled when the socks came off. Hmmm, nice. It felt so good to free them from the constraints of my boots. Eddie and I sat resting while Toot studied his Laos – English dictionary, and three girls showed off for us by doing cartwheels on the porch. The boys got bored quickly and returned to their amusement, which was spinning home made wooden tops like the ones you see the kids play with in old black and white films of yesteryear.
There is no electricity, only candles. The household appreciates my donation of ours and admire my high power halogen dive torch that shines right across the valley to the other side. The man of the house, which today is the eldest son (the mother and father have stayed the night at the farm, wherever that is), Toot, Eddie and I sit around a low woven table ready to eat. The menu tonight (which turns out to be breakfast as well), earth flavored sticky rice (a new batch), a huge pile of bitter bamboo shoots with obligatory chili and salt dip, a stew of dried beef boiled with river weed that smells off putting, and LaoLao.
I eat as much as I can because I am starving after the day’s hiking but stop as soon as the taste is more over powering than my hunger. I am forced to drink glass after glass of LaoLao with the host so as not to be rude, and then his brother, so I end up with twice the LaoLao than anybody else. I think this a game they like to play. Eddie is excused, as she is female, I am not… This local village version of LaoLao is the worst tasting drink that has crossed my palate, it makes me feel woozy, and I have tasted some foul drinks in my time. Eddie seems to really like the sticky rice, which I can’t understand.
As the night goes on and the candles burn low, Toot and I have exhausted our game of speaking numbers in each other’s language, I can now comfortably count up to 1 million in Lao. I have so much LaoLao inside me I fall asleep almost immediately on the thin mattress separating the bamboo floor and us, leaving Eddie wide awake most of the night listening to the pigs, hens, dogs etc. making a racket all night through. At about 03:00 am the grandmother gets up to feed to pigs, somebody else gets up at 04:00 to do something else that requires more than necessary noise and even I can’t sleep through it, and I feel pretty rough I can tell you… Toot has had a wonderful night’s sleep apparently and is all springy!
Eddie and I take a stroll down to the water hole; which is actually water dripping down a rock into a pool, this is where all the villagers get their water from, and where they wash. It’s about 07:00 now and the villagers have left for the day to toil somewhere. However, we didn’t count on the children, they followed us and pretended to get water and drink and wash their faces, anything to spend time at the water hole so that they could watch us. We foiled them by sitting there watching them until they got the message we weren’t doing anything till they vamoose.
After they left, I was violently sick with almost everything I ate the previous night plus that wonderful taste of regurgitated LaoLao that just makes me wretch again and again. By the time I finished, my throat was so raw it feet like there was a permanent lump there that I couldn’t swallow. I was close to giving up alcohol, which would be a huge thing for me. I can’t but I vowed never, ever, ever let a drop of LaoLao to pass my lips again, that bit was easy. God I felt awful that day, and the day just got progressively worse…
It had been hard work so far, and not really what I imagined. We were restricted to tramping through thick jungle with no views except where to put the next foot, The village was interesting, but there is not a lot there to get excited about.
Feeling pretty bad, Eddie tired through lack of sleep and me with a throat and body that felt like it disowned me, we set off at about 07:45. The first part of the day consisted of down, down, down, down, except the way was very slippery and the going was very slow. Again we were walking through dense wet forest, and we soon lost sight of the sky above. This was not turning out as enjoyable as we thought.
The day crept on, we rested, we sweated, we walked, we drank a lot of fluids. I brought along a hand pump water filter, without which we would have had to drink the water from the stream. We finished the 6 litres we had bought from the spring by midday and still had a fair way to go to the next village. Toot had warned us that today was going to be hard and long so everywhere we found water we topped up our bottles. After the long down and a wade across the river in the valley (actually almost a swim it was so deep, rucksack precariously balanced on my head to keep the contents dry…), it was up, up, up, up, and then seriously up. We hadn’t signed up for a rock climbing day, you know.
At last we broke the tree line and behind us was a truly amazing view, deep valleys, lush forests and winding river ran below us but it didn’t awe us as it should have done. Unfortunately Eddie was feeling the lack of sleep catching up on her and I was feeling the lack of food in me sapping my strength and energy. And the sun was hot. I felt like giving up, I was stopping every 6-7 minutes for 10 minute rests I was so down on energy. We had no food with us, and it was two hours or so at my pace to the next village, all up hill. Why do hill tribes have to live at the top of hills! It’s so impractical, and tiring… We were walking on open ground, hardly any shade, and my steps were slow and exhausting. By 15:00 we sighted a village, the first of three we were to visit, one we could stop at for the day and night. I was ready to drop, I was so happy to arrive. We just sat down in the shade of a house and collapsed while Toot went to find us somewhere to stay.
The village was an Akha village and was the tribe I really wanted to see where the women dress up in black/blue clothes decorated with embroidered decorations and silver coins hanging from their clothes and elaborate headdresses. They also have a peculiar custom of walking around with one breast out permanently. I have seen pictures of this primitive way of life and wanted to experience it, and it was just as it was in the pictures. Fantastic, this is so out of the way I feel like I almost died getting here. We are surrounded by people, men, women, children all chattering around us and about us, feeling the texture of our clothes, admiring jewelry, stroking our skin. We were truly the excitement of the day in this village.
They let me take pictures of the women in the traditional costumes, but the men folk asked for some money, a 500 Kip note here, and there, it was worth it. When I got my camera out every one of the 7 or 8 women that were around us had covered their exposed breast. I was disappointed by I understood, they had pride and who was I to take it away from them. Here I am, a wealthy tourist come here with my guide and camera to photograph them for my tourist pleasure. These are people, not tourist puppets for my amusement.
We eventually found Toot who had not bothered to come and find us when he had found a place to stay, and were invited into the dark interior of someone’s smoke filled home. The floor was of hard clay and the air faintly smelt of opium, a real problem amongst the men folk of the Akha tribes. We sat and drank tea, and I sneezed. Within 10 minutes I was sneezing every minute or so. Behind me I heard a bell clang, and I turned around to come face to face with a horse. The horse was in the house, common enough for Akha, an absolute nightmare for me. I am allergic to horses in a big way; I could feel my throat tightening, soon I would have serious problems breathing. I had my ventalin with me but no antihistamines. We had to leave, like now, now!
It was hard to make Toot understand at first, but with the aid of Toot’s Lao/English dictionary we got it across to him, as I was dragging our rucksack out of the door in front of bewildered villagers. Not good form but it was a necessity for me to get away from there as quickly as possible.
It was three more hours to the next village that we could stay in. We were deadbeat, deflated and demoralised. Again it was Akha, but Toot knew the schoolteacher there and she could help us find a suitable place to stay without horses. It would be over 9� hours of walking that day, most of it up hill, a lot of it in open ground in midday heat. It was one of the hardest days I have endured (what a pussy, eh?), one I would never wish to face again. My condition didn’t help, I hadn’t eaten that day and my energy level was near empty, coupled with a severe allergy attack that I was getting over, and another three hours to go.
The sun was almost setting when we first glimpsed our destination, bathed in a golden light perched upon the hillside; it was like the Holy Grail we were so relieved to get there. As we entered the village we were once again mobbed by the inhabitants, except this time we hadn’t the energy left to appreciate the attention or the people. Instead we plodded wearily with heavy feet just about able to concentrate enough to put one foot in front of the other, following Toot around until he found a place to collapse.
We sat out in the early evening light on a bamboo platform that overlooked the valley below, the winding tracks that led into the lush bush below from the village were being used to usher the cattle back from the day’s mastication urged on by villagers with sticks. The sun was shedding it’s last light and long shadows were dominating the view. I felt achy but happy at our achievement, here we were sitting in a remote Akha village up in the hills far away from anywhere. But not alone… old withered men with big water bongs drawing on the local tobacco, young lads with their prized possessions (tape players of varying sizes, all of which were on and playing something different…), and children who stared and pointed between fits of giggles. Toot just sat there occasionally chatting with the local next to him, but mostly just reading his English/Thai dictionary. We just smiled feebly; it was all we could manage while waiting for dinner.
Q: When does Akha hill tribe food taste good…
A: When you have walked a 9� hour day having regurgitated your stomach that morning and not replaced it…
Earthy tasting steamed rice, scrummy, boiled bamboo shoots with chili and salt dip, yum yum, some vegetable in a fire hot spicy sauce, delicious, a bowl of white lumpy slop, (didn’t try it…). And the creme de la creme, lumps of fried pork fat, which I almost rudely totally dominated, shoveling it mixed with rice and spicy vegetable down my throat, with a couple of bitter bamboo shoots for good luck! We retired immediately after eating to our hard floor bed with the rest of the family in our smoky little home in the hills. I didn’t care; I was asleep in minutes.
As we left early next day, both Eddie and I were feeling a lot better, invigorated and energised we left the village behind and the waving inhabitants who had put up with us. Looking back the village looked magical, shrouded in morning mist like it belonged in a fairytale. A magical village in the sky, sitting on a cloud. I stood there for a few moments taking in the picture, imbedding the image in my mind, then turned to follow the track down hill (no more up hill, ever, Toot promised me… he lied). We descended into the clouds, a weird concept, they felt wet and refreshing around us and we could only see a few feet ahead of us until it gradually thinned and we broke out below into a new day, and a new landscape. Wow.
Four hours later we arrived at a village on the River Ou, from here it was a nice leisurely boat trip down river back to Phongsali. We just lay back in the boat and warmed our faces on the rays of the sun. It was over, we had been to hell and back, and saw something rare and unforgettable. It being so hard to achieve made it all the more so special.
The next day we sat on the back of a pick up for 11 hours on a bum-numbing rough road and ended up with thick layer of red dust all over. Undoubtedly the worst road trip of our travels so far, only made bearable by the friendliness of our fellow travelers. They shared their food and fags and chatted as if we could understand them. It didn’t matter that we didn’t, we were all enduring the same misery and that kind of bonded us together in a little family. That trip was so bad that when we arrived in Muang Xai, we booked a couple of seats on Lao Aviation (dodgey internal airline that refuses to publish it’s safety record) to get us to the border with Thailand. Lazy, yes, but who cares, we can afford it!
And so ends our travels in Laos, that day we crossed another river to enter Thailand, as we did from Cambodia when we first arrived in Laos. We end as we started. I wouldn’t say that I didn’t enjoy Laos, however because so many people have said to us how amazing a place it was and how it’s their most favorite country in SE Asia, we may have had too big expectations, and it didn’t live up to them. I doubt we will return, it was an experience but that was all.
