Part 1 – Slow boat downriver

I forgot to mention the boat trip downriver from Hat Sa near Phongsali to Muang Khua. The trip itself was less beautiful than that from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw, and considerably colder too. But it was a truly local journey with several interesting moments:

– we started off with fifteen people on board, only three of them westerners (incl. me). It was a little cosy, but not cramped. Within a couple of hours we were down to the three westerners plus an older local guy who had been sitting behind me the whole time so far. He decided to go up to sit next to the driver and share a meal, and as he passed me I noticed a shiny glint on his belt. It looked circular, several circles in fact, metallic, and somewhat familiar… and when he sat down I could see them properly: they were bullets. Five bullets on the outside of the hip holster that housed his semi-automatic pistol.

– Towards the end of the journey a man hailed us from the shore. I thought he was asking for a pickup, but when we drew closer I noticed he had a freshly killed deer slung over his shoulder. He talked with several people on the boat for a while, and a busy discussion got underway. Eventually one of our boatman agreed to buy the deer and it was casually dumped on the floor of the boat in front of us. The seller got 125,000 kip (about A$18), which is decent money in local terms and good cash income for the hunter.

Part 2 – Over the border by bus

The border between Muang Khua (Laos) and Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam) has only been open to foreigners for a couple of years, but it operated long before that as the northernmost crossing for locals between the two countries. I had assumed because of the trade that must flow through this route the road would be in fairly good condition as far as Lao roads go. Wrong, wrong, wrong again…

It wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it was a typical northern Laos thoroughfare: a rocky, unpaved, bumpy one-lane goat track that wound its way along precipitous ridges with endless switchbacks and climbs. I was used to this kind of travel by now, and thanks to the low clouds that form overnight the dust was damp and settled. I took the time to see what could be seen, the highlight of which is a beautiful village called Nam Nga only 20 kilometres or so from the border. Nestled in a valley lush with rice paddies and crops it is not listed on the map, yet in the centre of it is a large and modern-ish hotel for visitors. I think it’s for those visiting inmates at the drug rehabilitation centre just outside the village, but if you ever pass this way it makes it easy to spend a day or two in that pretty valley.

All was going well until suddenly we rounded a corner to find the road blocked by a makeshift barrier. A significant landfall had occurred during the night and more than 100 metres of the road ahead was swamped with dirt. There were already two large ditch-diggers at work clearing a path, but a glance told us that it would be at least an hour or two before we could budge again. As well as myself there was a kiwi couple on the bus, and we were not fazed by the delay. I got out a book and started reading, they got out their laptops and started typing. One local woman was more resourceful: she borrowed a machete and start chopping up a large piece of deadwood beside the bus and put the pieces on the floor between the seats. That started quite a wood-gathering run, and several times later in the journey we stopped to allow her to pick up more logs for her collection!

The road was re-shaped after 90 minutes or so, and as our bus was the first in the queue we were the guinea pigs to test the track. Unfortunately it wasn’t stabilised very well and it was steep, and one side of the bus threatened to get bogged in the dirt as we leaned hard to the left, stopped, then slid back down the hill. As there was a sheer drop to the river below just beside us this was very unsettling to say the least, and all three of us westerners insisted on getting out and walking well behind the bus for its next attempt. It made it, we chased after and climbed back in, and then we were back on our way. Why does every bus journey here have to be so eventful? Just once in a while I’d like a nice, easy, smooth and forgettable ride…

I love unscripted travel, where you may have an idea where you’re going but no exact plan and no schedule to stick to. Where you have the freedom to sit still for a few days if you really like a place, or take off immediately if you don’t. It’s one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to do this trip over several months. And it’s why Vietnam has become an annoying sticking point in an otherwise brilliant journey so far…

I’d always intended Laos to be the central focus, but wanted to visit northern Vietnam and northern Thailand as well. Cambodia has been thrown onto the list at short notice, and as I continue to hear great things about that place from other travellers I’m glad that it has! Laos, Cambodia and Thailand all allow you to obtain a tourist visa on arrival at their border, so you don’t need to plan exactly when you are going to be somewhere. The exception is Vietnam, which requires you to have organised a visa well in advance because they won’t issue one at the border. You can only obtain visas from embassies or consulates, which in my case meant organising it before I left Australia. It’s quite expensive to get a visa for Vietnam too, much more so than the other countries in the region.

You have to pick the dates you want the visa to be valid for, and you have a maximum visa period of 30 days. Which for someone on a variable schedule like me required a bit of guesswork as to when and how long I wanted to be in Vietnam… if I choose an early start date it gives more flexibility of arrival time, but every day that I arrive after it starts is one day less I can stay in the country once I’m there. If I choose a later start date I can maximise my time in Vietnam, but as I can’t enter the country before the visa starts I would therefore run the risk of being stalled at the Laos border if I travel quicker than expected. This latter issue is precisely the problem I’ve faced for the past four days 😦

When planning my Vietnam visa I was forced to speculate when I’d be in certain places, and for how long. I’d intended to spend a week or more in and around Phongsali, so I thought I would spend at least three weeks in northern Laos before wanting to head to Vietnam. Hence I chose a start date of December 11th. As it turned out Phongsali was not very enticing, so I left there sooner than expected for Muang Khua. Muang Khua is the last town in Laos on this route before crossing into northern Vietnam, and I was hoping that it and its surrounds would be an attractive enough place to spend a few days waiting for the Vietnam. At the least I expected enough basic services to make the stop enjoyable. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

It’s not that it’s an unpleasant place – it’s certainly more agreeable than Phongsali – it’s just that there is nothing to do here, and after four days you really begin to get bored. And I don’t mean that in a jaded, oh-I’m-so-hard-to-please kind of way. I mean that because there is only electricity available here for four hours a day (from 5.30pm to 9.30pm), there are no connections to the outside world. No internet. No calling shops. No television in your room, even in the best hotel in town. There’s also nowhere to buy a newspaper (and if you could, it’d be in Lao). No bookshops in any language, let alone English. No guided treks in the surrounding hills. No kayaking or other watery options, even though the beautiful Nam Ou river is on your doorstep. Nothing to do here except eat, read, sleep, and walk around the local area.

All of which are good options, if you want to do them. In other words, it’s a nice place to do nothing if that’s what you want. But if you’re stuck here waiting for your Vietnam visa to kick in and you do want to do something, the lack of options is very annoying! In fact I’ve been feeling a bit off the last few days so I haven’t had the energy to do much, but it would be nice to have the choice… On the plus side, it certainly is cheap here. I initially checked out the “best hotel in town”, the Serrnali Hotel, but managed to find a place nearby with exactly the same facilities (private bathroom with hot water shower when the power’s on and a western toilet, large clean bed) plus the added bonus of a large and comfy covered deck overlooking the town for only a third of the cost of the Serrnali. Yes it’s just A$7 a night for quality accomodation, and I’m struggling to spend more than A$10 a day on food and drink (no booze). Because this is a guesthouse you’re more likely to meet other travellers here too, but few stay more than a day (sensible folks). So in the past few days I’ve slept a lot, eaten very well, re-read two of the books I have with me, and spent lots of time thinking hard about where I want to go in Vietnam amongst other things.

“Why didn’t you go somewhere else for a while?” is probably what you’re thinking by now. Great idea, except I’ve already seen everywhere you can get to within a day or two of here. Phongsali, Oudomxay, Nong Khiaw, even Luang Prabang, all been and done. I could have gone to Sam Neua and Vieng Xai and entered Vietnam via that border, but that would have stuffed up my intended route through Vietnam (or entailed several days backtracking within Laos later, or missing some places entirely). I could even, I realised today once my head cleared a bit, have gone back to Nong Khiaw and spent two days there before returning here. That actually was a good idea but it’s too late now; my visa starts tomorrow so I can finally hit the road again. Vietnam has become a bit of mental distraction really, as I’m loving Laos, but it would be a shame not to see some of it while I’m in the area. The current plan is to just visit some highlights over two weeks (Dien Bien Phu, Sapa, Hanoi, Cat Ba Island and Halong Bay, Ninh Binh), then slip back into Laos for another month as I head south towards Cambodia. But that’s just a guide – from now on I genuinely do have the freedom to wander at will 🙂

The rhythms of life are gentle in this town, and not much different from that observed in smaller places across northern Laos. There is a rush hour of sorts from 7am to 8.30am, when scooters scoot and cars rumble through town as people go into their day. Walking around town after this you see families taking breakfast at the table outside their house: a group affair usually of sticky rice and some condiments, or perhaps a simple soup of flat rice noodles, bean sprouts, leafy greens and a few shreds of meat. I have made this last my breakfast the past few days, and it’s a good way to start the day.

I don’t know where most people go during the day, but there is little commerce in our normal sense to talk of. No factories or offices nearby, even the shops are mostly idle though they’re open from morning to night. More than once I’ve had to stir someone from a nap to buy a drink, or a meal, or soap. In fact many of the public buildings and structures are provided by foreign aid, and a sign next to each edifice proclaims its donor (usually a government, but sometimes and NGO or individual). In the villages you can assume people are in the fields, tending crops or gathering firewood, and whether townfolk do this too I cannot say. But during the day the town is populated mostly by older women and kids, or young guys endlessly tinkering with their motorbikes. At my hotel, after an early flurry of cleaning, the staff – all part of the same family – sit in the foyer doing homework, watching TV, reading, sewing or dozing.

Late afternoon and the first wisps of wood smoke waft past as fires are lit in preparation for the evening meal. Everything is cooked over fire, sometimes in a stove but mostly over an open three-pronged stone brazier. There are restaurants here but they’re not dedicated businesses as you find elsewhere, rather they’re more like homes that also offer to cook for others on request. I’ve been the only customer for some meals, as the locals don’t appear to eat out at all except on special occasions, and there are few travellers. Quality varies immensely, and in this town at least the best food is had in Chinese restaurants. Night falls sharly at 6pm, and by 8pm the streets are quiet apart from occasional youths on scooters wandering around and the distant din of music. By 10pm all are asleep.

I’ve done little here but rest and read, and it’s time to move on. Phongsali is a little disappointing but I can’t really place why…. though people can be friendly there is a soft sullenness about them, a vague air of resignation (desparation?) that subtlely infuses everything. This town is surrounded by lovely hills but it lacks the beauty and serenity of, say, Nong Khiaw which is rapidly becoming my favourite part of Laos so far. Tomorrow is an early start to get to Hat Sa, 21 kms away, where I will take a boat downriver to Muang Khua for a few days. I had to pick the dates for my visa to Vietnam well in advance, and it doesn’t start until Friday so I have no need to rush to the border. But hopefully Muang Khua will be a little more lively and interesting a place to wait it out.

Phongsali is in the remote far north of Laos and it feels like one of the ends of the Earth. It’s so close to the Chinese border that it’s actually easier to supply it from China than from Laos, and the Chinese influence is evident in everything from the food to cigarettes in shop windows to the voices on the street.

Getting here was quite an effort, and in hindsight I really wish I’d organised my cash properly so I could have taken the boat all the way from Nong Khiaw! But it’s another story to tell about new places and routes, so it’s not all bad… internet access has been quite limited in recent days so rather than do a separate post about the various stages I’ll summarise the lot here to bring this up to date:

Nong Khiaw was such a delighful place that I stayed two nights, using my extra day to finally pick up the phrasebook and learn some of the Lao language. I got lucky in that the host of the place I was staying was very keen to help me practice, so my pronounciation has been correct from the start. When I woke that day I knew only three words of Lao and by the end of it between 30 and 40, so I was very pleased with my progress. That night I had dinner with five of the other people from my boat ride from Luang Prabang, and the next day two more from that trip were on my minibus to Oudomxay. The more remote you get here the fewer travellers there are, and seeing the same faces on the street becomes more common.

Sadly Oudomxay is a necessary shithole that is redeemed by just two features: it is the main transport hub for northern Laos, and it has an ATM. The air is thick with such acrid road dust that it stings the eyes and burns the throat, and I was well-glad to be out of there the next day. The ATM mission (my entire reason for being there) was only half successful: I managed to withdraw money on arrival, but you are limited to just 700,000 kip per day (about A$100). I went back to it the next morning before my bus left, but it was “out of order”. I was leaving with enough money to get me out of Laos the following week if necessary, but it would be very tight…

Journeying from Oudomxay to Phongsali by bus is an experience, not always a pleasant one but definitely memorable! It was a gloriously local affair: out of thirty-odd passengers I was the only westerner on it going all the way to Phongsali, sharing the cabin with Lao folks of various hue, coils of steel reinforcing cable, several bags of food and – yes – even live chickens. It started smoothly enough, and we covered the first 64 kms in un-Lao-like haste. Then we turned off the main highway towards Phongsali and The Dust Storm began. The horror, the horror… I have never experienced anything like it. The road is so dry that a monstrous cloud of yellow-brown dust is thrown up by the bus, and it seeps inside through every crevice even if the windows are closed (which not all were). And the road was so bumpy that it Never. Stopped. Clattering. I was seated in the back row which seemed like a good idea at the start, as it gave me huge legroom. But the dust accumulation is worst back there, and by our first pitstop I was thoroughly over it. I mentioned to an American-Lao woman that I wished I’d brought a face mask with me, and she promptly got one out of her bag and passed it to me. What a treasure: it sure made a difference 🙂

The dusty hell lasted for 100 kms, and it took us over five hours to cover the distance. Then suddenly, like a gift from God, the road was sealed again and from there it was a breeze to the end. We arrived a little after 6pm (we left at 9am), and I was forced to walk the final three kilometres from the bus station to town to find a room for the night. It was good to move again. The hotel was crappy, but this morning I scoped the town out and found much better digs across the road for the same price (A$11 a night). After all the movement of the past few days I’m quite content just to hang up my boots for a while and relax in this small but rather pleasant northern outpost.

The slow boat to Nong Khiaw is an enchanting journey, offering just the right combination of sensational scenery, worthy discomfort, local colour and serenity. It’s probably one of the nicest river trips you can do in Laos, at least at this time of year.

When I booked the ticket I asked how many people the boat could hold at most and was told “15”. This pleased me, because I have read blog posts about the much more popular boat from the Thai border to Luang Prabang and heard some horror stories. Packed in 70 to 100 per boat, that journey takes two days with an overnight stop in the traveller hell of Pak Beng where ripping off the tourists is apparently a local sport. Some say it’s pleasant enough, others hated it, very few say it was a highlight of their trip.

The contrast with the boat to Nong Khiaw could not be greater. In fact our boat could take only 10 people, but in this case our group of 12 was split into two very small boats so we all had ample room to relax in. Such a small craft is necessary because at this time of year the river level is quite low, and anything larger would probably have got stuck on a rock somewhere (or worse). Being on a small boat gave a very intimate connection with the surroundings and people we passed, and it was such a thoroughly peaceful journey that the seven hours passed quite quickly.

I don’t mean it was peaceful in a literal sense, of course. The constant clatter of the engine made conversation very difficult, but in every other respect it was totally relaxing. Not that it was luxurious, either: the low wooden stools (very similar to those you would have sat on in kindergarten) we could sit on were so hard that it was actually much more comfortable sitting on the floor, and nearly all of us rotated between stool and floor as necessary. We only had a couple of pit stops to take a pee behind a bush on a riverbank – not once did we pass a village where we could stop for a meal, drink or proper toilet.

The scenery ranged from merely pretty to spectacular, with some magnificent high cliffs passed on several occasions. The terrain was almost entirely forested, though from time to time a riverside village could be seen high on the banks, with children playing on the shore and men fishing in the water. A couple of large bamboo barges floated by, as did a number of fishing skiffs and other small passenger boats heading south. Our pilot was expert at guiding us through constant hazards such as submerged rocks, floating trees and even up some rough rapids, and never once did I feel like we were in any danger. Even though the six initial passengers were all western tourists it had a genuinely local feel, a fact confirmed when a man hailed us from the river’s edge at one point and got on board with his baby daughter and a sack of food. I had brought a book along as I feared it would be a dull journey otherwise, but I spent far more time simply admiring the view and taking shirtloads of photos (which I’ve edited down to fifteen highlights – check my Photo Gallery in a couple of days if you want to see them all).

Arriving in Nong Khiaw was something of an anticlimax. It’s much smaller than I expected, and more rustic too with rocky unpaved streets and a small selection of somewhat over-priced guesthouses. I’ve found a riverside bungalow with great shared balcony that overlooks the town, and though it’s comfortable enough with private hot water bathroom and western throne I’ve gotten much better rooms for the same money elsewhere in Laos.

A final drawback of Nong Khiaw, and much more serious, is that there is no ATM or bank here – not even a money changer. This has caused me to alter my route a bit, as I don’t have enough local currency on hand to get me through the next two days, let alone the next two weeks (I do have US dollars as a backup, of course, but not enough for my needs). It seems that outside the tourist triangle things really are less developed than I’d come to believe, and I simply can’t go further north without an adequate supply of cash. The nearest place where I know for sure there is an ATM and other banking facilities is Oudomxai, about four hours west by bus. I had intended to skip it entirely but will now have to visit there because I can’t risk running out of money! It doesn’t matter too much, and in fact it allows me to see more of Laos than I intended which is really a positive in the end, isn’t it?