Hello all
Sorry. My delays are getting worse! I’m more than a month in China now again, but still haven’t reported about my Laos time. So, I’m going to do that now.
The plan was escaping Thailand to the more relaxed life stile in Laos. Escaping from the water battles in the streets during Songkrahn on a boat ride on Mekong river. And this plan worked out fine.
I’ve already been in Laos six years ago. I’ve been warned about the changes in Luang Prabang. I was not sure at all at first, if I wanted to spoil the memories. But then I decided to go there again as I had time enough and as it was on my way to the north anyway. And I was very surprised by the development of this small city.
From Chiang Kong, a town at the Mekong river in the north of Thailand, I set over the border into Laos, to Huai Xai. In Huai Xai the river boats leave to Luang Prabang. There are horribly loud speed boats and a little less loud slow boats doing this trip. Going on the slow boat includes an overnight stay in Pak Beng, a small town half way, which has some guest houses, that live only from the slow boat tourists. But like Luang Prabang, also Pak Beng has been growing quite a lot. Much more options to stay and much more tourist restaurants offering tourist food …
The boat ride itself took around 8 hours each day. Not much to do on the boat, as there is no space to walk around and the seats are not really comfy. But it’s still a good place to talk to other travelers, to read in a book or to listen to your MP3 music. And the scenery is not bad at all!
There were about 25 hostels in Luang Prabang six years ago. Now there are 270 (two hundred seventy)! Can you imagine these changes? All the streets have been sealed, while only the main road was so last time. Souvenir stands are now aligning the main street in the evening, selling the same tourist junk over and over. Dozens of restaurants serving western food. It’s a very touristy place now! It’s famous for it’s many pretty temples, but I doubt that it will remain an Unesco World Heritage much longer, if they do not stop this development. Still you can find nice food in the food stalls and at the food market. One place serves a huge fantastic vegetarian buffet just off the main street for almost no money.
After two days I decided to head to another place I already knew, where I was told that this development hadn’t taken place: Muang Ngoi Neua. A small town, reachable only by boat from Nong Khiaw. No cars at all there. And the town still resembled very much as I remembered it. Maybe some more guest houses and simple restaurants. But still a short dirt main street and the bungalows on stilts overlooking the Nam Ou river.
Some fellow travelers ended up in a different guest house than me. But we decided to explore the environment together, actually all of these sites I’ve already seen before.
But as I always had good memories about these places I wanted to see them again and also found them more or less intact. I was worried a bit, because during the boat trip it became visible, how much forest has been (and still is) burnt down for farming purposes.
At these companions guest house I first time met Xiaoyan. She was having dinner and didn’t show much interest in a chat or so. But the next day communication got easier and we even decided to go for a swim in the river together the next day. During the following days we found out, that we have basically the same traveling plans for the upcoming time. This was spending some more days in northern Laos and crossing into China later. Xiaoyan has been traveling more than seven months in India, Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel and SE-Asia by then and was on her way home to Chengdu. And Chengdu was one of my destinations anyway. So we decided to travel together for a while.
After Muang Ngoi Neua we decided to spend a couple of days in Nong Khiaw, the town, as it lies in a beautiful scenery and some nice walks can be done.
From there we went back to Luang Prabang, enjoying the comforts of a touristy place 🙂 before heading to the much less touristy north.
Only after this I finally started to visit places in Laos, where I haven’t been before. First we took a bus to Luang Nam Tha. This was once more a rather long ride through once more really spectacular sceneries. The following days we explored the environment of this small and very quiet city.
One day we also hired a motorbike and took a look at Muang Sing, a town, famous for it’s market, where all the folk of the ethnic tribes in the northern mountains sell their stuff. We missed the market but we still enjoyed the ride very much. We also got caught by rain, but this happens once in a while in such adventures.
Luang Nam Tha actually was the last stopover in Laos, as from there a shuttle bus brought us to the border in a couple of hours, where we crossed into China after traveling together the last 10 days in Laos.
So this time I only spent two weeks in Laos, but with the company of Xiaoyan, these were two great weeks!
During these 10 days we developed a friendship, which today, after 6 more weeks, must be named LOVE. But this will be subject in the next edition of my postings.
Stay tuned!
Thomas