Xaysomboun, South of Lao arround Paksé

Well, one more time it's a lot to tell..

I left Vientiane to go to Xaysomboun on the 14th. After dozens of different things heard about the possible-or-not ways to go there, I eventually found a bus in Vientiane and the guy even said "from Vientiane you can go everywhere in Lao". He was right but the bus didn't go by Vang Vien like he thought, and rather by the east of Vientiane, through a nice road I hadn't seen before. After 11 hours of mountains roads, during which a nice Lao guy tried to talk to me half in Lao half in english, I got there. It's really beautiful there, high mountains with a bit of karst on it, and everything is soooo green. The city is not particularly nice or interesting, but the areas arround are, and if you walk 5 minutes you can see Phu Bia, 2800m high :), which is like 2km away from the town.
In short, this place was controlled by the CIA for a long time, and the Hmong people were fighting along with them, against the Lao army. They opened it to public in 2007, and I was apparently the first foreigner to go there. Therefore it was fun but not really easy, and they didn't know how to deal with me (it's not like in a village in the jungle where everything seems so simple).
No guesthouse available (or at least they didn't want me to stay) so I had to go to a hotel were the owner didn't speak a single word of english.. I improved my Lao a little bit. On the day after I met quite a lot of citizens, eather Hmong or Lao people, and I could talk with a couple of them that spoke english, it was very nice. Then I asked about possibilities to trek arround to the Hmong villages, but they were telling it was dangerous. Apparently it was true about the Phu Bia, but it seemed it was OK on the other side, so I took a nice nice nice walk there in the afternoon.
Sorry I can't put any pics from here..
I didn't know whether to try to go the Hmong villages on the days after, or go back to Vientiane, but when the Police came to find me in the restaurant I was eating in for dinner, it fixed my mind. They took my passport and I had to pay them to get it back on the morning after. Fortunately a very nice Hmong guy, english speaker, was with me and could negociate with them. Thus I left to head south of Lao: 11h bus back to Vientiane, 30min waiting there and 16h bus to Pakse in a row, in a bus with a broken battery, so lights were off when the driver were not accelerating.... Next time in Lao, I'll stop on the way though.
Anyway, once in Pakse I took directly another bus to the country side, a place called Tad Lo.

Tad Lo was sooooo relaxed, it was unbeleivable. The owner of the guesthouse is one of the nicest guy I met in my trip. We cooked with him and he showed us everything. We talked with him a lot, we shared meal with his family, rooms were very nice and cheap, etc etc. So I spent 3 nights there, and did walk around to waterfalls, rent a motorbike to visit the Boloven Plateau and enjoyed meals with very nice Lao and western people :) These times are part of the best I spent in Lao.

But since I had decided to go in the south of Lao, I thought I should take a look to other places, and therefore came to Champasak yesterday. I met a surprising Lao man that had lived in the US for 30 years in the bus by the way, but I'm afraid I can't tell about everything here ^^
This morning I went to visit Wat Phu, an Angkor-style temple from the 10th century, it was great as well.

Tomorrow I'll keep going south to the for thousands islands on the Mekong river for my last days in Lao. It's supposed to be even more relaxed than here... if it's true then it's close to a time crack.
Then on Tuesday morning I'll leave there to get back to Paksé and cross the border to Thailand. I'll try to sleep in Ayutaya and spend some time there on Wednesday, and I'll go catch my flight back to Paris at night. I'll be back on Thursday morning!

more pics: around Vang Vien

Nong Khiaw - Luang Prabang - Vang Vien - Vientiane

Have to catch up, so I'll summarize a little bit :)

So I left Luang Nam Tha to go to Nong Khiaw, still not sure about my plans, but I met a really nice french guy in the bus. In the beggining I thought he was the exact copy of my brother, but he actally also had a little bit from another guy I know (big up Hugues ^^). Anyway I spent two days with him in Nong Khiaw, very beautiful and soooooo relaxed there! Real Lao people!

We were thinking about going to Mong Ngoi and then Sam Neua, but somehow we totally changed plans and decided to head south to Luang Prabang by boat. Nice boat drive on the Nam Ou, and we reached the old capital. It's a cute and old city, with a lot of temple, a lot of beautiful waterfall arround, and a lot of tourists. Prices and busyness changed from one extreme to another. We spent two nights a nice day there anyway. After this time I was supposed to meet Elsa, and I (and the other french guy too) was teared apart about our plan. I didn't know whether to keep on going on the tourist road: Vang Vien and Vientiane, but then be able to go south before the end of my trip, or to stick in the north of Lao, with nature, relaxed people and ethnic groups. I decided I would come back another time and we went south to Vang Vien.

We succeed to find a guesthouse in a farm, out of this junky-english-teenage city where we spent two other nights. The city got ugly with ***** tourists, but the areas arround are amazing, sorry to repeat myself again :) We rented bicycles for a day, discovered the country side and did quite good caving, nice!

Then I didn't wanna go to Vientiane and instead go to a small town that's open to tourists for only few years, in the east of Vang Vien, called Saisoumboune. Unfortunatly it's quite a mess to there, and everyone told me to go to Vientiane first, and catch a bus from there. So here I am, in the capital for few hours. It's not amazing here, and I'm really keen to leave to the mountains again tomorrow. There is the highest in Lao, and the region is more or less under control of Hmong people apparently. I hope I can go there, and get back by another way, cause I don't wanna come back here, and I wanna take a quick look in the south before heading back to Bangkok. The french guy went directly south to make a long trek in the jungle... well... I'll do a safer version of what he does next time.

So I'll probably won't have the internet in the next days (I had it in the last days though, but time was running, and we didn't wanna stay ages in the cities).


Nong Khiaw, view from a cave...


Boat to Luang Prabang, on the Nam Ou.


Waterfalls arround Luang Prabang.

Muong Sing

Well, first I'm quite angry or sad right now: I somehow lost a lot of pics. I lost all the pics from Hanoi as well as most of the pics from Muong Koua, that is to say one the places I prefered so far...

Whatever, appart from this I just had two really good days.
As I planned I went to Muong Sing, quite a small city, and cheap again. Once I got there I met again an American girl with who I had share dinner a couple of days before. Since we were two, it was enough to book on of this trek organized by eco-tourism association that are so popular here. I was a bit afraid it would turn out like the trek I did in Vietnam, but actually not at all. We did quite a long walk through the jungle first, like 5 hours at a serious rythme. There weren't any snakes there, but I wan tell you that the leeches (sangsues) where quite of a good company up there. We went pass by a couple of villages from different ethnic groups, and we reached an Akha village in the afternoon where we spent the night. First the people were shy, like went to villages on my own before, but then we could really got in touch with them, it was reaaally nice. They killed a chicken that we shared with them for a very good dinner, drank home made whisky, talk a little bit (almost all of them spoke Lao as well, and so they could speak to our guide who translated for us), they made us try their traditional costume (that they don't wear on the everyday life), and the top of this they gave us an Akha massage (strong!). Then we spent the evening together, we sang western songs and they replyed by singing very nice Akha songs... etc etc, in short it was a really magic moment up there, in the middle of these beautiful Lao mountains!
The american girl has got great pics of everything, but she'll send them to me later, so here are two pics I got. You can see at least of the children were happy to play with us, and the view we had from our bamboo house.




I really think that this eco-tourism is the best way to discover and meet these people. It's a bit expensive but it's probably the best compromise between low impact, money that goes to the village without making them dependent, conservation of the traditions without holding from progress, interesting meeting and discovery, etc etc etc so I'm happy to have supported it.

Tonight I'm back in Louang NamTha, but I think I'll leave tomorrow for a place that I can't find on google map right now, but that's next to Pak Bak, I think it's called Nam Khiew.

Muang Koua - Luang Nam Tha

Even if it was really nice in Muong Koua, I had explored the nearest areas and I wanted to move. I therefore took a bus yesterday morning to Luang Nam Tha, 7 hours, some parts of quite bad road but globally all right and the scenery was quite nce again. However it was properly o-v-e-r-packed, I had to share a small double seat with a guy and girl (so three for 2 small ones), and another child took a nap on my shoulder half of the way! Well, I was so buryed under people, rice or other bags that I felt like being part of lao people for a short while, sort of fun a posteriori :)

Thus I'm there since yesterday afternoon, and I'll probably leave tomorrow. Today I rented a mountain bicycle, and I must have done something like 30km on roads ans dirt roads. I sweated a lot but it felt good to do some exercice after all, and I saw really nice places. I had my packed lunch (bought this morning on the market) next to rice fields where I had the company of three young boys trying to say a couple of english words. I went through cute villages, saw a waterfall, a temple, friendly people.. I'm getting used to it!

I will probably not be able to go on the internet for a while, I don't know how it will be in Muong Sin.

pics again

Muong Koua

Half-stolen pic in on of the village we went to.. They were a minority people but I can't remember the name now.

pics

High mountains after Sapa

Stuck in the red mud, but the landscape was there to make us patient :)

Sapa - Dien Bien Phu - Muong Koua

The last hours in Sapa were interesting and fun with this American guy, that could tell me about the gossip their (there's quite a community of western that try to leave permanently their, because they met a Hmong or whatever, and the Police crack down on them, cause Police is in the busyness as well...), showed me the secrets of the city and introduced me to the few nice locals.
I leave the city anyway at 9.00, and head for the border. The road to Lau Chau is beautiful, we went arround the highest mountain in Vietnam (more than 3000m if I remember right), everything is covered with light green or bright white from the clouds. In Lai Chau we change bus, and I can't fit in one seat, fortunatly I could have two for all the way long. From now it's not really mountains anymore, even if the relief is still chaotic. Instead it's a tough jungle along a brown river, and the road is like shit, bumpy and mostly made out of earth. We go through some very remote villages, rice fields again, and huge works in Muong Lay where they build bridges and move the village up on the hill because they'll build a big dam (barage). But I thought it would be worst and after 11h we reach Dien Bien Phu. I take dinner with two german girls and get into the crappiest hostel so far. It didn't matter that much because the weather is good enough for the road to Lao to be open, so that at 4.45, wake up!

After few kilometers on a steep but normal (I mean with concrete, and thus good) road, we reach a summit where there is the vietnamese check point, and later on the Lao one, in the middle of nowhere. It takes ages for everyone to get the visa, but at 10.00 we're back on the road again and this time it's only made out of this sticky red-brown earth; fortunatly the driver's got skills. We pick up some people in the villages on the way, so the ad some benches in the bus corridor, it's packed and would have diserved a picture! The scenery this morning is amazing, the deep green of the hills and mountains contrasts with the red of the road, the blue sky and the white clouds. Sometimes we we go through cute wood villages where the bus drops a couple of boxes or people. Although it was quite dry this day, the bus got stuck more than twive in the mud, so everybody gets down, women on the side and men all push the bus in the mud! We even had to make a mechanical stop because the engine was too hot I guess (the first gear was on most of the time), and then a guy just passed by with a full bag of cucumber: our thirsty bus made his day!

After 10 hours for only 90km, and two days travelling in total, we finally reach Muong Koua, and it fells like it's the end of the world.
I spent 3 nights there, in a very very nice guesthouse, 3€/night, dinner with the owner and his family, view on the river.... The village is very peacefull and traditional, people laid back and smily. The small market seems to be out of a movie and I can't stop eating the banana sticky rice and the fried banana sold by this old mama at the entrance, telling me "bonjou', combien?, me'ci beaucoup" when she sees me in the morning for breakfast.
On the second day I went to hiking towards remote villages with an Italian girl and an Israelian couple, really nice people staying at the guest house this night with another really nice American family. We reached two villages this day. It's definitely not much people going there, and we were I think the first westerners that the children saw. They were so shy, so interested by us and so good looking! In the first village a man invited us in his house to have root-tea and sticky corn. He made me eating something apparently very funny for them, maybe aphrodisiac or something, we taught the children how to play thumb war, while trying to communicate with the older people in Lao. The second village we asked for food so they took us in the kitchen, lit the fire and cooked bamboo directly in the flame. The mother had twins, I'd say a couple of weeks old... unbeleivable. The time I spent there was very special.
After a big dinner the second day at night with all the family and the westerners, very nice, I was probably the only westerner in the whole village for the third day. So I went on my own to another village. This one I had to go on a really small path through the jungle, so I wasn't that confident when I croosed the way of small snakes several times. When I reached the village it was a bit weird actually, cause I scared off a couple of children just by being there. It wasn't much people in the villages, so it took a while before older children came and understood I wasn't a bad guy. I couldn't approach anyone but in the end the children where hidding behind walls laughing, and then following me to the end of the village. At night I had dinner with only the owner and his brother, sunday-night-dinner style, and when I told about the snakes he said :"did you see snakes like this? they are pretty common here in the bamboos" and he was showing me the diameter of it with his hands, I'd say something like 10cm !

Today I'm in Luang Numtha, I'll tell about it tomorrow :)

Edit about my last message

I'm in Laos for few days, I didn't have the internet where I was but I probably had my best time so far. Everything was beautiful, the people, the view, and the food is back to safe and fersh :)

I was in a hurry last time so I thought afterwards about what I wrote I maybe my fingers went a bit faster than my thoughts.

About Hmong people, cause I didn't tell much in the end. So as I said in the beggining I felt unconfortable with all the Hmong women selling their stuff agressively in the street, but I had to understand what's going on with the minority people there in Sapa, and that's what happened with this American guy that married a Hmong woman. Hmong people are actually quite open-minded, happy to live and moreover very good looking. However Vietnamese people treat them as shit, it's often pure racism, and it goes together with busyness as the only law. They force them to wear their traditionnal clothes to maintain tourism, they organise trek in their villages but without them (that's why they have to be agressive at selling), etc etc etc. Moreover they sell shitty textiles coming from China for nothing on the market, so that tourists buy them instead of the traditionnal handmade Hmong stuff, that they have to sell for nothing in order to have a chance to sell something.. I'm not telling all the horrible that's happening their with minority people, it's just a sample to give a idea.