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 :)
No comments:
Post a Comment