Muang Sing

Muang Sing, Laos

There is not a whole lot to say about our overnight excursion to Muang Sing.  It's a small border town at the North of Laos just 3km from China.  That in itself was probably the coolest thing about this place.  Although I will say two things.  First, the hotel we stayed at had a great steam room that four of us packed into (Mika and I and the Big Falang (Tomer) and our other new Aussie companion Kate).  Every time we got out of the sauna we were greeted by 4 local women asking if we wanted a massage.  This happened three or four times - although it became comical by the end.  Second, the ride up to Muang Sing was beautiful.  We rented scooters and drove the 60km in about 2 hours.  Although we saw yet more evidence of China's pillaging of the Lao jungle for their rubber plantations, the majority of the ride was through the National Park which is predominately rain forest.

We ate at the same restaurant 4 times because there was no where else worth going and got up at 5:30am for a morning market that really didn't start until 8am (thanks again Tomer!).

Speed Racer!

The Chinese Border

4 of the 13 people at the morning market selling Lau Lau rice whiskey

There is a cooked rat in this picture....can you find it?

The meat market - Mika loves these.

There are so few gas stations in Laos that while driving you have to keep your eye out for 1L beer bottles in a row by someone villagers house.

Lam Namtha Tribe

January 9-10, 2010

There are those wonderful times that make travel so addicting when you notice something that is so far outside your culture it fascinates you – for me this is the best thing about culture shock, the instant infatuation and the inability to look away. We were in a continuous culture shock on our overnight stay in the jungle with the Lam Nam Tha tribe. After trekking through the jungle for 6 hours we reached the end of our journey, just across a creek lay a dozen grass roofed huts. Tired and sweaty, we did what the locals do and got ready to clean ourselves up. As we all changed into our appropriate bathing attire a crowd of children began to materialize on the small hill on the other side of the creek. They could not take their eyes off of us. This was our first introduction to the Lam Namtha tribe, in a remote area of Northern Laos.

The village consisted of a chief, about 12 families (70 people) and lots of livestock. The children were amazing and animated. Apart from our spacey guide, we had no way of communicating with them, but that did not stop us from doing the Limbo and talking for hours through gestures by the campfire. For dinner we all sat on small stools and feasted on raw buffalo meat (well I passed that up), rice, morning glories and green beans. After star gazing for a couple hours the entire village went to sleep at 8 pm and we were each lead in pairs to separate huts. Our bed was a hard raised platform, with a thin mattress surrounded by a mosquito net. At 8:15 we watched in the most intense silence as the embers of the fire slowly died out.

The village lives in the utmost simplicity, owning very little. Even the clothes on their backs have been sewn and re-sewn countless times. There is a childlike quality to all of the villagers, a curiosity and fascination that is contagious. They are the most resourceful people. The children are not coddled over or overly protected. 2-year-olds run around with 12 inch knives and their faces are covered in dirt and snot because no one sees an importance of constantly cleaning them. Without overbearing parents they learn from those around them and at very young ages fall in line with the village tasks. After breakfast a five-year-old was teaching Alan how to make a harpoon used for fishing. The men are often the ones with babies tied to their sides in slings and everyone in the community helps take care of each other.

As in any country the universal edict is to ask permission before you take a photo of someone. For the first time it struck me as so odd that we so cavalierly snap photos, taking personal portraits of people who do not even own a family photo. Every day the always camera ready foreigner walks away with countless photos, keepsakes these people will never see. But what is most impressive is that they do not need them to remember what they saw.

-Mika

Al

Muang Ngoi

1.4-1.7.10

Magical would be the first adjective for this special little place.  The town itself is small, the surrounding areas are breathtaking. We scored one of the last bungalows overlooking the river and spent a few days trekking and doing some unsuccessful fishing.  The trek to a local village led us through jungles, rivers, and harvested rice fields laden with cows and water buffalo.  The trail followed the raised earth dividers that separated the rice paddies and at one point we came upon a cow that had just given birth.  We witnessed the calf taking its initial steps and begin it’s very first feeding.  (Alicia grew up on a farm and acted as our tour guide for this very Discovery Channel moment.)

The local village was set against one of the towering limestone karsts overlooking acres of rice paddies.  Almost everything seemed to be done the way it had been for generations before.  Yarn was spun onto small spools and fed into large wooden looms that the women used to make fabrics.  Young children worked side by side with their mothers and the older children hunted and fished in groups.  As we arrived a small group of them had just come back with a snake which was apparently going to be dinner.  MMMmmmm!  Somehow, even in the middle of nowhere, they managed to have satellite TV.  The power came on from the hours of 6-10pm and, like the rest of the world, they would gather round and watch some Thai soap opera or some other reality show.  All people do have the same needs!

The best part of this place was what happened after the sun went down.  With limited power and absolutely no ambient light, the heavens stole the show.  Lucky for us the moon was rising late in the night and we had about 4 hours of pure star gazing.  So much so that the Big Dipper was impossible to find.  We would sit quietly and stare while the night animals played their symphony.  After a couple hours the moon would rise and we could see the fog rolling down the river.  Again something neither of us had ever witnessed.  The fog would engulf the river and neighboring mountains and hover until the morning sun burned it off.  This scene repeated itself every night.

During our stay in Muang Ngoi we picked up a new friend.  Tomer, a.k.a. “The Big Falang”*, hailed from a town just outside Tel Aviv, Israel and was on his way home after 3 years in Sydney.  Our posse, now 5 strong, would leave Muang Ngoi and again head north to the town of La Nam Tha in what I am happy to say was an uneventful trip aside from the usual attempts to extort more money out of us in what we have dubbed the “Falang Shakedown”.  Little did the Laotians know they were dealing with 2 Jews straight out of India and an Israeli.  They really had no chance!

*”Falang” is a term used in Southeast Asia to describe foreigners.  It originated during the French occupations and translates to “Frenchy”.

-Alan and Mika

Another Boat Ride

1.4.10

I’d love to be able to say that Mika and I traveled from Luang Prabang to Muang Ngoi without incident.  I’d love to say that what was dubbed a 5 hour trip that should have put us in Muang Ngoi after lunch was exactly that.  But this is Mika and me, and that’s not the way we roll.

Muang Ngoi is a sleepy little village on the Nam Ou River an hour north of Nong Kiew, accessible only by boat.  It’s another village that is just a year or two away from being overwhelmed by tourists.  At the moment it’s a gem for those that make the trip.  To get there from Luang Prabang involves 2 parts: a 4 hour bus ride followed by an hour longboat ride up the river.   The bus ride was uneventful except for the fact that we left an hour and a half late and at a rest stop we saw a half butchered dog sitting in a pail with a half quartered chicken.  It was one of those things you knew existed but would have been better off not seeing.  We then had to wait another hour and a half to catch the later boat due to our tardiness.  We finally boarded our longboat at 2pm.

We knew there was something wrong from the moment we left, or tried to leave.  The first thing that the captain did before pushing off was take a hammer and screwdriver to the engine (a recycled V-6 from what used to be a Toyota).  A couple smacks and a tweak of something or other and he was satisfied.  We pushed off and headed upstream with as much confidence as we could muster.  The town quickly faded away and we were surrounded by the pristine beauty of the Lao hillside.  I’ve been trying to come up with a way to describe this landscape.  It’s unlike anything either of us have ever scene and it becomes more and more impressive each time we see it.  Imagine towering hills, carpeted in lush jungle in every shade of green imaginable.  They drop, fjord-like, into the river and stretch endlessly to the horizon.  They seem to pop out of the plains as if a giant was pushing through the earth from the underside with a finger.  They are not overpowering in size like the Himalayas, but their density and depth suck you in just the same.  Obviously pictures speak a thousand words, but they will never do them justice.

The river too has a mystical quality that we now understand can only be found in this part of the world.  It winds slowly and effortlessly through the landscape only to be broken every so often by rock outcroppings.  The river’s edges are shallow from the upstream silt and when you walk in your feet sink and the soil squeezes between your toes.  At night the river cools the air creating a thick fog that you can witness form in front of your eyes.

The beauty had just begun to get a hold of us when the boat’s engine came to a grinding halt.  Mika and I looked at Jonah and Alicia and we all just about fell out of the boat laughing!  Two boats in barely a week!  Immediately we tried to figure out who was the bad luck charm.  For the next hour the captain fiddled with the engine.  More tweaking and fidgeting, he added some oil that helped for about 5 minutes before it sputtered out again.  Another long boat pulled up alongside but the only help they could give was comic relief in the form of a Vietnamese traveler who thought this was the funniest thing he had seen.  We eventually managed to get ashore at which point the captain declared the boat unfit to go any further.  Déjà vu!  The boat with the Vietnamese traveler pulled up alongside a couple minutes after, some money was exchanged between captains, and we all boarded our new ship.  Off we went again.  No more than 10 minutes from boarding the new boat we were again ordered off.  It seemed that the boat, with all the extra weight, could not travel this stretch of the river because it was too shallow.  We were going to have to walk and meet the boat about 500 meters upstream!  So we walked and, as expected when you drop a bunch of tourists in the middle of a jungle, we got lost.  You would think following the river upstream would be easy enough but wonders never cease.  Luckily, as if almost scripted, a local villager appeared and guided us to the path that would return us to the boat.  This is why you never worry.  There will always be a villager or a bus or something to guide you back when something goes wrong!

Another hour upstream and we finally arrived.  Just before sunset, 8 ½ hours in all.  Pretty much par for the course!

-Alan

Luang Prabang

12.28.09-1.1.10

1.3-1.4.10

Luang Prabang is a Unesco world heritage town located at the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam Khan Rivers.  The architecture and cuisine are remnants of the French occupation and the baguettes and pastries were a welcome sight, or better yet - taste.  It’s a small town that has become a tourist hub because of its location and we spent our time here doing a little shopping, visiting waterfalls and frequenting the spas.  Like Thailand, Laos is littered with cheap spa’s that cater to Western tourists.  We happen to stumble upon a relatively obscure place populated by only locals that provided unlimited sauna for about $1.15.  Needless to say, it became almost a daily stop.

We spent New Year’s with Jonah and Alicia in LPB which catered to the Western holiday.  A short happy hour at the guesthouse was followed by a semi-traditional Lao dinner at a riverside restaurant.  Good food, good drink and good friends - what more could you want to usher in the new decade.  (A couple notes about Lao food – in general, it is not as tasty as Thai food although the ingredients are very similar: chili, lemongrass, cilantro and similar herbs, noodles, fish and meats (chicken, buffalo, pork) and of course lots of soup.  It is also almost impossible to be full without eating a significant helping of sticky rice!  It begins to explain the Laotians physic.)  The main course of the meal was a Lao BBQ which consists of a nifty contraption that cooks meat in the middle and soup on the perimeter.

After dinner we stopped in town to pick up a couple rice paper lanterns to send off our new year’s wishes.  Along the way we stopped at a local celebration that included dancing Laos in Santa hats as well as assorted small fireworks which we had somehow gotten our hands on.  We made our way to “Utopia”, a riverside bamboo bar, just in time to count down the last moments of 2009.  Jonah and Alicia lit their lantern and, in what would have been a perfectly timed release, they let it go.  Unfortunately instead of going up, it went down!  The gathering crowd “ooh’d” and “ahh’d” as the lantern fell and then just as easily began to rise.  The bamboo roof overhang, however, almost provided the first tragedy of 2010 as it caught the lantern on the way up.  We now had a burning paper lantern trapped in the roof rafters of a very dry bamboo structure which covered a hundred or so celebrating tourists!  After some tense moments, someone climbed a nearby bamboo pole and pushed the mischievous lantern into the night sky.  Jonah let out a final cry, “Our baby made it!”

The rest of the evening was spent dancing without incident and we left the next day for Phonsavah, albeit a bit tired and dazed!