Luang Namtha, Laos

The plan: to catch the 11 o’clock bus to Udomxai, where we would switch buses to Luang Namtha. We showed up at the ‘bus station’ in Nong Khiaw with time to spare to catch the bus to Udomxai, or so we thought. A fellow traveler had been waiting there for some time and informed us that there would most likely be no bus, because apart from us three there was no-one that wanted to go that way. Half an hour or so later there were five of us, and for a little extra a minivan driver was willing to drive us to a village about half-way from where we would allegedly be able to get on a bus to Udomxai.

We arrived shaken and stirred in Pak Mong, but luckily for us our two hour wait wasn’t even nearly over when we were ushered into a minibus that they had apparently arranged especially for us and off we went to Udomxai, where we arrived three hours later (it was 17:00 by now). Upon arrival, another bus was waiting especially for us, because there was no scheduled service to Luang Namtha and we were already planning to spend the night in Udomxai. Two minutes out of town the bus broke down, which delayed us by about twenty minutes, but then we were finally on our way to our final destination.

The road from Udomxai to Luang Namtha is somewhat of an oddity in Laos. It is brand new and constructed by the Chinese, which is probably why it’s a good road. However, it is strange to see such a road in such an environment. In a place where you have to be careful no to step on chickens, dogs, pigs, ducks and the odd turkey, where a real danger exists of getting trampled underfoot by a water buffalo or hit by a renegade monk on a bicycle clad in a bright orange robe, where people gather around a fire together by the side of the road because there is no electricity and share a meal and the latest gossip, a shiny new road seems somewhat of an anachronism. This is merely an observation and by no means a complaint, because a paved road was a welcome change after six hours on a bumpy dirt road.

We arrived in Luang Namtha around nine o’clock, or at least we thought we had. As it turned out, the driver had dropped us off in a town about ten kilometers from there. At first we thought we had fallen victim to a common ruse in Laos where busdrivers drop you off somewhere in the middle of nowhere leaving you with no alternative but to hire a tuk-tuk driven by one of their friends (we later learned that this was the actual bus station). By the time we were checked into a hotel it was a little after 22:00 and we were starving. However, restaurants close their kitchen at 22:00 and their establishment at 22:30. We were lucky to find a Kiwi-run place whose owners were willing to whip us up an omelet even though the kitchen was closed and they also invited us to go on their tour to visit New Year’s celebration, which takes place after the harvest, of the local Lantan people.

We got up the next day to prepare for the festivities. Not many westerners are invited to this party (our restaurant / travel agency was invited because the chief’s daughter worked there), so it was by no means a spectacle set up for tourists. Because there were not so many westerners and because the local people did not seem to be disturbed by our presence, we caught a rare glimpse of the culture of this minority people. We were warmly welcomed, shown us our table for the day and indulged in the food and drink we were served and watched the celebrations. Between speeches and dances, ladies in traditional Lantan dresses would come by everyone’s table handing out shots of Lao-Lao (moonshine rice whiskey) and it would be very rude to refuse such a present (which is why we didn’t refuse any of the 15 or so times we were offered this turpentine-like goodness). The festivities ended around 16:00 and we left behind a large number of red cheeked and cockeyed partygoers.

That same evening we managed to sign up for a two-day tour starting bright and early the next day (according to the official schedule): one day of kayaking and one day of hiking. We were dropped off at the riverside with our guide and Nicoletta from Bulgaria. For both Marcel and I it had been over 10 years since our only kayak-experience and in the beginning we had some trouble directing the kayak to where it was supposed to go. The river was quite slow and shallow (we are approaching the end of the dry season), but a few rapids and invisible rocks just beneath the surface (I think we hit pretty much all of them) made the day good fun. We also stopped at a tiny little village where life must have stood still a few centuries.

We reached our shelter for the night: a typical local hut right by the river where we spent a comfortable evening by the fire and an equally comfortable night on our mattresses below our mosquito nets.
Day two was made for hiking. Two hours up a hill to conquer 900 meters of difference in altitude, and then all the way back down again to reach another village from where we got a tuk-tuk back to Luang Namtha. It was a nice hike through lush green vegetation on an easy although sometimes somewhat treacherous path, but the animals we had hoped to see were nowhere in sight.

Three excellent days, Luang Prabang next.