Category: Laos

Today I woke up in Nong Khiaw after a much needed rest after my 2 day hiking tour. I ran into an Israeli friend from Luang Prabang in Nong Khiaw. We ate breakfast together and talked a bunch until I saw time slipping away. I hurried to pack my things and headed off around noon.

The ride was awesome. The roads were actually fairly nice and a little bit straight so I was shooting through kilometers. My goal was to get to Nateuey, a city on the northern border of Laos touching China. After endless hours of winding through the jungle roads I made it to 20 km away when I had my first wreck. I wasn’t doing anything special, in fact I was going pretty slow taking a left turn when all of a sudden the bike slipped out from under me. There was nothing I could do and the next instant I was lying in the ditch with the bike with some gas leaking on my leg. The road was so slippery that I just skid on my elbow and left hip all the way to the ditch. My elbow is sore and a little bloody and I haven’t looked at my hip yet but as there were no broken bones I stood up and brushed myself off.

Two Loas people had seen what happened and instantly helped. I was a little in shock but we picked the bike up and put it back in the road. I could see nothing wrong with the bike so I started riding very slowly. My trust in the bike was lost and I felt little weird sensations on left turns. I made it all the way to Nateuey and found a mechanic.

He happened to be Vietnamese so I practiced my Vietnamese with him. He was an awesome dude and him and his brother were built like tree trunks. They took the rear wheel apart and they instantly found the issue. The wheel itself had cracked. He put in a new wheel with all new spokes, I ate some Chinese food next door and then I was on my way. I didn’t plan for the expenses on the way so I was out of money. I paid him in USD so I would have some Laos money for gas to get to the next ATM as there wasn’t one for 60 km.

I said goodbye, grabbed the bike and started driving. All seemed well until all of a sudden I felt a pop and heard a grinding noise. The chain had obviously fell off the sprocket. I don’t know what the guy did wrong but I broke down next to some guys house and when I asked him for help he looked so goddamn confused, granted it was about 10pm at this time which is pretty late in Laos. He walked out to the bike took a look and I told him I would try to find a mechanic, he stared blankly into my eyes as he continued to chew something and his dogs screamed.

I grabbed my pack, slung it over my shoulder, and started walking back, it was about 4km back to town. I threw out my hitchhiker thumb and by some miracle got a ride in about 5 minutes. Some nice guy from Vientienne. He dropped me off at the mechanic but there wasn’t a soul in sight. I waited about an hour on the street where everyone passing me by gave me a triple glance. 

I finally got the bike fixed, payed 356,000 kip but again had to pay in USD. I left the shop around 11pm. It took about an hour to get to Luang Namtha and it was a rough ride. I was frustrated because I was exhausted and I had to cross a river at one point. It was about a foot deep. I just gassed up and ran through it crossing my fingers hoping the bike wouldn’t choke. I had to put my feet in the river and I was already freezing cold. The water was deliciously warm but I became slightly hypothermic for the last 10 minutes of driving as the water started evaporating and felt like ice from my legs to my waist.

I arrived at the town and stopped at every guesthouse but they were all closed and locked. I finally found one where the owners were sleeping in a little tent outside and my motorbike woke them up. They handed me a key and said 70,000. Based on the noise and decor I was certain this was some kind of shady sex hotel but I was never happier to lay down and fall asleep.

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten worse sleep in my life than in that homestay. The entire night the smoke billowed up between the enormous cracks in the floor and we breathed in the thick stuff the whole night.

We got up in the morning coughing, shook off the tired, and boated down to Muang Noy where we explored for the morning. We then went on a couple hikes to see some nearby waterfalls. Every surface of every rock was covered in some kind of moss or fern.

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Eventually we headed back down to Nong Khiaw where we all parted ways and I finally got some decent sleep.

After quite a few days exploring the city of Luang Prabang I finally got my motorcycle fixed and plotted a course North to the river city of Nong Kiaw rather than the more traveled road south to Vang Vieng.

Today was day 1 of a 2 day trekking tour from Nong Kiaw. I don’t even remember where I booked from but I woke up at Meexai house and headed to the tour center at 0830. The tour cost me 600,000($60). I’m very certain I could have gotten one much cheaper but for once I just accepted it and went. I met my guide Mr Song and the only other people on the trip, a French couple.

We jumped in a boat and started our day. The boat ride was absolutely gorgeous and probably my favorite part of the day were the first 30 minutes of that ride. The boat glided over silty brown water while the sun lit the mountains into bright green humid triangles.

At one point we had to leave the boat and hike along the riverbank because the boat was so small it would not have had the power with that amount of weight to fight the current. We boated about an hour, jumped off the boat and our guide proceeded to hike through rice farms and some little off the grid villages.

It was cool but going through the villages was a little awkward, most people were trying to sell us something and other people just wanted nothing to do with us. The weirdest part was going to the local school. Maybe it was because the guide just kind of stood there but I felt like I was just looking at a zoo. I tried interacting with a few of the kids but they were very shy. In fact all the kids here seem to be very shy. 

We hiked a lot and ended up at a village where they cooked us lunch. It consisted of fried pumpkin, bamboo shoots with chicken, soup, a thing that kind of tasted like a mix of potato, apple, and water chestnut. I don’t know how they fried the pumpkin but it had to be one of the most delectable things I’ve ever tasted. After lunch we hiked a lot more and ended up back at the boat around 3pm. We took an hour more north on the river in the boat and it became more and more remote and the mountains next to the river became steeper.

We stopped along a bank and I tried my hand at fishing with Mr Song. We took our shoes off and ran along the slimy riverbanks like kids throwing the circular net out hoping to catch some of the small fish along the shallow shore rocks. I was actually pretty good at it. We ended up catching 20 or so baby fish with a river puffer fish that was actually pretty big. I had no idea puffer fish lived in rivers. Our method was to throw the circular net out with some spin so it will stretch out. Then run around the net looking for little silvery fish wriggling in the net. You then pull it slightly through the net as to get it stuck there. Then squeeze the poor thing through the eyeballs until the little skull pops. It was pretty gross but when in Rome…

We boated just a bit more and ended at a village that was quite nice. They had exchanged their dirt and sand for a dam a few years back for electricity from the Chinese. In general the Laos people did not have good things to say about the Chinese. They feel as if the Chinese want to take over, which is pretty obvious in about everything I’ve seen here.

 We ate at the homestay and it was the exact same food as this afternoon, other than the small fish that me and Mr Song caught. The fried pumpkin was even better than earlier. After we started eating this very grumpy little Laos kid walked in. I waved to her and she just shook her head no. I waved to her again later and she angrily pretended to kick me through the air. I pretended to kick her back and her grumpy face finally split into a smile. We went back and forth a bunch of times. Then she put on her mom’s high heels and walked out. She came back later and I played with her more, I really got a kick out of her. Absolutely adorable and she looked so grumpy but when I made a grumpy face she thought it was hilarious and cracked up. 

Mr Song was pushing the Laos Whiskey(laosky) hard and by the end of the night we had all drank quite a bit of it, especially Mr Song. We grabbed the laosky and went to the beach to make a fire and relax. We met another couple from Germany and some girl from Taiwan, tried for 30 minutes to make a fire but failed.

Then we headed back to the home stay which is an extremely basic home. One light, the kitchen is a fire on the floor and it just smokes up the whole house. Bedtime now.