Lao Roads Part 1

We headed east from Houay Xai and were expecting to be slow going due to the infamous Lao roads. We were disappointed in a way and glad in another. Apart from a very few parts, the road was excellent, wide, new and smooth surface, and clearly marked. The villages on the roadside looked somewhat different though. They were best described as traditional, houses made of wood and bamboo mats stood on poles above the clay soil. The inhabitans were mostly working or sitting in the shade next to their houses while the small children where playing on the street. Despite the simple nature of the villages, they were very clean. Women were even brooming the hard clay soil. The base material for the brooms, cut from reed, was carried by old and young workers everywhere along the roadside and lay to dry oth both sides of the bitumen. Young children carrying large loads of wood while their mothers pulled large tree chunks from the forrest and their fathers cut them. Still, everyone was smiling, some places people were having little parties in preparation to the Lao independence day. Life was indefinately simpler than in Thailand, but the country spread an unspeakable beauty with it and we were captured by it instantly.


We took the time to look at a cave along the way. There was someone in a simple hut by the road selling the entrance tickets and someone else was actually guiding through the long and narrow cave, but he was already in with some other white tourists, so we made our way through the cave by ourselves. It was lit by some energy saver lamps and many LED spots powered by a generator. All in all it wasn't nearly enough to see any of our steps and Arno's mobile phone would have to do the job. The cave just wouldn't end, the power cable did and that's where we turned around. On the way we had met the other tourists that had just shortly advised it would get dark and then we should not proceed any further. We wouldn't really have dared with the little mobile phone. At the entrance, the guide was waiting for us and asking for payment. As he hadn't done anything for us, we refused and left him standing there a little puzzled as we went back to the road.


The road was winding through mountains and got steeper. Every once in a while we would spot a farang biker making his way up some mountain. They had our full respect. Even the Jimmy was fighting sometimes to keep a decent pace uphill. We were progressing quickly, still, but had the time to take in the exceptionary countryside with its high forrest clad mountains between which deep cut valleys were cut into uncountable sections of small rice fields. Early afternoon we arrived in Luang Nam Tha, a small town serving as the gateway to the Nam Tha Protected Area and the hub for the many trekkers coming to the area.


We soon found an affordable two bed room that wasn't too clammy right opposite the night market. There we rested for a while watching HBO programme until the hunger drove us out. We first tried the night market and had some local dishes and meat sticks, none of which we were willing to finish. The meat was very chewy, the vegetarian dishes were interesting, but not really our taste. We disposed of the food secretly and went to a guest house restaurant to help ourselves with some Thai style food.


All research for interesting trekking tours left us with little motivation to actually do such a trip. We were either lazy, or there was just nothing that seemed exciting enough. With the many villages we had seen on the way, there was no need to trek to one, and a jungle walk was nothing new to us either. For the next day we decided, we would take the road up north for some twenty kilometers or so and then continue our route south. For the night, we went back to the room for some movies, as the town had nothing else to offer.

We had a relaxed start into the next day with an omelett and steamed rice with fried egg. As planned, we folled the road north into the Nam Tha Protected Area. Our first stop was a bamboo bridge crossing a little stream down in the valley. As we started walking down to it, we spotted another bridge downstream that seemed to be closed due to its state. It was half falling apart, but looked much more adventurous as it was crossing the river hanging between two treetops. We couldn't resist testing it and ended up crossing it completely. Arno went first and checked the stability, while I was holding on to his camera in case he'd drop in the river. I could follow much quicker in the knowledge, the bridge would hold. We crossed back using the lower bridge upstream, passing and greeting some Lao hunters that were staring at us in suprise. There was just nothing on the other side of the river two tourists could be interested in. I would assume they wouldn't get the idea that the crossing itself had attracted us.


As we went on, we found nothing of interest and decided to turn around after a while to follow our route towards the south. The road was still good, but now one lane was missing in some places where landslides had taken half the road with them down the steep slopeds of the mountains. Road conditions worsened immediately when we turned onto the Route 13 towards the south. Right after the turn was a little post beside the road that collected 2000 Kip (15 Eurocents) for the road construction. They should have taken more, they could use it. The road was now quite bad in many places and the going really rough. It was not very far to Oudom Xay, but after driving on such a road for about six hours, I was exhausted. At least closer to our destination, the road had improved a little bit so that there were parts of almost a kilometer without rough soil or potholes.


Driving into Oudom Xay, we noticed a large hotel besides a bridge right at the beginning of the town. We didn't hesitate to look at the rooms and checked in minutes later. A Nong, who had showed us the room and checked us in invited us to meet her in a few minutes so she could show us a good place for food. We went to the room and I had a shower first. Driving had been physical labour and I desparately wanted to freshen up.

Half an hour later A Nong had still not appeared. We decided to go down and try to find her. She seemed to have left, but I could convice the friendly personal at the front desk to call her and she appeared minutes later to guide us through the town to an excellent restaurant. She was talking a lot and seemed to have a rather unusual history for any Lao. She'd grown up partly in Laos, partly in Thailand, but most of her childhood and youth in Vietnam. Then she'd married an Australian embassy official, went with him to study in Australia, before leaving him for some french guy who she'd left a year ago now. She had some story to tell and we listened most of the time which she seemed to like a lot. We ended up leaving the restaurant with an invitation to her sister's wedding in our pockets that would be held two days later in Luang Prabang, the place we were headed to, anyway.

A Nong spoke a good English, so the conversation went easy. She also spoke Vietnamese and Thai and Lao, of course. Thai and Lao where very close languages and I started to recognize the essential differences between the two which enabled me to have a basic conversation in shops and restaurants. Mainly the pronounciation was slightly different and some key words had to be exchanged, the most important being "baw" replacing the Thai "mai" at the end of a question as well as for saying "no."

After a quick drink in the beergarden next to the hotel, some friends of A Nong's and us went to the local night club, a small and dark indoor karaoke bar. Their list of drinks was limited to Pepsi, Sky Classic and Beer Lao. They didn't even serve water. Despite the limitations and the simple club, the vibe was great and the dancefloor was crowded most of the time until the lights went on around 1 a.m. and we left the club to cruise around the empty town for some minutes before returning to the hotel.

Arno left the next morning for Luang Prabang, while I took the time to soak in the small town a little longer with my new found guide A Nong. We would follow together two days later to meet Arno for the wedding. I passed the time being lazy for once, watching TV, hanging around town, completing the blog and testing the Lao cuisine. The second day I visited some hot springs half an hour out of town. It was a pleasant ride along a narrow but well-paved road following a river. The springs itself were unspectacular, but the ride was nice.

Next to the springs was a small temple where A Nong went to worship. Watching her ceremony was much more interesting. After the usual meditation in front of the Buddha that I had witnessed many times before she grabbed a small statue of a sitting Buddha, seemingly quite heavy, and heaved it over her head three times before putting it down again. Then she took a jar of sticks and shook it until one of them fell out. It revealed a number, either 3 or 13, she wasn't sure. Another worshipper helped to identify the number and read the corresponding letter from box 13 to her. I didn't quite understand what it said, but it seemed she would have liked the number 3 better.

Another thing kept me quite occupied, the hunt for chocolate. On my second day I had achieved to buy probably the only caramel chocolate candy that existed in this town. I found it in some small store in a dust-filled bowl, but the expiry date was still half a year ahead. Arno had done much better and found chocolate at the bus terminal when he had left.