Laos, Luang Namtha: Village Voyage

Editor's Pick Award

Our Editors awarded this travel blog entry for providing relevant information that may be useful and inspiring for other travelers.

The infamous bus route in Laos, to travel from the Laos-Thailand border to the northern town of Luang Namtha, is just as we were warned: bumpy, windy, dusty and exciting but scary all the same. We were able to experience this with David, the Welsh guy we met at Spicythai Backpackers in Chiang Mai, and it was fun to go through the harrowing journey with someone else. If you don't yet know about our early-morning hassle of getting our bus tickets sorted out, you better click the "Previous travel blog entry" link at the bottom of this journal entry to catch up on your reading.

To picture the bus we rode in (if you haven't peeked ahead at the photos for this journal entry), imagine a slightly larger 1970's Volkswagen van with rows of two small seats running down one side of the vehicle and single seats running down the opposite side, with a few plastic patio deck chairs lining the middle of the bus. Throw in a few large bags of rice, and other sundry items including long, sharp saw blades, and you have even more ample seating for passengers wanting to travel away from Huay Xai.

The bus was not air-conditioned, but being in the mountains in Laos meant that having the windows open was enough to keep everyone cool when the bus was moving. What is also meant was that anyone sitting next to the window (poor Dan) would be coated in an inch-thick layer of dust when the journey was finished, due to the dust kicked up in the road by other vehicles driving past. Actually, everyone on the bus was coated by the end of the trip, but the window people were hit the most. Apart from the dust coating everyone from head to toe, people exiting the bus at the end of the journey had tears streaming down their face since the dust stung everyone's eyes - with all of the forest burning going on, we swear the dust was mixed with ash falling from the sky, and it was more than a little unpleasant.

It is astonishing how quickly you can bond with people when "thrown together"in such a small, cramped space for a long period of time. Thrown together, quite literally, when the bus hit potholes in the unfinished parts of the steep and windy mountain road, everyone on the bus had quite a laugh during the 8-hour journey - both foreigners and Laotians alike. It helped that every time the bus driver approached a windy curve in the road at full speed, the lucky passengers sitting in the centre aisle, on the patio chairs, were flung back and forth into the laps of the lucky people sitting in the side rows. While Dan had a dusty window seat in one of the two-seat rows, Kyle had the fortune of sitting next to the plastic chair aisle and on several occasions, had to keep both a Swiss girl and Spanish girl from crashing into him and Dan.

The roads in Laos, as we very quickly found out, are carved into steep slopes and, where they are not yet paved, can be quite treacherous to drive on. It also doesn't help that the bus drivers we had in Laos all seem to think they are racing car drivers! If you don't like rollercoasters, you may not enjoy a bus journey here, and even though we both like the thrill of speeding along a track in a small metal car on any rollercoaster we find, 8 hours on the Laos Express was getting to us by the end. Having said this, a lot of effort is being put into the roads, to form a good transport link between China and Thailand, and therefore several sections of the road are now paved and of good quality. What really was scariest to us, though, was the sections whereby all we could see was an extremely tight hairpin turn in the road ahead, with no road barrier and a several hundred foot drop off into the valley below!

Lao people are more used to riding motorbikes than cars and, therefore, motion sickness is not uncommon to witness on these journeys. Our bus had about 25 people in it (built to transport about 15) and 5 of these people were from Laos. The odds against sickness were slightly in our favour with so many foreigners on the bus who are used to riding in cars and buses. However, we drew unlucky numbers when our seat allocations were given; the seats we chose to sit in were right in front of a young Lao woman and her little boy, who later decided to puke out his lunch, a lot of it landing on the Spanish girl who was constantly falling into Kyle's lap. We still don't know how the puke managed to avoid us - we think it was because we gave the little boy an Oreo earlier in the journey, and he didn't want to get sick on us a result of really enjoying the tasty cookie (that's "biscuit" to the British people reading this). We just hope it wasn't the Oreo that made him sick; however, it was an Order "Double Stuff" so it could have been the cause!

Normally, when you board a bus in Laos, you can take a "sick bag" from the driver or ticket inspector. Our little friend behind us didn't have one; hence the spillage onto the Spanish girl. If you are travelling in Laos, a good tip from us would be to take a couple bags when you board the bus, and hand them to any local Laotians who start looking a bit green in the face. This will also work for any foreigners looking a bit peaked, like they are going to blow chunks, and we have now learned to be prepared (refer to our Koh Chang, Thailand journal to read about the nice English woman who was sick on the minivan to Bangkok).

Located in the northern part of Laos, the Luang Namtha province shares its northwestern border with Myanmar and its northeastern border with China. The area is extremely mountainous and home to 39 different minorities, the largest number of different tribes in any province within the country.The main town in the province is Luang Namtha, which is a sleepy little town in the midst of many villages housing some of these tribes. The villages spread from the valley where Luang Namtha town is situated, and up into the mountains in the surrounding countryside. Unesco, who has stamped "World Heritage Site" on a more southern town in Laos called Luang Prabang, is funding an eco-tourism project in Luang Namtha that should provide education, conservation, management and sustainable economic benefits for the local population in the province.

Our arrival in town was met by the usual tuk-tuk and motorbike drivers offering us a ride to a guesthouse. We had figured out the way these guys operate, whereby they will offer to drive you somewhere even if guesthouses are located pretty much across the street, and so we opted to put on our large backpacks and walk from the bus terminal to town to find somewhere to stay for the night. After a 2 minute walk, we came across Bus Station Guesthouse which we all remembered reading about in our Lonely Planet guides. The price was cheap at 22,500 Kip (£1.30 or $2) each per night. Seeing the rooms and deciding the place was nice enough, we booked ourselves in, dropped off our bags and then went walking to explore the small town.

During this brief walk, we stumbled across a brilliant find which we would highly recommend to anyone staying in Luang Namtha - Zuela Guesthouse. This place was brand new, so nice and only a little more expensive than Bus Station Guesthouse that we booked ourselves in for the next night. David was planning on leaving the following day to move further south in Laos, but we were more than happy to stay an extra night in the town to see what the surrounding countryside had to offer. Changing from Bus Station Guesthouse to Zuela's was such a wise move, as the owners of the guesthouse were an extremely nice and helpful woman and her sister who have been studying English for a couple of years. One woman's daughter is named Zuela, hence the name of her business. The 4 year-old girl was so animated and funny, that we taught her the all-time classic phrases "See you later, alligator" and "After while, crocodile" so she can use them for any further English speaking people who stay with them.

When we broached the subject of food with David, he mentioned an Indian restaurant in town called Nazim's which supposedly had the best Indian food in all of Laos. Honestly speaking, we didn't think massively highly of the meal, as we thought the food tasted a bit bland and was way overpriced for the area. We suppose that living in London has spoiled us! Also, we came across a better Indian place later in our trip in the Laos capital (Vientiane) called Rashmi's, and we reckon Lonely Planet just isn't able to keep up to date with everything, are they? Other meals we ate during our time in Luang Namtha was very good, and most of it was eaten in the restaurant at Zuela's. However, if you read further down you will learn about a great place we stopped off at during our bicycle tour around the villages in the area.

An internet cafe was across the street from the restaurant and we decided to check emails and work on the journal when we had finished eating. David was pretty knackered and said good night before heading back to Bus Station Guesthouse. As there are no streetlights in the town, it was pitch black when we left the internet cafe, and most of the town was well closed up for the evening. We knew the route back to the guesthouse on that first night, but when we started walking back the way we had come, we were severely threatened by a few wild dogs that were claiming their territory. The street was completely blocked and we didn't want to risk checking whether or not our rabies vaccinations worked, so we backtracked and started walking down another dark, lonely street.

The trouble with the new street we took was the dogs which lived there. Laos is a country of dogs and they roam around everywhere during the day; however, at night, they guard their turf like gangs in inner cities might, and come across just as intimidating. We walked bravely, but very quickly, in the direction we thought our guesthouse was located, but ended up getting a little lost on the way. It wasn't until after we stopped in at a bar which was filled with young Laotians playing pool and having some drinks that we were able to know where we were, and it was by no means thanks to the people in the bar.

Walking into the busy bar was like a moment you always see in films or on TV - we entered the establishment and immediately all went quiet - the music stopped, people stopped playing pool and people stopped talking to each other in order to see who these strange people were that just walked inside, aka us. We tried to get directions to our guesthouse, but not a single soul spoke English. We smiled and nodded and said thank you in Laotian (pronounced "khop djai") and quickly got out of there.

Immediately, we spotted the bus terminal right across the street from the small bar and we both breathed sighs of relief. Saved, we walked to our guesthouse with glowing confidence and we didn't run across any more dogs. It was nearly midnight by this time and the guesthouse gate was pulled across and locked, and we thought the worst, that we would have to sleep outside or find somewhere else that still had a light on. Luckily, the owners of the guesthouse heard us walk up and let us in the gate so we could go to our room. Whew!

Early in the morning, we checked out of Bus Station Guesthouse and moved into our room at Zuela Guesthouse. We had a great breakfast there - loving the huge morning baguettes with eggs - and then rented bicycles to ride around all of the surrounding village in the area. Another great thing about Zuela's was that we were able to hire mountain bikes from their bike rental shop at a discounted rate!

We had seen posters around the town for a company called Big Brother Mouse which produces educational books for children of various ages. These books covered many topics such as mathematics, Lao language and grammar, English language and children's stories. We thought it would be a great idea to purchase a few books to hand out to village children during the day, so we purchased a few copies before making our way. People are advised not to hand out items like money or candy to the villagers as it encourages them to beg, but the Big Brother Mouse programme is widely accepted because of the advantages it can provide to families with children. The stickers we brought with us were harmless, and we double checked with the tourism office in town as well as always checked with the village children's parents before handing them out. We often spoke English with the kids in order to encourage them to practice the language, and the stickers were a sort of reward for their great efforts.

Our routine was slickened up as we visited more and more villages and families, but the general structure of our visits was as follows: (1) ride slowly through the village and say "sabaidee" with a large smile whenever we came across anyone in the village, (2) when sufficient interest was shown in us we stopped our bikes and stopped to exchange greetings, (3) when asked where we were from we showed the villagers our London postcards which we brought, and (4) we would hand out a book to a family or stickers to the many children that would gather around us. Occasionally, we were offered a seat to sit down with the family to rest, but most of the time we stood around people's houses and visited with a family or families for a few minutes before hopping back onto our bikes to move on down the road.

During this tour, we saw many different houses and styles, as well as different crops which were being grown. Animals were walking everywhere and we constantly had to avoid riding into pigs, cows, chickens (and SO many baby chicks!), dogs, cats, ducks, geese and the occasional water buffaloes. We passed the river on several occasions and saw people bathing (always with their clothes on, as Laotians are modest people) and fishing or sifting mud for small freshwater clams which would provide meals for some families. Some of the village houses were built in the most basic manner with bamboo and thatch, but were some of the most well-presented and clean abodes; many of the larger wooden or brick homes were dirtier or less well maintained. It was interesting to see the differences between the different villages and tribes, both in their manner of living and dress. What really surprised us on our tour was the number of houses which had large satellite TV dishes in their yards, even the simplest of houses made from bamboo would often sport these monstrosities!

All of the people we met during our tour were so much friendlier than the Thai people (in general) that we ran across in our month there. It's not that the Thais are unfriendly or unwelcoming, but they tended to be more focused on making money from tourists than just being generally happy to meet and greet new people. We did meet a lot of friendly Thai people on our travels but we met an equal number of unfriendly ones, too (refer to the Koh Phi Phi, Thailand journal entry if you haven't read it, and you will remember Kyle getting a kick up the backside by a female Thai internet cafe owner). At the time of writing this journal entry, we have since left the country of Laos and neither of us can think of a single person who was unfriendly or left a bad taste in our mouth.

Apart from the villages we passed, we rode past the Luang Namtha airport which was no more than a small dirt track in the middle of some rice paddy fields, with a couple of sheds along it. There was a lot of construction so we imagine a makeover or upgrade is in store. We also rode past a large hill with a beautiful gold stupa sitting at the top, and we rode through the extremely small "old town" area. Our entire day's journey lasted over 7 hours and we rode for at least 15 kilometres, probably much more than that as was evidenced by our extremely bruised and sore backsides that evening and the next day! Note that the bumpy bus ride the next day did not work well for the bicycle bruises we had acquired on our tour.

As mentioned above, we stopped off for a late afternoon lunch at Boat Landing Guesthouse, where we enjoyed a true Lao meal consisting of sticky rice, which you roll into balls and dip into a yummy curry paste, steamed veggies to go with the curry paste, spring rolls and Luang Namtha spaghetti which is a local version of noodles with a spicy minced pork tomato sauce that was pretty delicious. The staff at the restaurant were very friendly and it was a great stop on our day out. Thanks to the staff at Zuela Guesthouse for recommending this place for a meal!

With all of our books gone and our legs feeling like jelly, we decided to make our way back to town from the golden stupa we saw perched upon a hill. The map indicated to us that we should continue around the hill for a few kilometres before reaching town again, but somehow we got onto a different road and didn't make it back to town until almost an hour later, when the sun was starting to set. It was a good diversion, however, as the last village we visited had the most energetic and excited kids we had approached all day, and they were all super eager to talk to us and receive their stickers. When we left, rode our bikes up a dirt hill and approached the final bend in the road where we would lose sight of the village, we could still see all of the children jumping up and down waving to us, shouting "goodbye" in English at the tops of their lungs. We decided to mirror them and give them as good of a goodbye as they were giving us, and so we hopped off our bikes and did the same; this garnered a couple of strange looks, but also smiles, from some men doing construction work nearby.

The rest of the evening was uneventful with a tasty dinner at Zuela's and some internet cafe-ing. Then we crashed hard, exhausted from all the riding that day. In the morning, we packed up our gear and walked to the bus station so that we could board a bus bound for Luang Prabang. The funny thing is that we got lost, again, and in broad daylight with no crazy dogs around. Maybe we just don't do well with our sense of directions in small towns, and we need to stick with big cities.

After having travelled by bus in Laos from Huay Xai to this great destination Luang Namtha, we felt we were experts on bus travel in the country. Therefore, we had agreed to turn up at the bus terminal and buy tickets in the morning instead of pre-booking them. This worked out well for us and as you will read in our next journal, we had no problems getting to Luang Prabang. We were looking forward to a new journey, a new destination and new people to bond with on the 10 hour bumpy road ahead.