View of Nam Ou river and Nong None mountain from my bungalow balcony in Nong Kuia.
I'm in Lao(s) Spent the night in a place with no phones and electricity for three to four hours a day. Internet extremely difficult and costly. Here is a slightly edited cut and paste from an email i sent my fiance earlier.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- My travels have been wonderful since leaving Hanoi on a motorbike Wednesday. I really love Laos. Its so wild and raw, and its beautiful and peaceful as well. The people are incredibly laid back and mellow. No one hassles you here. (what a relief) I really love it. The only problem (I guess its not really a problem but a double-edged sword) is that it is really remote and isolated. Travel is very difficult and electricity is usually only for a few hours a night. I wanted to spend the night in a village about an hour upstream from Nong Kuia that has no phone, internet, etc and electricity for only four hours a day, but I passed it by and came straight to Nong Kuia so i could contact my fiance somehow and let her know not to worry that i am alive an well, but very isolated from the modern digital world. I checked myself into a really nice bungalow here. I think I need a day or two of taking it easy and not sucking dust and pollen before I venture out on any treks or camp-outs. I turned down a terribly tempting offer from two frenchmen to join them on an adventurous voyage down the Nam Ou river aboard the boat they were buying for that purpose. It would have been awesome but I was in no condition to camp or get thrown in the river and more importantly it would have taken 5 days or more to reach the town/village I'm in now with phone/Internet. I don't want to upset anyone and I certainly don't want people freaking out and contacting the US embassy.
Let me see if I can sum up my trip since we spoke in Hanoi quickly:
Wednesday, woke up a little sick with an awful sore throat and allergy like symptoms. Stuffy nose, itchy eyes, nose etc. I think it may have been both a cold and allergies. Departed Hanoi on a motorbike and had an absolute crazy ride through the lawless city traffic. Hanoi traffic is Saigon squared. Made it out of Hanoi alive but almost suffocated on the terrible dust and exhaust fumes. motorcycle ride turned incredibly beautiful and fantastic very suddenly at the 1.5 hour mark. Most extreme vertical karst landscape I have seen yet. Limestone world trade towers. I saw sights so fantastic that it literally took my breath away. Bedded down for the night in a Thai (ethnicity, not nationality) homestay in Maiu Chai. Slept in stilt house. Saw some folk singing and dancing. Was extremely sick at this point. Dust and smoke was not what I needed on Wednesday. Sickness also compounded by the many shots of Thai Vodka-Hooch that were practically forced on me by every male in Maui Chai over the age of fifteen.
Thursday, Felt ok but still pretty sick in the morning, more dust and the landscape was more domesticated and agricultural. Gently rolling hills, quaint villages and tons of various ethic minority people. Area is the most ethnically diverse in all of Vietnam. Spent the night in the mountain town of Son La. That night in bed I heard a loud pop then the building rocked back and forth noticeably. My bed moved about half of a inch. At first I though a truck or something hit the building then I realized it was probably an earthquake. Not a comforting thought as I was on the fifth floor of a building with undoubtedly shoddy construction. The next night while eating dinner in Dien Bien we saw on TV the quake was a 4.2.
Friday, the terrain became very steep and dramatic again and the countryside was pretty desolate. The views were spectacular and I had an impossible amount of fun riding my motorcycle through the steep winding mountain roads. More dust. The most yet. I looked like I had bathed in brown'/grey talcum powder at the end of the day. Spent the night in Dien Bien. said goodbye to my guide.
Saturday, up at 4:30 for 5:30 bus to Muag Kua Laos. Spent the first two hours on board with a bunch of minority tribe people in full battle dress waiting for the bus crew to load cargo. I felt like Chevy Chase and Dan Akroid in "Spys Like Us". I saw some really disturbing sights involving animals. The rest of the bus ride was amazing. Really mountainous one lane dirt road. Incredible views. Bus drove through mud bogs and riverbeds. Arrived in Muag Kuaw around 2:30. Forced to spend the night because there was no more transport leaving that day for anywhere. Slept well in guest house overlooking river. Fell asleep to the sound of a gurgling stream, frogs and crickets.
Sunday, overslept, woke up with no voice. Contemplated taking Huck-Finn style raft with two crazy Frenchman but took a pass due to the state of my health and my need to contact fiance. Take 6 hour motor-skiff trip down Nam Ou river with group of French and Germans to Nong Kuia. The ride was spectacular. Scenery is breathtaking again. River slices through some incredibly isolated wilderness where the river is the only mode of transportation. 3:00 arrive Nong Kuia check myself into the poshest bungalow I can find. I need a little luxury after five days of being sick and riding hard through the wild. Try calling fiance with skype semi-successfully. Write long-winded email with lots of photos attached.
OK, that's more or less it. Don't expect to hear from me again for maybe up to two weeks. I plan to hang around the river here north of Luang Prabang where there's no phones for a while and do some treking, rafting, mountain biking etc and try to meet some hill tribe people. When I feel better I think I'll head back up the river to that isolated little village I passed today for a few days of exploring. Well i guess this is bye for now. JD
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More later,...
Stay tuned
UPDATE: 0025 local.
I am on a hot streak. First I strike Internet gold with my guesthouse/resort here in Nong Khiaw(Kiau). I was quoted an exorbitant rate of 500 kip per minute, but then I find out they have WiFi and its cheaper at 300 kip per minute, but then it gets even better because I pay for ten minutes and my password doesn't time out, but even better still I'm back in my bungalow now listening to the frogs sing while the full moon above baths me, the river and the mountain across the river in moonlight and I am still connected! Ha HA! I guess my excitement sounds silly to those of you back home but last night I had to use a headlamp to brush my teeth standing over a bucket so it makes my humble accommodations here seems like a 10,000 year leap forward from my last five nights on the road. The connection is weak and the wireless is as slow as Canadian molasses but I am feeling generous and awake (too many teas, coffees, and cold medication amphetamines) so I wanted to share a few pictures from my motorbike trip from Hanoi to the NW Lao/Vietnam border and some pictures from my brief travels in Lao so far. Don't expect too much because every one of these pictures with the exception of the one taken from my balcony is drive-by photography, all snapped from a moving motorcycle, bus, or boat. We'll see how far this free internet takes us before I get shut down. Even with the free internet I am going to have to check out of this place soon because it is too expensive and an absolute King's Ransom by Lao standards. It may be a while before I can get around to making another post.
The town of Maiu Chai Vietnam as seen from a mountain road above the town.
My trusty stead. Not as romantic as an old Minsk but more powerful and much more reliable. 135cc Honda.
Typical landscape between Maiu Chai and Son La Vietnam.
I think these women are Hmong. The little ladies in the background with the conical rice-picker hats are slicing cassava into pieces for sun-drying on the roadside. Drying stuff on the road is a big thing here. But from what I have observed they are doing it all wrong. Apparently it works better if you do your sun-drying right after a very sharp blind curve, but first you must annex two thirds of the road in front of your shack with very large boulders placed directly in the road. Remember, the bigger the better, and right after a blind curve is best.
I'm not exactly sure which group these ladies belong to but I did see a lot of them.
Some of the passengers on my bus ride from Dien Bien Vietnam to Muang Khua (Kuaw) Laos. When I saw them I couldn't help but think, "Oh my God these are the people you hear about dying in horrible transportation accidents and we're on the same bus." An old, rickety, overloaded bus that is about to attempt to drive on a very shoddy dirt trail that winds its way through very remote impossibly steep mountains. What could go wrong?
After beginning our journey beneath dark overcast skys the bus suddenly climbed through the top of the overcast layer to dramatically reveal the soaring peaks of the Tonkinese Alps.
That body of water in front of the bus isn't a pond, its the road.
End of the line, literally. Muang Khua, Laos
Six hours of lush towering non-stop scenery like this today during my boat ride. No real towns to speak of, just the occasional bamboo and wicker village and a few Lao people and animals carrying on exactly the way they would have 1000 years ago, with the exception of the motorized boats.
Typical Lao river folk.
My balcony overlooking the river
View from my balcony looking left at the town of Nong Khiaw and the only real bridge I have seen across the river in about 120km.
END.
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