Luang Namtha Musings

A very impressive place is Luang Namtha.  With all the cycling, kayaking, trekking opportunities, it's kind of like a mini-X Games scene.  Most everyone who bothers to come up here is both fit and not content to sit in a tour bus and travel like a couch potato.  A huge plus is that the place has yet to be tourist-ghettoized and given the green attitudes of the locals, perhaps that will never happen.  This must be one of the cleanest places in Southeast Asia and there's great respect for the environment and things seem to be done right here.  The locals are genuinely friendly and the impression is that tourists are a little more than walking $$$ signs.  I've jokingly said that I was going to stay in Laos and never come home; while that won't happen, if I were to choose to stay in Laos, it would surely be here in Luang Namtha.

Spent today cycling on a decent enough mountain bike that cost $2.50/day to rent.  There aren't many cars and trucks up here, so the cycling is relaxing and there's some amount of respect from cars and trucks.  While it's not quite a two lane bike path, it's not far from it.  Rode up to a  waterfall, through several tribal villages and then to one of the hillside stupas.  Had a delicious lunch of noodles in broth with some homemade jaew, which is a standard Laotian condiment that can be added to soups or used as a dipping sauce.  I tossed a huge tablespoon full into my dish and the proprietor and other customers gasped, then started laughing.  Well, I sucked it up, ate it all and it was one of the freakin' hottest dishes of all time.  Not quite habenero-like hot, but not too far from it.  All in all, delightful to eat at a locals-only kind of place where they don't dumb their food down for farangs.  Oh, and the meal cost 12.5 cents...yes, that's right 12.5 cents.  Feeling particularly flush, I splurged on some fried bananas for dessert and blew another 12.5 cents.  I'm not sure I ever ate so inexpensively in Mexico in the early '70s!

View from a small village N of Namtha

Deadly Hot Jaew...more, please!

Suit and tie not required

I'll be off to Muang Long tomorrow, but damn, it sure would be easy to just hang out around here for a month.