Trekking Muang Ngoi

Some Trekking Photos of the Muang Ngoi Area

 Spent six hours trekking to a nice little village E of town, marred only by the large tour group.  Still a bit baffled why a large tour group would head to the antithesis of organized tourism, especially since it involved a 12 RT hour boat ride from Luang Prabang for what amounted to one short day in town and one trekking day, then a 5AM wakeup and back on the boat to Luang Prabang; these poor folks probably are paying $100+ per day each and staying in a $10 hotel with a serious lack of amenities.  I trekked for awhile with Felix, who just graduated high school in Bremen; nice kid finding his way around the world and also was able to chat with a Lao guide who bemoaned the cultural losses brought about by Lao's rapid movement into the 21st century.  He felt the sense of community was being replaced by greed.  I can only imagine what's happening to the culture with even tiny villages sporting satellite dishes; I'm afraid the real Lao is rapidly disappearing and only the elderly cling to any kind of historical cultural values. I spoke with another Lao, a schoolteacher way up North and her feeling was that the government was selling everything they could to the Chinese, who are logging, mining and farming everything square meter they can get their hands on.  The good part is that kids are getting educations here, apparently paid for by the State (though I did see some private schools around Muang Sing, as well).  Meanwhile, I'm still out in the boonies, with no real feeling yet how this change has impacted larger places like Luang Prabang and Vientiane, though the reports from others indicate huge growth in both places over tha past decade.  Get here soon, folks.

Souvenirs of the American War Outside of Guesthouse