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.

Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet

It All Begins With the Best Beer in SEA

Is the name of one of my most favorite cookbooks which includes recipes from along the Mekong from Vietnam to China.  The night market at Luang Namtha is one happening place, complete with established vendors in the fancy booths along with villagers who set up their homemade dishes on picnic tables in more obscure parts of the market.  This is one great place to try authentic Lao dishes for a pittance.  Following is a pictorial essay on the food scene here in Luang Namtha:

Larb, Chicken, Pork, and Duck

River Seaweed

Pork on a Stick

Local Greens

Amazing Local Sausage.  Better Than Chiang Mai

Local River Fish

Various Local Starches

Chicken, Pork Belly, Duck

Various Noodle Dishes and Sticky Rice

Fabulous Pork Belly....$1 for 4 oz

Don't Forget the Sweet Chili Sauce

Green Papaya Salad

Local Dessetrs with Coconut--Pretty Tasty

Or Maybe You Prefer Fried Bananas

Corn is Popular Here

Best Fed Dogs in Town

Peanuts and Bananas

Various Pickled Veggies in the Bags

Cycling Luang Nam Tha Valley

 Superb cycling in the area, with only a few moderate grades in the valley.  Rented a very good quality Trek knock-off  mountain bike with Shimano gears (probably also knock-offs) for only 30,000/day ($3.75).  While less expensive bikes are available, this particular bike was the best rental bike ever....everything worked properly!  Several rental shops along the main drag, but the place I rented from is the only one with a good selection of Chinese knock-off Treks (there's no way anyone could rent a real Trek at the above price).   Given the lack of traffic and fairly wide roads, one can relax and enjoy the scenery.  Many little dirt roads lead to tribal villages and I visited at least a dozen, comprised of six different ethnic groups.  Because of the number of cyclists in the area, a village visit seems not to faze the locals, though I was treated as more of a curiosity the further I got from LNT.  I wish I'd thrown a pair of cycling gloves into my bag and be forewarned that cycling helmets aren't available, at least as far as I could tell.   Stopped midway through the five hour trip and ate lunch at the famous Boat House Landing, which is about 8 kms S of LNT.  Great food and I was able to look at their cookbook which is on my Amazon wishlist.  Finished off the day with an excellent Western style oil massage.  One hour for $6.

Everyone Seems to Work

Shy Lantan Schoolgirls

Elaborate Fishtraps

Akha Schoolgirl

Lots of Rubber Plantations in the Area

Rice Harvest Time

Nice Bike Lanes on Main Highway

Muang Khua--This Must Mean Sh#%thole in Lao

View of the Nam Ou River From Above Town

Hard to find any redeeming value in this town, beyond the necessary stop for tourists from Northern Vietnam and those of us Laotian visitors who want to experience the boat trip to Muang Ngoi.  While the Rough Guide encourages people to spend a few days to check the place out, I seriously doubt any of their authors made the effort.  Because of its location in a narrow river valley, there isn't much trekking of any value from town, though it may be possible to tuk tuk back towards Oudemxai and find a few trekking spots.  Suffice it to say this ain't no Luang Nam Tha.  To further make things worse, the locals are the least friendly I've encountered in Laos, the rooms rates the poorest value and ditto the restaurants.  After walking through the fly infested market, I chose fried rice for dinner since there was no way I'd touch any of the meat or fish I found on display.  I've been through a lot of third world markets and this one ranks amongst the worst.  At least I found one well-insulated cooler with reasonably cold beer.

The good parts:  100+ meter long suspension bridge was fun to walk across.  The non-merchant locals seem friendly.  Nice view from the hills above the town.  I get to leave tomorrow for Muang Ngoi.

This Means Don't Grow Opium Anymore

Town Highlight, The Suspension Bridge

The Nam Ou from Muang Khua to Muang Ngoi

No Luxury Boats Up Here

 Typing this with a headlamp on the keyboard in Muang Ngoi, a sleepy little town inaccessible except by boat.  The only electricity here is generated by generators or small individual water-driven power plants.  Of course, there's no a/c here, but there isn't even enough juice to run ceiling fans.  Stifling hot during the day, but pleasant at night.  Headlamps a must since they only deliver power from about dusk (5:45) to 9:30, or whenever the batteries run out.  Gotta charge all the electronics in a small window.  The boat ride down the Nam Ou from Muang Khua was breathtakingly beautiful and I shared the boat with nine others from Holland, Switzerland, France and Laos.  We navigated some class two rapids and the driver was a master.  Settled in a nice little guesthouse for 100,000 ($12.50) which was much better value than Muang Khua, but still not nearly what you would get for the money in Luang Nam Tha or Oudemxai.  When I arrived, the manager was arguing with a tour group advance man who was disappointed that there wasn't 24 hour power and a/c.  Seems like the fault was the group organizer, since most everyone knows this is a rustic place and lack of amenities is part of the charm.  Wound up drinking with some guys from Korea, Germany, the Yukon and an Aussie I'd befriended on the ferry into Laos from Thailand.  The place was run by a Swedish guy and his Lao wife and family.  Decent veggie buffet for only $3, but lack of real power meant the beer could have been a lot colder.  They bring in a few blocks of ice on the one hour ferry from the next town South, so it's a little better than awful.  Glad I brought the smart phone since there's a cell tower in town and having the laptop means I can catch up on some videos from home as I sit here in the quiet darkness.  In the morning, I'll trek a few hours to a tribal village and enjoy the karst formations along the river.  Sublime place.

Just Outside Muang Khua

The Driver Was a Master

Muang Ngoi Looking North

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

Nong Khiaw

Nong Khiaw

At the Base of the Cliff Are the Pathet Lao Caves

Lao Traffic Jam

Out Cycling

Nong Khiaw

After a large buffet breakfast (25,000, or about $3), I jumped on the one hour ferry to Nong Khiaw.  The boat was seriously overcrowded with about 25 people occupying what should have been roughly 12 bench seats.  We all feared capsizing, but the trip was uneventful.  Spent most of it chatting with a young CPA from LA who chucked his career to hit the road for a year; my kind of accountant!  Found a nice little guesthouse with river views, fan, power and wifi.  Drank a couple of noontime beers then took a nap.  Nong Khiaw is another beautiful riverside paradise, surrounded by karsts.  Quite a bit more developed than Muang Ngoi because they have highway connections to Oudemxai, Luang Prabang, and Sam Neau along with 24 hour power.

At the tail end of three delightful days here.  Was able to trek about 6 miles yesterday and saw one of the caves which hid the Pathet Lao during the US bombing of Laos.  I told the guide I was Canadian and then listened to him harangue  Americans for the better part of the tour.  Can't say I blame him because, as a local, he surely lost relatives in yet another mis-guided US attempt to control local politics.  Somehow all those dominoes fell anyways.  Cycled 60 kms today.  Was a bit tough heading E because of a lot of hills, but a 24 gear mountain bike made the ride a lot easier.  Some other folks were using single speed cheapo bikes; they were doing a lot of walking.  Have settled on a delightful little family run restaurant for all my meals.  Slow, lovingly prepared local dishes and now that I'm a regular, I get free shots of Lao Lao.  Gearing up for tomorrow's nine hour bus ride to Sam Neau.  It's supposed to be the most beautiful bus ride in Laos.