We entered Laos on January 12th, 2014. It’s not a country that I ever expected to visit and I’m very glad that we did. It’s the least developed of the places that we’ve been to so far but it has some of the warmest and friendliest people that we’ve met so far. The country only opened up to tourists in the mid-90s and it is still relatively untouched (especially compared to Thailand and Vietnam). Our first taste of the country came in the form of a tiny border town, trekking through the jungle, and a brush with international boundaries.
The bridge that we took to cross the border was so new at the time we crossed that it wasn’t in any of the guidebooks or on Google maps (just checked and I see that they’ve added it). We found ourselves once again on the correct (right) side of the road and after negotiating a little with the taxi guys at the border station we were on our way to Huay Xai.
Huay Xai (pronounced hu-ai sai) a tiny little town that doesn’t have much to talk about but we experienced a nice little bit of kismet while we were there. The sister of the lady who manages the guesthouse where we stayed lives in New Britain, Connecticut, which is just down the road from Marisa’s family! It was an incredible ‘small world’ moment and we had fun chatting with them. Otherwise I think it would have been a fairly forgettable place.
From Huay Xai we took our first Lao bus up to Luang Nam Tha. It’s a city that has become known as a base for trekking trips. We planned on doing one in Thailand but decided to wait until Laos. Part of that was because we ran out of time on our visa. More importantly, Laos sees a lot less tourists than Thailand, and the places you trek through are not as well-worn. The government has so far been really good about preserving both the native cultures and the natural beauty of the places in which they live. There are almost 50 ethnic groups/tribes, each of them with their own language or dialect. This respect for and inclusion of the hilltribes in Laos has been in place (according to the government, at least) since the days of the Pathet Lao. In line with that, there also seemed to be a greater chance in Laos of giving money to a more ethical trekking company and avoiding those that exploit villagers and encourage unsustainable tourism. We ended up doing a 2-day, 1-night trek with Green Discovery Laos. Our guide was a local named Pon (pronounced ‘pawn’). He was a really friendly guy, easy to talk to and patient with us out-of-shape backpackers. His mohawk (see the lunch break picture below) was a constant source of amusement for the villagers we visited.
The first day was spent kayaking downriver. We visited one village and then spent the night at the next, where the villagers cooked for us and let us wander around their home. They didn’t seem particularly bothered by our presence but it was far from a warm welcome. The children, as per usual, were thrilled to see tourists. They ran around, danced, and wrestled with each other while we warmed up by the fire and waited for dinner to finish. It was interesting to see the village but we didn’t really get a lot out of it. I was hoping that Pon, as our guide, would facilitate some conversation but we didn’t really get to talk to anyone. There was a lady cooking the hindquarters of a bamboo rat over a fire. That was fun. We also learned that Lao villagers eat pretty much everything they can catch, excluding cats. This includes the aforementioned bamboo rat, as well as dogs and insects. This is a place where ‘subsistence lifestyle’ is taken seriously.
We hiked out the next day and visited another village where we were ambushed by about a dozen women with trays of indistinguishable crafts. Most of the trekking companies that visit the villages give them a share of what the companies charge. Green Discovery claims to give them a third of what we pay to let us stay in the villages overnight, which seems pretty good to me. Apparently, selling these handicrafts is another big source of income, so we each bought something. We felt a little weird about it and weren’t prepared at all. If we had known that this was going to happen, we probably would have brought more cash and bought something from everyone.
This was also one of the first places where we encountered the strong drive Lao people have to get an education. Each of the three villages we saw had a larger-than-average hut for their primary school, which lasts until the children are 12. The teachers come from outside and only live in the village while the school is in session. After the kids finish primary school, those that are able to continue on in their education (and not spend the rest of their lives helping their parents farm) have to spend a day hiking through the jungle from their where they live to where the secondary school is located. Most of them sleep in the village with the secondary school and then hike back for the weekend. While it’s true that this kind of hardship is fairly commonplace in remote villages, it was still striking to see how dedicated these kids (and their families) are to education. Every American family should see how seriously people take school in places like Laos. I know I’ll tell this story to my kids if they ever complain (and I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear it).
The hike back to our pick-up point was up and down hills through the jungle with a few challenging bits. The natural beauty of Laos is really remarkable. Hopefully it stays preserved as the country opens up more and more to tourism.
After recovering from the trek, we moved on from Luang Nam Tha to the even tinier border town of Muang Sing. We saw it as an opportunity for us to relax for a bit without falling out of a kayak, pulling leeches off of us, or sliding down muddy jungle paths. We traveled up to Muang Sing with the Austrian couple we trekked with but parted ways when it came to lodging. They opted for a guesthouse in the middle of town while we wanted to escape from the motorbikes (but not the roosters, as it turned out). The Adima Guesthouse is a few kilometers outside of the tiny town of Muang Sing, a place where almost no tourists go (we were two of four, I think). Adima is run by a nice family with a really cute kid that got me to play in his sandbox with him.
Muang Sing is at the very northern part of the country, about 10km from the border with China. It gets a ton of truck traffic as products are shipped to and from each country. We read somewhere that you can walk/bike to the border from the town. Adima was even a few kilometers closer so we decided to give it a shot. We didn’t quite make it (when an army guy in SE Asia tells you to stop, you stop, especially at the Chinese border) but we saw a lot of nice scenery along the way.