Magical pick-up ride

Second night here in this town in northern Laos. Spent all day yesterday getting here in the back of pick-ups…left Nong Khiaw at 9am and arrived Pak Mong 10am, waited 2 hours for the pick-up to fill up, took a 2.5-hour ride to Udomxai, then a 4.5-hour pick-up here, finally arriving in the dark at 7:30pm. Luckily there was an Australian guy, Tony, who was going the same way as me and we shared the last leg together, just the 2 of us in the back of the pick-up. The ride was absolutely beautiful and for sure made up for the discomfort of the windy roads, potholes, gravel, dirt, and general pick-up journey. We passed by many, many villages in the mountains, and saw the same scenes of children playing, cows eating grass, baby pigs following their mom, men and women walking past, thatch huts, banana trees, and gorgeous forest, and it got better and better as the sun set and the full moon rose over the mountains as we continued north.

Pulled into town and Tony and I managed to find a decent guesthouse for the night, even though the electricity was out and everyone was sitting out with candles. Had a cold shower, beer and some grub before bed.

The mosquitos woke me up in the middle of the night and I had trouble sleeping after that . This morning I was looking for a new place to stay. Before that though I booked a 2-day trek for tomorrow at the UNESCO office in town. Tony also wanted to move, so he checked out some places as well, and we settled for a nice place I found with a balcony, hot water, electricity from 6-9pm, and private room for $2 each, the same we payed the night before for no electricity, no hot water, and mosquitos.

I walked around town a bit today but mostly everything was closed because there were boat races going on 7km north of town as part of the October full moon festival/end of rainy season. I should have gone to check it out but after 10+ hours on pick-ups yesterday I was too exhausted to deal with any more transport.

Tomorrow Tony is off to Thailand and I’m heaing out for the trekking. I’ve got 2 days of walking ahead of me which made me feel less guilty about doing nothing today.

This town is only a 2-hour ride from the Lao/China border by the way. Lots of tourists here are coming in fresh from China. It’s interesting to talk with them about China for sure. They are all so happy to be here, where the food is recognizable and the people speak English. It’s all relative I suppose.

Add comment October 22nd, 2002