In the heart of the Golden Triangle

October 25th, 2002 at 12:00am

Resting up the knee today was a good excuse to do nothing. Had a bit of a late night (11:30pm, which is very late for Lao) after meeting 3 Dutch people in the restaurant where I was staying. I stayed up talking with Adrie, a 30 year-old who’s out travelling for 2.5 months and had some good travel stories from a previous trip to the Philippines (most notably, waiting 7 seven days for a boat once). Good converstion.

This morning I had to get up early and pack to try to catch a pick-up heading north. I had breakfast with Dave the American and Lyn (one of the Dutch women from the trek) and then we all went over to the bus station to try to organize rides. They were heading south to Oudomxai (a 5-hour ride) and me north to Muang Sing (2-hour ride). I found my pick-up and was off at 8:30am. There were 3 other foreigners on the pick-up (a French couple and a Japanese girl) and 17 locals. Funny how you get used to being crammed and uncomfortable in the pick-ups. No one complains. It would never work that way at home.

Nice drive up here through the mountains. Arrived in town and set out to get to the guesthouse I wanted to stay which is 8 km outside of town. I found 3 other foreigners and shared the ride with them; they had spent one night in town already and were heading out to the same place.

When we arrived we had a look at the rooms and even though there were 3 available, me and the one guy Mark (from Australia) decided to share a room because it would be cheaper for us both. The four of us had lunch with an Israeli couple, sitting in the restaurant which overlooks the ricefields and mountains all around.

I spent the afternoon doing a much-needed laundry session and chilling out on the balcony. The town of Muang Sing is in the the heart of the Golden Triangle and is well-known for it’s opium growning. Tales of tourists getting busted and bribed up to $1200 USD by undercover cops are told everywhere. It’s also only 10 km from the Chinese border. There are many hill tribes living in the surrounding villages so hopefully one day here I’ll set out to see one or two of those. My visa expires in another 5 days time so most likely I’ll spend a few days here and then make my way back to Thailand.

The view from my balcony, well worth $2/night

A Golden sunset

Entry Filed under: Laos,Muang Sing