We had decided to check out northern Laos and do a trip to the town of Nong Khiaw, a four hour minivan ride over a very rough potholed road. For some reason, we changed drivers three times as each driver only does a certain section of the road. On the way we met many large Chinese trucks coming to and from China transporting goods.
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| Nasty roads |
We arrived in one piece to our hotel called the Nam Ou River Lodge, right on the river with spectacular views of limestone karst mountains. Here for 4 nights of relaxation & some sightseeing. Cost $126 CAD. The room was basic, the mosquito net scared us a bit, but we hadn’t really seen any mosquitoes and the 1 inch gap on the bottom and top of the door was a bit disturbing. Thankfully Robin waited until we had left to tell me about the huge spider in our bathroom one day!
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| Our view |
Most people visit this area for trekking to remote villages, waterfalls & mountain top viewpoints but we planned a more leisurely stay. I did hike up to the Som Nang Nong Khiaw viewpoint - a moderately difficult (for a 67 yr old) 30 minute hike but it was worth it for the spectacular views. I was sort of keeping up to a monk & his friend & at the top he asked to take a photo with me. (We take photos of the locals & I guess they like to take shots of the tourists!)
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| Funnel web spiders, webs everywhere! |
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| Heading up the trail |
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| View from the top, looking down on Nong Khiaw |
We spent our time wandering through the town, watching chickens & kids running everywhere, families on scooters, kids having baths in the river, poking around in all the small shops, watching boats on the river, eating some great food & fruit smoothies & taking in the views.
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| Soap in a basket, go to the river & get clean! |
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| Main Street |
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| Local shops |
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| Rice in big tubs, chicken feeders & more |
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| Laundry & chickens |
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| Longans - fruit |
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| And more chickens |
In lieu of trekking we took a private boat trip 2 hours up the Nam Ou River in a very narrow boat, visiting 3 villages. The furthest north, Sop Jam is known as the “weaving village” as the women all dye cotton & silk, then create beautiful scarves, throws & tablecloths. The most elaborate take over 30 days to finish & they sell them for 1,000,000 Kip ($65)! I wished that we could have bought something from each of them, but we settled on a silk scarf & 2 bracelets.
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| Our river guide |
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| Local family transporting goods |
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| Our boat |
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| Crazy big poinsettia |
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| Big ones, 30 days to make |
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| Working the loom with her feet |
We stopped at another remote village - Muang Ngoy, also only reachable by river or dirt road, where we had our lunch of fried rice with an egg, wrapped in banana leaves.
We transferred to a kayak for the last 35 minutes of the trip - enjoyable except for getting wet butts.
We went to sleep listening to frogs croaking & were surprised to not be woken by rooster crowing.
Back to Luang Prabang via minibus, only 2 drivers this trip & back to Khoun Phet guesthouse for one night. The manager there, Tung, had agreed to purchase tickets for the bullet train to Vientiane, as it’s much easier if a local buys the tickets. He misunderstood our instructions & bought us 1st class tickets instead of 2nd class tickets - $75 for two (not worth the upgrade for a 2 hr ride), but now we have ridden a Chinese built bullet train! The train restrictions were stricter than airlines (no aerosols, no battery packs without labelling of strength, liquid rules & more). We were confident that we were compliant & then they X-rayed my bag & said “knife?” - I of course said no. And they started rooting around & what did they find but our recently acquired paring knife! Luckily they just took it & we were on our way!
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| Luang Prabang train station |
We had some great scenery as well as many tunnels & we arrived to the capital city of Vientiane for a 2 night stay. I wasn’t as diligent with picking a hotel on Agoda as usual & just chose Batman Guesthouse for the name (& pretty good reviews). Cost $56 for 2 nights and we hated it! Nasty steep staircase to get in, not overly clean, old, big step up into the bathroom - but it was a small apartment with a balcony so we stuck it out.
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| Looks better than it was! |
We visited the Patuxay Monument, similar to France’s Arc de Triomphe, & we climbed the 197 steps to the upper viewing area.
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| View from the top |
We also checked out the Talat Sao morning market & the night market - but neither was very impressive.
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| A lot of shoes |
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| Night market, more for locals not tourists, lots of cheap clothes, etc |
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| Food court |
We had planned to take a 23 hour sleeper bus to Hanoi, Vietnam but after experiencing the roads in Laos we decided we should pony up the money & just fly! It was a 1 hr flight & we were given a sandwich & a bottle of water - much better than what you get back home! Cost $423 for the 2 of us. And we got to check our big packs for free. (Airlines in Asia have much stricter rules for carry-ons, ours were too heavy).
We had done Vietnam e-visas before leaving home which allowed us to enter on or after December 9 & stay till March 8/25, so Vietnam will be the bulk of our travel time. We arrived December 9/24, exchanged some cash for Vietnamese dong (getting confused as our 3rd currency to figure out) - $213 CAD got us 3,807,590 dong & headed for the bus into the Old Quarter. We left 31C & sunny and arrived to a cool, cloudy 19C, brrr! The traffic in Hanoi is chaotic, busy, loud & rather scary! A far cry from northern Laos!
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| Our first meal, bahn mi (sandwiches ) & beer |
Our first hotel was right in the Old Quarter, narrow streets, tall thin buildings, more crazy traffic & non-stop noise. Sunny Hanoi Homestay is above a travel agency, 56 steps up a narrow staircase to the 4th floor to a lovely room with a great view of the street below. Hanoi here we come!
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| Looking down on the street |
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| The big window on the top was ours |
And our adventure continues, still living the dream.
