Remote and mystic North East...
Trip Start
Oct 06, 2010
1
30
56
Trip End
Ongoing
Muang Ngoi, Louangphabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
I decided to head towards the north East side of the country, as I heard by some other travelers that the landscape was supposed to be really beautiful and still quite a remote and peaceful part of the country..
It took me exactly 2 days to get there by bus, including 2 bus break downs, 3 long stops of 5 hours each in the middle of nowhere, 6 bus changes and an overstop in the indeed ugly and dirty chinese majority town of Udomxai, where sadly I spent the Valentine night…sigh..At least I had good company! I met Sandro, a joung german traveler, with whom I shared the room with and a nice couple from Australia. We all had dinner together at a food stall in the street in Udomxai..:)
The following day our group partially split, and me and Sandro took a whole day long bus to the village of Nong Khiaw. At our arrival I was not in condition to admire its beauty as I was really very tired and I start to have high fever..so straight to bed!
The day after I could enjoy the little village of Nong Khiaw by wandering around its dirt alleys, talking to locals, and meeting more travelers..among them two nice French girls and a lovely Swiss girl, Fiona, whom I shared the room with for the few couple of night ahead! When the evening came my fever started again..so I went to the local pharmacy to ask for some local remedies as I did not want to take antibiotics again!! I had been given a strong, mysterious and very alcoholic drink..which actually fixed the problem in a couple of hours! Ahaha, so far so good J
The day after, being completely recovered, I took a boat heading north to another little village, not reached by any phone line neither internet connection…and I simply loved it!
We arrived in the village of Muang Ngoi Neua when one of the biggest Buddhist celebration was going on..so quite difficult to find an accommodation..but we did manage! I shared the room that night with Antoine, a nice French guy living and teaching French in Pakse in the southern part of Laos. It was quite nice to wander around this little village, spend some time relaxing at the riverside, watching the sunset, walking with Fiona up to a high mountain to another small village, bathing in the river along the way as it was sooo hot!, watching the Chinese fireshow at night and participating to a loud Lao dance-lottery party!
The following day it was time to move again! So I took a whole day boat bound towards the city of Luang Prabang..Needless to say that this was another major adventure!ahaha..We all had to get down of the boat a couple of times and walk for kilometers with our lagguage in the river as it was quite shallow and we were too heavy , ahaha! We also dangerously crashed the boat hull against the river bottom and started to ship water…scary!!ahaha..Boat didn't sank so in the end it was again a nice and long…(7 hours!) journey among a beautiful river landscape
