Country Info
- Vientiane
- Capital
- Kip (LAK)
- Currency
- 5,635,967
- Population
- LA
- Country Code
Muang Xay Slideshow
Travel Blogs from Muang Xay, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Long road to Laos
This is a top pick! Here we are in Laos! We left Dien Bien Phu at 5.30am this morning on what initially seemed like an empty spacious bus. 90 minutes later we were still only 10km from the bus station and were piled up with huge bags of rice noodles, vegetables and ...
Baguettes pushers at the bus station
This is a top pick! Decided to move onto Louang Phrabang seeing as we arrived so early in OuDam ...
Trekking into Hmong Villages
This is a top pick! ... 4 days, we saw no other tourists on the road, and mostly survived on sticky rice, boiled river water, and the local whiskey called "lao lao". The next few days were travel days through mountain scenery with long bus rides. Our next destination will be a ...
The wheels on the bus...
This is a top pick! Back on the road again, and boy, what a road! I'll never complain about the two hour drive from DC to Cville ever again! From Vang Vieng back to Vientiane (4 hours), Vientiane to Phonsavon (9 hours), Phonsavon to Sam Neua (8 hours), and Sam Neua to ...
Four years ago today..
This is a top pick! Four years ago today holds a bit of significance. It's the day I took my first steps on this unplanned random path. The day I finally left England. So much has happened in that time and so much of it so fast. And, not once in all that time have I ...
Day 59
This is a top pick! ... the roads were awful and we seemed to stop every few miles to take villagers on mini bus rides along the way. I'd heard that Lao people don't travel very well and most bus journeys get the odd person throwing up. We had three people get sick on this ...
Solitary Confinement: Day 10
This is a top pick! Update on the health situation:- I think I'm finally on the mend, though it seems I had to go beyond boiling point before I could get anywhere. This past week has been an absolute living hell. By the time I hit rock bottom I was taking between ...
Stuck in Udomxai
This is a top pick! I'm stuck in Udomxai - no-man's land, middle of nowhere. Actually the location's great, surrounded by mountains in the Nam Ko basin and all - very very nice. I got here at noon hoping to to jump on another bus and head east over to Nong Khiaw, but ...
Solitary Confinement: Day 5
This is a top pick! 'If you're going through hell... keep going.' - Winston Churchill Hi guys, I've been getting lots of emails but can't keep up individually. This is the situation:- It looks like I could be out of action for a while. This back injury's decided ...
Nightmare on Wheels
This is a top pick! ... a bunch of bad apples. At one point, when the green-uniformed soldiers searched our bus, we learned that the group was from Muang Sing, a town along the Chinese border that is known for its production and trade of opium. As the Lao officer climbed over ...
Monged in Muang Ngoi
This is a top pick! ... Ngoi, this was the word on everyones lips. "only accesible by boat" seems to be the tag of most of my favourite places, Muang Ngoi was no different, though with the river being so low, this was only barely so. The village, usually shrouded in mist or ...
Mung Ngoi
This is a top pick! ... by Laos people drinking Lao Lao (rice wine), beer lao, eating and general merriment! In the evening i got to sample some traditional lao food, which included ducks blood amongst other things. So now im in Luang Prabang, and ...
Run, Chicken, Run!
... some village life so we chose to visit a tiny village called Buon Tai. Well, you wouldn't think that a tiny village in northern Lao would warrant an entry but there are a couple of interesting highlights from Buon Tai that I feel deserve a mention. So, ...
On that boat?!
... ! Beautiful views the whole way once the clouds burnt off. Nong Khiaw was a quite little village way off the beaten track with a little trekking along the river, but mostly just a peaceful place to spend the night and enjoy some more Beer Lao. ...
Goodbye stomach in Muong Ngoi
When I woke in the morning I was thinking to myself that maybe what was gnawing my backpack the previous night could have been some sort of exotic (and cute) little creature. They have things like that in Australia - little rodents that burrow into the ...
Up the river Nam Ou
... owner move a fridge and enjoyed an afternoon drinking free beer as a reward, what a great place! We then further up the river to Muang Noi, smaller and more remote than Nong Khiaw, they only have electricity till 10 pm. It was a bit of a ghost town , ...
Truck stop town
... . As the country is easily accessed from Thailand, some areas are very touristy and we saw the effects on Luang Prabang. Muang Xay, ou Oudomxay, est une ville sans grand intérêt d’un point de vue touristique. C’était décrit dans ...
Oudomxay
... note before but his wife takes over and gives us a greasy wad of notes in change. Meal in cafe opposite: more Beer Lao & banana and pineapple smoothies. Our room has a ceiling fan and an air conditioning unit but there is no controller and it ...
Mung Ngoi and Hilltribe Trekking
... wash before the whole village shows up for their shower. That night we have a good dinner and get to drink some freshly distilled Lao lao, a rice whisky. We play cards and our guide gets pretty drunk. Afterwards we go to a bonfire outside of the village. ...
Muong Ngoi
In the morning I arrange a bus ticket to the next town where I will start a down river journey. The guy who runs the guest house I am staying in is a schoolteacher and speaks English In the morning when I am buying bread soda, cookies, etc for the trip, ...
Muang Beng
We pick up fresh bikes for the Laos side of the trip. They are slighly better models (4 series Trek) but are in poor shape: brakes misaligned, chains rusted, badly stuck gear cables etc so it takes an hour and one false start to get them sorted. My ...
Stepping back in time!!
... the local bus further north a to a river town called Nong Khiaw, from here we caught a river boat to the remote village of Muang Noi!! Electricity for just 3 hours in the evening by generator, no roads, no phones, and the only way to get to the town was ...
A night of The Scorpions and some rats...
Most backpacker accomodation in Laos consists of bamboo shacks with a bed and mosquito nets and this place was no different. The town was pretty grubby and the same went for the accomodation but I wasn't complaining - I was tired and it was only for one ...
De Ngoi a Luang Nam Tha
On doit avancer et du coup quitter Muang Ngoi qui nous à tellement plu. On y laisse Céline et Laurent qui décident de profiter encore de l'endroit. C'est une journée transport: 4h de pirogue pour aller jusqu'à Nuang Kua. Le trajet est très beau. ...
Strange traveler...
... me to a party at his house. His little sister has been very sick and so a shaman had come and he had spent the day drinking Lao Lao with the shaman. In the evening, his friends came over and they had a big feast. So, it was my second party where I was ...
Rats' guts and perverts
From the cave, I took a hairy trip on the back of a truck headed for Xam Neua, a town in the far north east of Laos. What I thought would take a few hours, turned out to be more like 12, that stretched into the cold night which was unfortunate because I ...
Udomxai
On leaving Muang Sing we had to prepare ourselves for the songthaew ride back to Luang Namtha. It actually wasn't as bad as the ride there and although a few of the locals suffered again we made it back to Luang Namtha without any problems. When we ...
Muang Ngoi Neua
... no traffic, the only way to reach this place is by boat. Many of the people that now live in Nong Khiaw moved down-river from Muang Ngoi Neua when the Chinese built a road and bridge crossing the Nam Ou. After food we set out on a trek to some caves ...
Rolling on the river...
... . We sit in the boat for the forty minutes that is requisite prior to any form of transportation actually going anywhere in Lao. Eventually we set off and proceed up the river for all of about twenty minutes before stopping at a large floating petrol ...