Day 10 - Huay Xai to Luang Namtha

  Luang Namtha, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Before I forget, "Laos" is pronounced with a silent "s", so it sounds like the word "loud" without the "d". You always hear people pronounce the "s", but that's the wrong pronounciation.

Ok, lesson over... today we were up at 7:30 to get to the only bank in town (there's no ATM here) to change some US $ travellers cheques into Laos "Kip", which has to be the coolest sounding currency I've ever heard, even if it's a bit Napoleon Dynamite...

Our USD 400 (GBP 200) gave us roughly 3,600,000 Kip! This time next year Rodders, we'll be millionaires!

The pile of notes we received for our dollars is (no word of a lie) over an INCH thick! It just about fits in our TWO money belts!

1 GBP = 2 USD = 18,000 Kip, which is not a particularly easy conversion, but at least we know that the 20,000 Kip note is roughly a quid, and we have LOADS of them...

We also had a 1,000 Kip note, which is about 5p (10 cents); nice waste of paper! Ok, I think you get the message, the currency here is nuts.

When it was time to catch our bus, we got to the travel agents and expected the worst. We were told to walk up the road to the main street, and were fully prepared to see the oldest, rustiest, worst-conditioned bus of our lives... so we were very pleasantly surprised to be collected in an air-conditioned 8 seater mini-bus. Legend!



It was duly filled with tourists (3 Japanese, 2 Spanish, 1 Chinese and us), and off we went, leaving the border town behind us...



We are REALLY lucky that they've just finished building a brand new road through the mountains up to Luang Nam Tha, so instead of the old 8 hour nightmare bus journey through the mountains with no air con that was detailed in our Lonely Planet, it was actually a 4 hour trip in a nice air conditioned mini bus!

The trip was pretty rainy but there were some nice views along the way, Laos looked very green and lush.



 

We were waved to a stop at one point when a roadside digger had somehow rolled onto its side as it worked on a new road. It was quite amusing seeing the driver using all the hydraulics to try and get upright, it was like one of those low riders you see in a Snoop video!



We arrived in Luang Nam Tha about 3 hours ago, it's actually a fairly decent sized place and quite spread out.

When we got off the bus we asked for directions to the tourist office and someone eventually pointed left, so off we trotted. After 15 minutes and no sign of the office we asked for more directions to head north, so again off we went...

We were walking for about 10 minutes with 5 backpacks between us, and it's very warm & humid up here, tropical in fact. We couldn't find this bloody tourist office anywhere. Eventually we found it hidden away on a side street, which was just as well because we were knackered! This didn't bode well for the trekking!

The tourist office itself was excellent, a really impressive eco-friendly operation with a list of some excellent hikes through the 'Laos conservation area' which is pretty close to us here.
 
After going through all the options we signed up for a 2 day hike tomorrow (approx 6 hrs + 8 hrs), with a stay overnight in a tribal village. It sounds like it will be quite hard work because they've had a lot of rain here recently so it's really quite muddy when you get off the roads. I have a feeling those 11 miles are going to feel like 111 miles!



On the other side of the room was a board explaining various do's & don'ts for our time spent in the town and on the trek, which were quite interesting...



We're doing the trek with a really nice Aussie couple from Sydney who we met in the tourist office. They seem 'green' and are really chilled, so it should be fun. We've just had a nice lunch with them, and we all seem to get on well, so hopefully it will be a fun group.

They told us over lunch that they were on a public bus last night when they were chased at 100km/hr by a van that was trying to force them off the road. After a 20 minute chase the other van roared past waving a gun out the window! Unsurprisingly everyone on the bus hit the deck and changed the colour of their underwear, but thankfully the van didn't stop and carried on up the road. Apparently they just wanted to scare them?

Naturally this little tale has filled us with joy and love for our new temporary home, so we will mostly be going nowhere near any public buses after dark!

Ok, I now have to load up some photos (hopefully) and then try to work out how the hell I'm going to watch the England v Russia game which I think starts at 7:30pm UK time, which is 1:30am over here! We're up at 8am for the trek, so it could be a bit of a world of pain either way...

So far Laos seems lovely, quite un-developed but very green and very friendly, and it's definitely cheaper than Thailand, even if we are no doubt being shafted every which way possible!

Enjoy your Wednesdays everyone and COME ON ENGLAND YOU LEGENDS! ;)


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx