Little Miss Lao Sunshine
Our bus to udomxai was decisively lazy and had the habit of not wanting to start. On stopping, a few Laos men and I, and counterintuitively the bus driver, had to hop out and give the bus enough velocity to start in second or third. What proceeded was our own little version of little miss sunshine. Except in place of attractive groomed actors and the iconic VW minivan, was 5 sweaty Lao and an out of place and rare sodden ghostly Englishman pushing a dirty bus full of chickens and bamboo shoots. Although it was hilarious for Rosie, not noticing that people were indeed jumping back in, it became an unwanted sprint and a round of laughs from the local woman screaming "chàrélie." in response to rosie's cries.
It took about 12 hours to travel 200 kilometres. The road is in the improvement stages but probably for the wrong reasons. The Chinese from the north of Laos are taking timber, coal and opium from the peasants of northern Laos for dirt cheap, it's almost feudal. The journey was fantastic, as we crept higher into the plateaus above the clouds, the sunset shot rays of red through the dust towards the winding bus. The scale of height and distance is indescribable- but a Laos man said to me on the bus "phongsali is no Laos, it is Switzerland." I have never been to Switzerland so I won't be able to confirm his claim- but it was a nice comparison.
Phongsali sits on a plateau 1600m high and curves around in a crescent shape. It has electricity for 4 hours a day. We stayed in a nice Chinese hostel with a communal balcony overlooking the town and a mountain view. At the time of our arrival there was a town funeral just outside our hostel. Foolishly we mistook it for a cafe sat down and ordered a beer. It was hard to show our faces around there for a while- the funeral lasted for 3 days. On our 3rd day, after an excellent Chinese pick-it-yourself meal (Rosie has kept the hilarious menu) we left for a three day trek. It was just three of us and I think the total cost was about £165. The next three days were incredible, and hopefully we will never forget them.
