Th November 2012. Currency - 12,000 kip - 1 GBP (That's going to take some working out!)
We get our 30 day visa for Laos, with no problem. The 'port' is tiny, a couple of wooden huts and an empty duty free shop. We walk up the very steep, narrow road to find our next mode of transport. We decide to be lazy, and get a mini bus north to Luang Nam Tha. We find it really strange, that you cross a river, not much wider than the Severn, the currency and language are different, and they drive on the opposite side of the road, to everywhere else we have visited so far, in S.E. Asia. ((It's the French influence, apparently).
It is extremely hot, and the air-con is struggling to keep us cool on our 3 hour journey. We head for the mountains, and it eventually starts to cloud over and cool down. The scenery is beautiful - mountainous and green, with small villages made up of wooden houses on stilts. It is obvious straight away, that it is a lot poorer here. (We saw very few shanty's in Thailand, although, I am sure there were some).
We arrive at our destination late afternoon and a get a room at the Khamking Guest House. The room is large, but basic. From first impressions of Laos, I think we will have to get used to basic! It costs us 70,000 Kip (you do the maths!). We have hot water and a western style loo, which, we find out from a 'very' talkative lady called Loren, is pure luxury!
We have a quick walk up the main street and down some of the side roads, we find some new guest houses down these roads for only 10,000 kip more, (maybe we will move rooms tomorrow).
There is a night market, literally across the road from the hotel. We go over to it. It is tiny compared to the ones we have been used to in Thailand. There are a few veg stalls and the rest are food stalls. The stalls to the right hand side were the cleverer stall holders, having their menu written in English! I order fried noodles, (10,000) while Matt gets half a roast duck (15,000). Both were really good. There are tables in the middle of the market, we get joined at our table by 2 German girls, we sit and chat to them for a good hour or more. The one I was talking to, just couldn't get her head around the fact, that we were away for a year! They were on a 3 week holiday. We were actually saying, that virtually everyone you meet, especially the younger people, are traveling for 3 months, 6 months or more! When did that start happening? When I was in my early 20's, a 2 week holiday to Greece was adventurous! (But I never got into debt for it!!)
Our house rules state, that we must be in for 10.30 p.m. so we dutifully obey!
Day 2 and we hire a bicycle, as we seem to do in most towns, these days. We did price some tours up yesterday, but I decided that a days mountain biking, followed by a days hiking to the local villages and sleeping in a wooden dorm house with an outside Laos bathroom, with bucket shower, even for 1 night, might kill me and I am enjoying my life so much at the moment!! So we so our own tour to the villages. The weather isn't great today, in fact it pours down, (lucky, we have our sexy poncho's with us!). The villages, which are mostly down dirt tracks, are shanty's, but with satellite dishes in a lot of the houses, which just seems weird! The kids are just like you would imagine, playing in mud puddles, doing high-jump with pieces of elastic and one little group we saw had made the tiniest fire and had got a tiny pot on top of it. Matt said can you imagine letting our 5 and 6 year olds play like that at home, most can't even make a cup of tea, at 10! (I think they have to grow up fast here.) When they see us they all shout, "Sabii-di" (hello) and wave at us. It is so humbling, they have very little, but always have a smile. The other thing I have noticed, their children cry very little. There are no dummies, but the babies seem just look around them from their mothers hips, where they are being carried (no pushchairs here either!).
We get back to town and go down the back roads. We come across a local market, selling everything! Snake, squirrels and some other large animal, with sharp claws and teeth, that was the about size of a polecat, but we're really not sure what it was. They are all dead, I hasten to add. Through this market, you get to the Chinese market, lots of stalls, all selling the same, or similar crap! We purchase a USB memory stick for our photo's, when we get it home and plug it in, it turns out it has got a load of Chinese music on it!!
There are several hill-tribe ladies, selling there wares. Bags, belts, bracelets and other stuff you don't really need or want! A few of them are very jovial and we had a laugh with them, then some of the older ones, get quite huffy when you don't buy off them. One called Elu, in particular was very funny, especially when she told Matt he needed a shave. (What you have got to remember is, that most of this 'chat' is done through sign-language). She was shaking her head, blowing kisses and rubbing his chin. We see her later, Matt is clean shaven, she notices straight away, comes over and gives him a big kiss! Needless to say, we buy 2 bracelets from her.
We have decided to be very lazy and not bother to move rooms, we both slept reasonably well, (we have both forgotten what it like to sleep through the night), so we will stay put. Back to the night market for supper, noodles, rice and roast chicken tonight.
Back to the room to do our homework, to sort out where and what we will do for the the next couple of days. We think we will hire a bike and go north a little further, to Muang Sing for one night.
