Jungle times with Akha Abbie!

The third and final stop on my northern Laos traverse is Luang Namtha, known for jungle and hill-tribe trekking.  En route, my minibus suffered 2 flat tires, and during the 3 hours of waiting by the roadside with the 4 other Laotians on the bus, another minibus pulled up to help, and I met Noy. This encounter would shape the adventure to come!

Arriving late in Luang Namtha, I had reached a Zen state about the whole trip: "I'll get there when I get there. Ohm."  I ran into Noy, who had booked the cheapest 3-day trek in town, and I decided to join.

The next day, I set off with Noy and 3 other Israelis recently finished with their mandatory military service, Gal, Ofer, and Gabbie, Abbie from Australia, Georgina (UK), and Crembo, our hilarious guide. We hiked through some pretty jungle where Crembo showed us how to make cups from bamboo.  After not much hiking at all, we reached our "jungle camp" for the night, consisting of literally banana leaves on the ground under a banana-leaf roof that seriously challenged my sense of adventure.  I was disappointed to find no leave-no-trace practices, as toilet paper was strewn about and the "bathroom" was mere feet from the stream.  Thanks to our budget rice-with-more-rice meal plan, however, I think no one had to seriously use the toilet anyway.

The night was cold and painful, as we slept on the ground with only a thin fleece blanket and our bodies huddled together for warmth.  This could have been a low light, but the good spirits of our posse overcame, and we played cards and singing games late into the evening, wearing pants on our heads for warmth and finding every reason to laugh at our plight. 

The next day we hiked a few hours when suddenly the jungle vanished to deforestation, and I knew the village was near.  The village was of the Akha tribe, and as we walked through we saw topless women with beaded head dresses, little girls with lips stained by beetle, a tobacco product that is chewed, and a myriad of youth who instantly bonded with Abbie, posing for photos and dancing her down the street.  Abbie proceeded to teach the kids paddy cake and thumb war, which became wildly popular, and after drinking lao lao with Crembo, she became Akha Abbie! 

But I get ahead of myself, that happened after the shower, where we bathed at the town spigot in our swim suits while half the town showed up to watch: Only later did we realize that the town had women's and men's separate spigots, so perhaps we were quite the spectacle!  The hilarity continued with the massage, where the teenage girls of the town rubbed and sat on us for a half hour while the small kids played with our toes.  The women tried teaching us to count in Akha, and offered us handmade bracelets as gifts.

Spending time in the tribal village was interesting. While Crembo tried to communicate with the kids it became clear they didn't speak much Laos, as their schooling is mostly done in Akha. This alone makes it hard for the villagers to seek work in town.  Also, I learned that the girls marry at 14 or 15, seemingly to immediately pop out 5 kids as the town was overrun! The teenage boys, before marriage, sleep alone in a chicken-coop-like thing, supposedly because they can't control themselves or similar, as translated by Crembo.  That night as we tried to sleep and they paraded around town with a radio until the wee hours (btw, the walls are all bamboo, so no sound proofing!), I became seriously annoyed at the apparent lack of discipline or sense of courtesy and wondered if they can't control themselves, or culturally aren't asked to. I'm an outsider looking in for a night, though, and I know this. 

The whole marriage at 14 thing, though, did strike a chord with respect to women's empowerment, which I've learned in my MOOC is a component of sustainable development.  In the town it felt like the role for a little girl was defined: that she will grow up to be married and have children young, and I found myself secretly thankful to be from my own culture, lest I now be a grandmother. 

After our evening in the village, we walked out easily through more jungle (though jungle void of monkeys etc as is all of SE Asia, perhaps due to the lack of wildlife corridors linking jungle, and tribal hunting) and back to town, where celebratory anything-but-rice awaited.

Luang Prabang

After a week of sleepy river life, it was time to hit the big bad city, Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang is a northern Laos city on a river filled with wats, neon-orange-clad monks, and coffee shops.  In contrast to northern Vietnam, the dry-season heat was oppressive, magnified by the heat-island effect of sidewalks and streets sans trees.  From roughly 1-4pm, the day would enter what I like to call the "doldrums of the afternoon", where all I could manage to do was find an ice cream or fruit shake and some shade!

My favorite attraction of Luang Prabang was, not surprisingly given the temps, Kuang Si falls, the postcard waterfall of Laos. It looked like all the photos I've seen, tiered green pools of sunkissed perfection, and the icy waters were a godsend! The attraction also had a cool sun bear rehabilitation sanctuary, where bears rescued from "dancing bear" outfits, being farmed for herbal remedies, and abusive situations can play together amongst tire swings and hammocks. Pretty sweet digs, thems lucky bears!

Along with my official LP adventure pal Rachel from Australia, I also explored enough wats to find a silver elephant like photos I've seen (2), and visited the museum, which thank the gods had A/C! My favorite room in the museum featured gifts given to Laos leadership by other counties.  China and India gave some impressive jade/ivory carvings, Russia apparently thought a little-orphan-Annie decoder pen/spy ball was appropriate, and Australia sent a boomerang, which seemed to disappoint Rachel.  My good ole alma the US of A send a gift seemingly oozing with bragging rights and nerdiness: a model of the lunar lander and piece of moon rock.  Well played! Definitely a cooler present than the lame plate sent by our northern brother. :-)

And finally, rounding out the backpacker LP experience, Rachel and I, along with pals Jessica (Canadian and crazy), Rory and Niki (biking SE Asia and soon, the US!) enjoyed 10000 kip ($1.25) all-you-can-eat buffet, followed by the only thing you can do after 1130 pm in LP: bowling! That's right, it was just like high school, except everyone was bowling in flip flops, and the most amusing part was watching the "working girls" bowling and doting on the 2 men next to our lane. As classy as bowling can be!

Laos village life

Still along the Nom Ou, I met traveller Derryn, an engineer from New Zealand, who I decided to go village trekking with.  We headed into the hills, passing a cool cave and staying the first night in a village of roughly 30 families.  Upon walking the village, we were both fascinated to watch the local blacksmith pounding and forging knives into shape.  In the evening we had dinner and headed to a campfire surrounded by older women who were chatting and keeping warm.  As we had seen many of the village men leave with long rifles for the evening hunt, Derryn was ok being the only man at the "granny fire."  We would have sought a more masculine fire, but were warned not to wander at night lest the town dogs bite us. Wtf?!

The next day we headed a few hours walk to a larger town. The homestay in this town was run by the village chief, Gil, an outgoing man who spoke good English and was perhaps a bit too excited about the lottery. Derryn and I bought tickets, choosing our numbers based on animals associated with them.  Sadly, my peacock-monkey was a lose.

At the homestay we helped cook dinner with Jen, Gil's wife, and then ate in the kitchen on small squat stools around a woven table. Gil taught us how to eat with sticky rice and our hands, and after dinner we again found a local fire surrounded by villagers. This fire tradition was so communal and felt a lovely way to discourse with neighbors and family each day. I asked Gil if the tradition continues in the rainy season, when hydropower from the local river allows television to be watched!  To lose the communal fire to individualistic evenings would be a loss, truly.

The next day we woke most likely around 4 am, when my least-favorite villager, the rooster, decided to be an asshole and crow for 3 hours in a call-response game with all the other town roosters. I tried to sleep through it, but ended up day-dreaming of delicious fried...rooster.

Dien Ben Phu, Laos, and the in-between

Traversing from Sapa to Nong Khiaw in Laos consumed the better part of three days.  On the minibus from Sapa to Dien Ben Phu, I met Saskiya, a Dutch woman who is my age, and David, from Paris. Reaching Dien Ben Phu with daylight to spare, the three of us climbed to see a statue commemorating the Vietnamese victory in expelling the French, as apparently that campaign culminated at DBP.  Later that evening Saskiya and I went to a coffee shop buzzing with locals, where I had one of the best hot chocolates of my life!

But really, this is all just a preamble for what happened next: the bus to Laos. We arrived at the bus station 20 minutes early (normally this is plenty) to find the bus packed to the gills. Our bags were "placed" on the bus, which really means put in the aisles where a million Vietnamese immediately sat on them, leaving 8 of us to sit on the hard floor in roughly the first 7' of aisle.  It took 7 hours to reach our destination in Laos, including 2 hours of haggling over "weekend" fees at the Laos border. In that time, we disembarked 4 times, and each time tried to improve our lot, from floor ("I'm a human not a sack of flour"), to arm rest ("this is my arm rest, I am sitting here!"), to, finally, seat, where the guy I stole the seat from proceeded to sit on my shoulder for 2 hours. The only reason this isn't the worst bus ride of my life is that at no point did I think I might actually die. Nope, that honor remains Nepal's.

Ugh. When I got off that bus, I immediately bought a Beer Lao and took a photo of how I felt. Enjoy!

That night as I impatiently waited for our food, Saskiya laughed and told me to chill out, explaining we were no longer in the businessland of Vietnam: things happen now on "Laos time".  I was hungrily hardly amused with this answer to poor customer service!

However, the next morning while we chugged downriver past jungle-clad karsts to Nong Khiaw on the Nom Ou river, I began to relax and let Laos seduce me.  In Nong Khiaw we visited a local cave where Laotians hid during US bombing (Laos and Cambodia were bombed as the Ho Chi Minh trail meandered loosely along their borders) and spent a fun afternoon tubing a near-currentless river.  A few days of waterfall hikes, Indian food, bad movies, hammock lazing, and chocoballs, and I could feel myself slowing down a bit, matching the pace of river life. I think  I'll come to appreciate this Laos time after all.

Sapa

After an overnight train I arrived in Sapa, where I enjoyed my best coffee and omelette breakfast in Vietnam while I waited for the morning fog to burn off, as the internet promised me sun in Sapa! Oh, the horror: the fog seemed not only impenetrable, but increasingly so. In denial, I set off on a hill tribe hike with a local female guide and member of the black hmong tribe, Chi.

Chi is my age, has two toddlers, and married at the age of 30, quite late in the sapa hills.  Already I liked her! She probably stood at 4'11", but was quick-footed and strong on the muddy paths we walked through the rice fields.  At lunch I ran into 3 hilarious ozzie women who would become my homestay pals!   Because family members were joining to celebrate the official end of Tet (?!), an extravagant meal was prepared by our host.  The fried pork and minty herbs dipped in spicy fish sauce were divine!

Unbelievably, the next day was even foggier, so the four of us decided to attend a local harvest festival instead of trek onward. Chi brought one of her traditional outfits for me to wear, and after squeezing into the tiny jacket, we headed to the festival, where numerous local women giggled to see my trekking pants sticking out below the traditional velvet pants.  I admit I felt like a giant wearing kid's clothes!

At the festival, we saw games, the most popular of which was to catch a goat while blindfolded.  After minutes of scanning the crowd for volunteers, the host found an American woman who climbed into the pen after mistakenly thinking the goat would be the blindfolded one! Don't worry, mom, that girl wasn't me: I know too much about angry goats and rural medicine for that misadventure.

Such foggy adventures coupled with such cultural fun have made me a believer in the homestay and the local guide, as without them I fear Sapa would have been ho-hum at best. Thanks Chi, Rosie, Razz, and Georgia!

Northern Vietnam, the land of karsts

"Karst" is a fancy word describing a limestone outcropping. After Phong Na, which I'll describe as cave-riddled karsts on land, I headed to Nim Binh to see karsts by swamp (rice field).  With 2 Dutch women, Josephine and Annouck, and Martin, a Brit living in China, we joined mainly Vietnamese tourists in boating through submerged fields amidst the towering monoliths.  We rounded out the day pedaling our local bikes (my favorite :P) through misty weather past idyllic Vietnam rice field scenery, and in the evening tried unsuccessfully to find any place showing the winter Olympics.

After Nim Binh the karst tour progressed to karst by sea via the UNESCO site Halong Bay.  We traveled to Cat Ba island, heralded as the "untouristy" Halong bay, where we met Charlotte and George, and Lino and Matt. Yes, 8 is a crowd, and a great number to have when you are staying on an otherwise freezing and deserted island!

As Cat Ba was empty, it met my requirement for renting a moto: no one else is on the road! Together we motoed around the national park, taking in a cave used as a hospital during the war and a hike to a vista teeming with, you guessed it, karsts!  We decided to thaw out after the moto ride home with drinks and shisha at the only bumping bar in town, which turned out to be a great night. Travel buddies definitely make things more fun.

The next day we hired our own private boat (yay party of 8), to venture into the surrounding karst-filled bays, which after karst by land and swamp definitely fit the local descriptor: same same, but different.

This day was cold and the highlight was definitely the amazing seafood lunch and kayaking in the bay, the latter of which reminded me of a different trip, kayaking in Milford sound a world away. 

As all good things must end, our crew had a last night out before going our separate ways.I'm heading for Laos, where rumor is it's warm! Sun, I'm coming!

Time for some Vietnam outdoors!

After a few days in Hoi An recovering from whirlwind travel, I headed to Phong Na, Vietnam's cave park boasting the largest cave in the world.

At Phong Na I quickly befriended Ian, who hails from north England and sports a Scottish-esque accent. On our first day we took a boat on a river through Phong Na cave, one of the biggest caves I've ever seen.  The stalagtites and mites were amazing, and we learned how Vietnamese hid in the caves during the Vietnam war, when supposedly planes flew low over the water to try to shoot directly into the cave mouth.  After the cave we climbed uphill to see a view of the land, pitted by craters from bombing during the war.  Phong Na is not far from the DMZ, and this aspect of the place added to my continued education about America's military behavior from the receiving end.

After our morning cave boat ride, we rented rusty beach cruisers aka "local" bikes and headed 10 km to the "pub with cold beer".  The way to the pub meandered down dirt roads past rice fields, a cemetery, kids playing Asia's most popular game volleyball, and eventually to a family's home outfitted with hammocks, tubes, and beer.  Ian and I bought a beer, grabbed a tube, and plopped into the river, where local kids laughed at our slow progress down what I eventually dubbed the "rubbish river" after the flow forced me into piles of trash. Oh, adventure!

The day wasn't over, however, and as the sun set and we pedaled away, both of our chains managed to break within 5 minutes of each other.  Light grew dim as we walked and coasted our bikes for over an hour before deciding to hail a passing vehicle for a lift. Within a few minutes, we flagged a vehicle, charaded our problem and, yes, got a lift, rusty bikes and all, in a Vietnamese ambulance.  This lift definitely fell into the category of, "this would never happen in my country, and that's perhaps for good reason, but I'm sure happy it happened for me in this one!"

Day two of Phong Na found us renting motos to visit two other popular caves in the park, paradise (it's beautiful and big) and dark cave (it's, well...).  My favorite part of the day, however, was riding the deserted lush green mountainous twisties of the park on my manual scooter, shifting the gears and channeling my father's spirit as I climbed to 30, no, 40...km/h.

I left Phong Na on a night bus to Hanoi, sad to leave such a laid-back hostel, such an adventurous pal, such a nice family as the one who ran the "best BBQ shop in Vietnam and possibly the world," and such beautiful country.