Northern Laos: off the tourist trail

This week I hit my stride in northern Laos. From Luang Prabang, tourist central, I had the goal of getting to Muang Khua, a remote river village on the Nam Ou in north-eastern Laos. I couldn't find any bus that would actually go to Muang Khua, so I pored over my map and decided I'll go to Udomxai, a trading town heavily influenced by the Chinese near the northern border, and then figure out how to get to Muang Khua from there.

The "VIP" bus from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang had been pretty terrible, so I decided I was going to "splurge" and pay 10,000 kip (1.2 USD) more for an "air-con" mini-bus, with "pick-up" from my guesthouse. Sorry for all the quotation marks, I hate when they're over-used, but sometimes there's some irony you want to display. I was just un-wrapping my baguette sandwich at the guesthouse when a tuk-tuk driver comes for me. I was expecting a mini-van, and it was 15 mins early, but okay. In Laos you just have to go with the flow. You don't know what's happening 95.02% of the time, but in most situations things end up okay. So I get on the tuk-tuk. I was the first one to be picked-up. Over the next one hour, we go all around town picking up 7 other passengers, lapping my guesthouse three times, the driver smoking 2 cigarettes. At 9am, we pull into the mini-bus station, finally ready to start head to Udomxai. My back was killing me from the tuk tuk ride and we haven't even started yet! But it was smooth sailing to Udomxai, although the promised "air-con" failed to be turned on, with windows down and dust as the alternative instead, to save on fuel, I suspect. At the Udomxai bus station, I asked and it turns out there's a local bus leaving for Muang Khua in an hour. Perfect, I thought.

An hour comes and goes. There are already many locals sitting inside the standing, ancient, bus. Claiming their spot. For good reason, I find out. I stand outside the bus, I walk in circles. People stare. I stare back. I can't see anyone who looks like a bus driver or gives a care, to get my pack to the roof of the bus to be strapped on. Two hours later, a young man is helping a farang, so I give him my pack too, and head in the bus. Sometimes the only way I can get help is to hitch on to the help given to farangs. There's a class system here, and Asian tourists are second-class, after the farangs. All the seats are taken by this point. So I see plastic stools and take one in the aisle of the bus for my spot. Before the bus leaves, many more people get on, and I'm obliged to give up my stool to an older couple, and I end up sitting on a mat next to the teenage driver and his young daughter. But at least I get the best view.

It was a beautiful ride to Muang Khua, passing through mountain villages along the Nam Pak (river), dropping off and picking up more and more locals, who always have bags and bags of things, until the zenith, when the bus driver actually stops to tell people we're too full. You don't understand the significance of this - I've never seen this happen before. Local buses are infamous for never saying no. People and things just get crammed in, no matter what. But there was literally no space a person could have inhabited on that bus. Then the bell curves the other way, and the bus starts emptying out. About four hours later, we arrived outside the village of Muang Khua, at the "bus station". Now, there's no need for a bus station in Muang Khua. The only reason it exists is for the tuk tuk driver to meet the bus so that he can charge passengers to drive the half mile into the village center. It was evening, and I didn't know how far in the village was, or else I would have walked. I protest these set-ups.

I arrive with a Frenchman and a Japanese student who were on the bus. We walk around trying to find a guesthouse when we run into a Spanish girl, who takes us back to her guesthouse on the Nam Pak. It is very rustic bamboo and wood rooms with open windows and mosquito nets, sharing bathrooms of squat toilets and cold showers. Simple, but more than enough. The four of us fill the place to capacity. We are invited to dine with the family and I have my first homecooked Lao food: fried eggs with meat, a green vegetable soup (just like the one my parents make at home), and mixed stir-fried cauliflower and squash. Steam and sticky rice. Green Lao whiskey (made from rice by the mom). It was very good food.

I loved looking out over the river, and up and down it. The lifeblood of Muang Khua, like all the other Lao river villages, is the river. Muang Khua sits at the confluence of the Nam Pak with the Nam Ou, so it is doubly blessed. At all hours of the day, you see things happening on the river. Children bathing, playing; men and women fishing, gathering snails and moss, ; washing clothes; boats arriving and departing for villages up or down stream. One night I saw a huge bon fire on the river bank, to warm men who were spear-diving for fish in pitch black and cold.

I walked around the village with Bruno, the Frenchman, after the Spanish girl and Japanese guy left for Vietnam. We were watching a group of bureaucrats play a French game called Padanque outside the Education Services Office (a reallllly long time to be playing on a workday morning...), when they invited Bruno, I think, to play. But I played dumb and went in too because I really wanted to try the game. I've seen it being played all over Lao. It's close to being the national game. We ended up playing two games with them. I didn't do too shabbily and managed to score some points for our team. By the end, even the really sexist guy was warming up a little towards me. Of course, they all had a turn guessing what I am, "Korean?" no. "Japanese?" no. "Lao?" no. I get this a lot, everywhere. Sometimes for fun I just answer their guess and don't offer any more information.