Most northern capital of Laos - Phongsali

Day 94 - 20/2/2016
Quan Lan - North East Vietnam - Bai Tu Long Bay

Laying down in the bed at remote Vietnamese island, covered with thick duvet and having first day of slower pace since we entered Vietnam. Weather has been grey and cold for past 4 days and only option to get some sun is to head few hundred kms south.

Before we can start sharing our Vietnamese story we have one major location left from Laos - Phongsali.

Laos socialist culture 

After two days in Muang Ngoy we jumped on empty boat heading to Muang Khua and for 4 hours we’re watching jungle passing by.

On the way between Muang Ngoy and Muang Khoa

Steep cliffs on the beginning replaced with lower hills covered with thick bamboo forests and occasionally villages dotted the shore.

Calm water acts as huge mirror

Warming up on sandy beach half way through

Official 6 hours journey went much faster than expected ( I guess because we we’re just 4 passengers instead of 10 ) even though some of the rapids on the way up were pretty strong :)

Quick stop to buy fresh fish 

 Going downstream on kayak or canoe could be a lot of fun !

Navigating small canoe upstream has to be really hard

With these bigger ones it looked much easier

After almost a week since we’ve seen civilisation on a scale of town we got little bit shocked by the bustling town. Well bustling, not really bustling but compared to the villages from last week, just different world :)

Last sun shines on the beginning of Muang Khoa

Unless you’re planning on trekking in the area, there is not much to do. Only few things worth mentioning are : market, temple with monastery and old pretty high bridge.

Old school is cool

Cross the old bridge, turn left and you’ll find decent and cheap guest house, those in the town are all bit more expensive.

Muang Khua is for most people crossroad town on the way from Vietnam to Laos or vice versa.

Alms giving ceremony in early morning

To get further on our journey we got on early morning bus heading to Oudomxay (8:30) and jumped out 30 kms and one hour later in a place called Sin Chai. Few houses, bridge, bus station and couple of road restaurants. That’s all you can find here, but for us it was base for following 4 hours.

Somewhere along the road to Phongsali

First bus heading to Phongsali arrived around 10:30 already pretty full, took another 8 locals on but refused to take any white people... So that left me, Tati and one german couple from Hamburg stranded.

Next bus was supposed to arrive around 1 pm. We waited patiently and occasionally we tried to hitch hike.. No luck and more and more locals were arriving for the promised 1 pm bus from Oudomxay.. Oops ...

After midday I’ve started scouting on the other side of the bridge trying to catch a ride from cars coming from direction of Vietnam. Around 1 pm we finally got some luck and minivan Toyota dropped most of its crew on this location and became almost empty. All four of us managed to get in and our journey further north finally started.

The road was not in the best condition at all, now and then half of the road was missing due to landslide or collapse to deep valley below. Deep potholes were present every 100 meters.

It took the whole afternoon and we arrived just when the night crawled in.

After quick try of one dodgy guest house we’ve found Sensali guest house, checked in and wandered out to the dark streets to find some food.

Phongsali from Phou Fa viewpoint

Phongsali is little bit off the beaten path to say at least :) Being most northern capital, it doesn’t feel like capital town at all. All together just few guest houses, lot of restaurant signs but not serving any food ...

For first evening and following morning we took refuge in “Coffee shop” and fried rice did the job.

It definitely wasn’t the greatest culinary experience, but we had to get used to the fact that we’re in mountains again and good food is scarce if available at all :)

Next morning we woke up to blue bird day and decided to do little bit of exploring without any vehicles. Walking with random hitch hiking if possible.

Few hundred meters above the town itself is a little peak called Phou Fa with pagoda standing on top and wide views to far distance over Laotian mountains.

Pagoda on top of Phou Fa

As we arrived few days after freezing rain storm swept through the area we witnessed cruel power of heavy frozen water. Almost all branches of higher trees including super thick bamboos were broken off or some trees completely broken in half.

We’ve seen same thing on the way as well, it seemed like the freezing line was around 1100 m and everything above that went through period of freezing hell !

Locals shown us pictures from that day and freezing rain created ice crust in tree branches up to 10 cm thick.

This will take some serious time until the forests recover.

Just 2 kms east of the town one can find small tea factory surrounded by tea plantations.
We scored quarter of kilo of nice green tea for half of shop price and walked back to the old town to wander through tiny streets between Chinese one floor houses. Chinese seem to be present in very strong community and in some areas you feel more like in China rather than in Laos. It reminded us little bit of Ban Yang and Doi Mae Salong in Thailand.

Old town centre

After strong chicken noodle soup on the market we headed north west out of the town direction to Ban Khounsoukluang which is famous for green rice whiskey ranked as the best in all Laos. It was already after 2pm and our destination was some 9 kms further on the ridge.

Lunch break on the market :)

Fresh sausage !

Dirt and rocky road copies the main mountain and just bellow it, vast tea plantations spread far into the valleys. Now and then one can spot rare veg. field and cow or goat enjoying overgrown grass.

We walked for first few kilometers when we  heard the sound of truck behind us. Someone working on Sunday ? Quite rare for Laos :) We stepped aside to let the truck pass around us and to avoid splash of mud into our faces.

I don’t remember whether i tried to hitch the truck for a reason or just from bare custom, but the guys stopped and offered us a ride on top of loaded rice bags. As the road was very jumpy we found ourselves flying through the air many times and had to hold bloody tight :)

Huge size sticky rice bamboo box  

Within 10 minutes we’ve reached first village. Using our best hand and feet communication skills we figured out that the guys will continue to the next village ( our aimed green Lao Laao destination) so we had a quick stroll between wooden stilt houses, helped to sell some rice, smoked a cigarette and jumped back on !

Traditional bamboo houses

Final destination Ban Khounsoukluang was another 15 minutes away. We let our rice friends to do their job for a while and wondered around little bit.

Upon our return to the rice truck we bought 2 kilos of rice and some green peppers and gave it to very old couple who seemed the poorest from the people we’ve seen there. The lady was looking at me not understanding why am I giving her plastic bag with rice for a while :)
Surprised and very grateful they were...

Mobile rice store

We met our rice crew sitting in front of local whiskey producer house ( no sign, but green bottles and lot of shot glasses on the table), so we joined them, ordered half litre of their number one and started downing shots of this green mountain fairy.

Tasting Lao Laao number one

They guys were very surprised that Tati can drink as much as man can and didn’t want to stop pouring down more and more. We’ve finished half of their bottle and three quarters of ours within less than 30 minutes. We started feeling very light headed :)

Old tea tree

On the way back we stopped by old mine ( probably black coal ) and went some 100 meters inside to find out that wooden pillars holding the ceiling have collapsed in the past and now they are rotting on the floor. I heard some voices coming from very deep, our boys were scared ! Time to head out ...

When we passed through the first village again we sold another almost 100 kg of rice to people who were busy with other work during our first passage.

Grandma with grandson

We also managed to finish the bottle of our green Lao Laao while watching sun sliding behind hills on the horizon.

Lao Laao is working :)

No one is in hurry in this country, sellers, buyers, bus drivers, motorbike riders... Quiet unique for south east Asia.

Back in Phongsali, we headed to a famous Yunnan restaurant , met the friendly German couple there and invested more kips in Beer Lao. After so much drinking we fell asleep like babies knowing that motorbike ride would be waiting for us next morning... =)

A strong Zongshen motorbike was available in the only tourist agency, 100.000 kips and we got it to explore further villages around.

Zongshen dragon

The morning was pretty cold and a thick cloud was still sitting in the valleys around.

Thick clouds rolling in the valley

We first headed to 400 years old tea plantation - Ban Kormaen. Through dirt road in the ridge, we followed in a curvy style the profile of the mountain range. Passed through endless tea plantations, bushes give space to adult tea trees !

On the way to Ban Kormaen

After getting 2 packages of 4 tea cigars each from lady on the road, we found locals busy with luxurious product to export to Korea - each cigar has a bamboo “box” and costs double price than our previous acquisition. They were a quite nice westernised gift though ....

Bamboo packages of tea cigars

The village had a small exhibition about tea which unfortunately was closed but had great views to the environs.

Fresh tea plantations after Ban Kormaen

We decided to go a bit further to the last village signalised on the map - Ban Phongsek.

Beautiful views to the valleys, this time under a bright sun and tea plantations accompanied our tour until our final destination. Surprisingly the road continued but we did not explored it and after a little and basic chat with the oldest people of the village - they were squatting in front of wet rice which was drying in the sun, and shouting to the chicken that tried to get their bit... - we set back.

Burn and slash to plant new tea

On the way back and close to Ban Kormaen again, a sign to a path through the tea plantation got our attention. We got of the bike and decided to explore it.

Walk through 400 years ancient tea plantation

In the afternoon we rode to Hat Sa ca. 20 km from Phongsali, the old port village of Nam Ou, impossible to get from Muang Khua because of the Chinese dams.

Submerged in Hat Sa - Nam Ou river again 

The road dropped 1000 m lower  and was totally destroyed because of the heavy traffic of trucks from the quarry nearby Ban Sailom and the new dam cca 8 km above Hat Sa.

Hat Sa

After a quick coffee in Hat Sa port we followed a truck loaded with a boat until the dam.

The boats have to go around the dam, everything is possible

The dam was almost finished and created an astonishing mirror lake with huge touristic potential ! Now only locals from the upper villages were enjoying it, partying close to the new port and using the sound system of their jeep.

Brand new chinese Hydropower dam - Made in Laos

Time to get back to Phongsali, catch the last sun rays of the day and say goodbye to slow Laos. We were heading to Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam next morning in the craziest fully loaded bus ride we have had in the last months, but that we did not know yet ...

Sok dee Laos  !