Nong Kiau disco

Went to the disco last night again. Today was a bit of a whitewash. I read some books and relaxed in the hammock, had a burger from delilas and thats about it. When I got the gig for writing up a blog for Stray as well as tour guiding I was told that I needed about a small paragraph per day about the things you can get up to. While I didn't do too much today I think I'm still holding up my end of the bargan;).

Ou River Farming

Laos is dominated by a wet and a dry season. Currently we are coming out of the wet and into the dry. Its actually quite cold at night in Nong Kiau around this time of year, daytime temperatures are still nice and balmy though. As the dry season approaches river levels drop and you can see newly dug and planted crops springing up on the banks of the rivers. As water levels decrease this becomes perfect farming land, relatively flat with fertile alluvial soils.

November 4, Nong Kiau restaurant guide.

Ok, I have had some of the best burgers of my life in Nong Kiau and I don't mean just in Sth East Asia. Go to Delila's on the western side of the bridge on the way to the pier. I had one for lunch there today and two latte's. It's one of the best coffees on the tour, including the coffee plantation we visit on the southern leg (haven't blogged about this yet).

Nong Kiau volunteer opportunities- help required!

You know how I mentioned, a few blogs ago, that there were some volunteer opportunities available in Nong Kiau- today I had to organise that.
I met with a local Ministry of Education official and we went to the school to ask if they would be happy with us supplying books to them as well as other teaching supplies but also the possibility of supplying teachers. They were stoked.

The idea is that we sell books and supplies to our customers on the bus and possibly the idea of volunteering to teach and then deliver said products or services as we roll through town. Pax (clients) can go by and give out the books or lessons in the morning after we arrive or stay a few days to teach more. Obviously with the Stray hop on hop off concept its easy enough to grab the next bus coming through (there are two a week now). So, if anyone wants to come volunteer or send over some supplies then feel free. See website for address in Bangkok and further contact details. I'll fill you guys in when we sell some books.

NB, I came up with this with some help from Kate after discussing tourist' desire to help those people in Laos in poverty. Many people want to help those people that they meet in Laos with cash or treats for kids. We think doing something like this is a less damaging than hand outs but also allows tourists (and us) to scratch that itch we all get when you see poverty and harship that is largely unknown in our home countries. There are more schools in this distrct as well so at some stage well look to push it out to them as well.

Ps , if anyone has some ideas on how to use common household rubbish for some useful purpose (ideally profit generating but not necessarily) then send me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . There is a bunch of rubbish in Laos that we can clean up as we roll through towns but currently there isn't a recycling plant or process in Laos to send it too so whatever we pick up we need to use for some useful purpose (building materials perhaps?). If it can turn a profit then we can turn it over to some Laos people who may be interested in it as a business for themselves. Gimme some ideas as I'm light on knowledge in this regard and I don't have a lot of time for research.

Chur!

Good day hike from Nong Kiau village

Went for a 4 hour walk (you can hire a mountain bike as well) to visit some Kamu villages. The Kamu are one of the hill tribe people in Laos who are originally from china but have populated Laos for hundreds of years. They look quite different from the Laos people and generally have more facial hair ( the men i mean, I'm not taking a dig at kamu women there).

There are some great views of the Ou river north of Nong Kiau, lots of spiders, some jungle water fountains (basically a bamboo pipe stuck in the side of a hill that taps an underground steam, doesn't get much more fresh than that), and some cool fishing techniques on display- a small bamboo dam block the river flow and directs it through two small channels where the locals have set up nets to catch fish- it's automated fishing! There are four villages before the road ends, takes about 7 hours return if your walking, take sunscreen, you can fill your water bottle at the bamboo tap.

Back to my favourite place in Laos so far  - Nong Kiau

Caught the bus to Nong Kiau today. I loved this place and wanted to get back for some R & R but also some work and research. This place is so beautiful and I really well hooked up for tourists as I have mentioned before. Good food, great activities, what else do you need. Today I went out to the cave which is open again. It was closed due to safety issues with the stairs but it's all good now. It's called Phatok Cave and was where some Laos military (who aligned with north Vietnam during the Vietnam war) hid out while US forces tried to bomb them. They were unsuccessfully, the cave goes deep, too deep for B52 bombs.

Kioung Si waterfall and drunken Mekong sailing

This day was friggin awesome. Kate and I went to Kioung Si waterfalls. There is too much to say in one blog so I'll bullet point it... •took a boat out there. You can tuk-tuk but river riding is better I think

Woke up early and went to the Monks Ahms again. I can't seem to get a great photo of this. I'll continue to try, think I need to get up on a roof or something. I'll be back in Luang Prabang for another week so due to a schedule change so I'll sort something out then.

I'm always amused by Laos peoples reaction to the Laos words and phrases that I have picked up. There are a bunch of women selling food to tourists at Ahms so they can give it to the monks. I had them all laughing and gathering around as they were pleasantly surprised by the words I could say. It's a great ice breaker if you can pick up some basic Laos. I won't launch into a lesson but if your interested do some research on numbers, basic intro and exit phrases etc and you'll be well on your way.

Chicken/toilet village

I was really impressed by the way that villages are named over here. Apart from the 'ban' which accompanies most village names (ban means village), the villages over here are named in similar ways to some Maori place names-that is after features of the landscape or the people who live there. For example, 'Champasak' in the south of Laos is made up of two words, 'champ' is the name of the people who live in the area and 'pasak' is the name of the mountain; in a similar vein the Bolaven Plateau is derived from the people who live their, the 'Bo', whereas 'laven' can be loosely translated as 'taken from'. So 'Bolaven' I figure is something like 'bo people from this area'. This gave me a lot of parallels to work with in understanding Laos culture and I felt a bit closer to Laos because of it.

Most days in Luang Prabang were spent as so, a few hours at the office mooching internet and helping out and then a few hours in the afternoon checking out Luang Prabang downtown area. Today Kate and I went to a bit of a secret bakery. Luang Prabang has great bakeries and lots of yummy baguette sandwich places but this on is the best. Not only can you buy bread but also roll a few dough balls and watch the oven being heated up. Depends what time you get there as to what you experience. We were there at mid-morning so nothing was baked yet but get in there in the afternoon and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Quality is the best in Luang Prabang. After this we went to the Luang Prabang market, for me this place is awesome, you just spend ages wandering around. The shops are not particularly specialised so you never know what you will find. Kate didn't like the meat section, I took her anyway. She almost spewed at the site of blood jelly. It smelled terrible.

After the tour Kate and I expressed it back to Luang Prabang. We wanted to spend some time before our next tour getting to know this place a bit better. We were shagged after Stray Asia's very first tour (wohoo!). However, trying to sleep on a long bumpy bus ride (when we came through here with the group we did the same wretch in 2 days, so you can get an idea of how long it is) is difficult, even with Valium. Anyway we made it, got some sleep and food (not in that order as sleep eating is weird) and were rearing to go the next day.

Ou River, tubing, belly flops, jandal mysteries and a well deserved traditional Laos massage...

Hi again!

Coming to the home straight on the first tour but there is still some real classic Laos experiences to be had. The Tom Yum pass takes nine days total and is a great mix of laid back towns and classic Laos tourist spots like Luang Prabang, Van Vieng and Vientiane. This blog covers the classic stuff.

Luang Namtha to Nong Khiaw

From Luang Namtha we head off to Nong Kiau. Interestingly, you will see heaps of different spellings of the names I mention. I have seen this town been spelled at least three ways. Laos language has never been officially set in stone. In this way, you will notice Laos people will pronounce things differently to westerners.

Anyway, Nong Kiau is my favorite of the smaller towns we visit, it's tiny but has some really awesome things going for it. For example, it's where we start a 6 hour boat ride to Luang Prabang but before this you can go...

Border Crossing and our first sight of the Orange Bus!!

After Crossing over we find ourselves in Laos for the first time in the border town of Huay Xai (pronounced 'whey sai') but we don't stay long. From here it's straight on the Stray bus - you gain a bit more freedom once on the buses so they are always a welcome sight. From Huay Xai we drive on through to Luang Namtha.

Day 2 - Chiang Mai

The next day we arrived in Chiang Mai which, is a great destination. I reckon it's like Wellington in New Zealand, small enough that it doesn't have the big city feel of Bangkok, yet big enough to have all the luxuries of a modern Thai city. There are a bunch of great bars down an unassuming street which go off to early in the morning. Here there are lots of foreigners but also a mix of locals.