Northward Bound on the Nam Ou

Muang Ngoy

After getting our bearings in Luang Prabang, we felt equipped to head into the wilds of northern Laos. We were headed for Muang Ngoy, a tiny town along the Nam Ou River. It’s not accessible by car, so we bussed as far as Nong Khiew, and then took a boat another 45 minutes or so upstream. (You can actually see it on Google Maps here.)

The town claims one dirt road running dead straight paralleling the river and only has electricity for about three hours a day from 6-9pm. There are rustic bungalow guesthouses overlooking the river, which are typically one-room bamboo thatched huts on stilts with no soundproofing and plenty of chickens and other farm animals going about their lives underneath you. The bathrooms are quite spare: ours included a bucket-flush toilet and a cold-water shower. No sink. But hey, it’s like camping, right? Better, actually, since it wasn’t a squat toilet and there was even a mirror! Plus it was only $6 per night. Seriously, though, after the comforts of Luang Prabang, it took some adjusting on my part. But I was won over pretty quickly on two counts.

1. Natural Beauty.

Right outside our door was a verandah with two hammocks and a table and chairs overlooking the serene riverscape. The water had a beautiful blue-green hue as opposed to the more familiar muddied color we’d seen before and was surrounded by karsts on both sides. Not quite Halong Bay, but along that spectrum, for sure. A quiet place to take in the beauty of nature. What more does one need?

2. The Answer is Babies.

In case the natural beauty wasn’t enough to win me over, town was teeming with babies. So many babies and puppies I might have thought I was in Park Slope. Mothers and grandmothers with babies on their hips and hordes of toddlers running around willy nilly, all with big smiles for you and a wave. Also chicks and ducklings and puppies and kittens and piglets. The cute factor was off the charts. Having a tough day? Watch some day-old chicks learning how to hunt and peck. Do you remember what was bothering you anymore? No, that’s right. You don’t.

During our time in Muang Ngoy, we started to familiarize ourselves with the rhythms of village life: laundry on the line; bathing in the river in the heat of the day; cooking over a fire; watering down the road by your house to keep down on dust; sweeping a lot, always, for the aforementioned fight against dust. Quaint, in its way, but mostly practical. And comforting, at that.

Trekking to Ban Na

One of the draws of this region is the ability to do self-guided trekking with relative ease. Although we lacked a map of the area (I’m not actually sure one exists), our guidebook had a decent description of the walk towards three villages further inland. And so off we set. A narrow dirt path led us out of town, past some of the poorer family homes, past the school, and then into the jungle. The path was very easy to follow, as it was wide enough in most places for a tractor to come through. After a half hour or so, we came to a series of caves and a stream crossing (equipped with a bamboo bridge for the dry season) as well as a toll booth. For $1.25 per person, we were welcome to continue on towards the villages, and with it came our very own animal guide. For real, actually, although it’s not exactly advertised as such. As we crossed the bridge, a medium-sized black dog came flying past us on the path. Around the next curve, there he was again, looking over his shoulder, seeming to be waiting for us. We continued in this manner for a ways, thinking he would have gone off on his own, but then seeing him again around each curve, patiently waiting to show us the way. And so the magic of this country continues as I settle into the girlish gratitude that we somehow have a spirit animal guiding us on this trek. HE chose US. Awesome.

Of course, we definitely lost our way. It was bound to happen. As we entered some rice fields, we took a wrong turn and found ourselves in the middle of a huge herd of water buffaloes. The buffaloes were exceedingly docile, not terribly interested in getting close to us, or having us get close to them, plus Spirit Dog was there to herd them out of our way. They are huge animals. And they look positively prehistoric. They were mostly black, but a few were albino white, and there were a number of babies, too. We would tire of seeing them eventually, I knew, but right then, I was mesmerized. Sometimes losing your way is the best part.

We retraced our steps and got on the right trail again, taking us to the far side of the rice fields and into the town of Ban Na. We’d been walking for over two hours, the last bit of which was punishingly unshaded, and we were elated to have actually found the town. For a rural village, Ban Na has fairly new houses. All still in the traditional thatched bamboo style, they have a crispness that comes with newer construction, the edges yet to be softened by countless wet seasons. The rest of the sights were more familiar: dirt roads; multitudes of small children in various stages of undress; farm animals and dogs roaming freely; mothers doing the wash at the town well; and tiny shops at the front of family homes selling everything from a single-use packet of shampoo to a home-brewed bottle of rice whiskey (a.k.a., Lao Lao). Wanting to partake in the local culture, we decided to splurge the $2 and tote a bottle home with us. We had tried Lao Lao before, and found it to be not so different from a low-grade vodka. The home-brewed version proved a bit yeastier, and a lot less drinkable, but I suppose you can’t like everything you try. Carrying the bottle, we thoroughly enjoyed the looks we garnered from the locals, though. I like to think they were impressed, but there may have been a note of shock in there, too.

100 Waterfalls Trek in Nong Khiew

The self-guided trekking from Muang Ngoy was incredibly rewarding, but there were many more experiences available in this northern region which we were temped by: three-day kayaking expeditions, hiking to a summit and camping on the mountaintop, climbing an extensively waterfalled section of river. As we came back south through Nong Khiew, we wanted to partake in one of these excursions, but came up against an annoying truth about the current state of the tourist economy in Laos: there simply are not enough tourists in the country. And so instead of paying a per person rate for the experience of your choice, you are instead faced with paying a per excursion rate, which quickly exceeds 10+ times your nightly lodging costs and calls into question just how much an experience is worth.

We settled on the one-day 100 Waterfalls trek for $33 per person. It’s still tricky evaluating what price point is worthy of what experience. But what we came to is somewhere between what feels comfortable within our travel budget and what we might pay for such an experience at home.

The day was fantastic. We started off early in the morning with a ride on a tiny boat down the river. It was all still so novel, and being on a small craft, so close to the water, somehow made the karst cliffs that much more impressive in the morning light. We docked near a small village and set out into the jungle towards the river we’d be walking in for the day. It must have something to do with the geology of the rocks here, but we never lost our footing. Not even a little bit. For close to an hour we zigzagged our way up and up this river, scrambling through fast-running water and over surprisingly porous and rough rocks. It was delightfully cool with the river shaded in most parts and our hands and feet always wet. We finally reached the summit, and the most impressive of the waterfalls, where our guide nipped a few banana leaves to make a tablecloth for our picnic lunch of sticky rice, vegetable omelets, falafel, and a pumpkin dip.

The Long Boat to Luang Prabang

Instead of busing our way back south through Luang Prabang, we decided to give river travel a go. We’d heard so many good things about how beautiful the ride was, and had heeded the advice of several travelers to take the boat going downstream so as to avoid painfully loud engine noise, but we also knew it’d be a butt-numbing experience. And we were right. The boat was about four feet wide with laughably small chairs lining each side. It’s like they stole them from a preschool somewhere. What more, if they needed more seats, they’d just hammer another one in to the side of the boat. We were lucky to snag a few that had been hammered in relatively level and which sported cushions. As we waited to depart, we jealously eyed the empty boat next to us which had old captain-style car seats. Now that would have been high class. But I shouldn’t complain; the ride was breathtakingly beautiful, even despite any physical discomfort. I’ll let the rest of the images speak for themselves.

Luang Prabang: The Regal City

Luang Prabang is a Unesco World Heritage Site, which helps lend a casual elegance to the former royal capital. A long peninsula, the city is flanked by the mighty Mekong on one side and the smaller tributary, the Nam Khan, on the other. We were to be there five nights, and the guesthouse we’d reserved in advance was the first place we’d stayed that felt homey. Our room was one half of a single-story brick building, just large enough for a bed and a path around three sides with a bathroom in the back. There was also a mosquito net – a first for us – which hung along the wall during the day, but hooked into four points on the exposed-brick walls at night, draping us in a general aura of safety and mystery with a touch of that fort-like quality from when you threw a sheet over your bunk bed as a kid and made your own hideout. I loved it.

Our time in Luang Prabang was a great entry into the country. The city itself is not so fancy or modern, but it has a quiet, old fashioned grandeur, and is far more developed than the rest of the country, making it a nice way to ease into a more rustic experience going forward. We relaxed, we walked along the riverfront, picked our way through the most laid back night market I’d ever been to, learned how to say a few things in Lao, read up on the history of the country and the city, ate crepes, drank fruit shakes, and had the giddiness that accompanies discovering a new place.

And with that, new FOOD!

Sticky Rice

Sticky rice is at the heart of Lao cuisine. It is eaten at nearly every meal as well as in between. The rice is soaked and rinsed and then steamed in an open bamboo basket for 20-30 minutes, turned once. The cooked rice is stored in cylindrical bamboo containers, which allows the steam to escape, keeping the rice from cooking further. To eat, you grab a small amount between your thumb and first two fingers and then roll it into a ball, squeezing it in your palm to make it compact. Now you have your eating implement. With the same three fingers, you use the rice ball to scoop up some food and place it all in your mouth to enjoy! I’ll admit to some blunders and messes as we got acquainted with the new style of feeding ourselves, but within a few days, we got a compliment from a waiter that we were eating the sticky rice just like a Lao native. Hurrah! Tourist success!!

Laap

It’s tricky to describe laap. It is essentially a meat salad, made with chicken, pork, beef, duck, or even fish. I ate almost exclusively chicken laap or ‘laap gai’, the better to compare them throughout our time in the country. My first laap was in an outdoor cafe along the Mekong on our first full day in Laos. And like with so many firsts, all future laap was to be measured against this delicious example. The meat is tenderized to the point of being coarsely ground. When you order laap, you’re sure to hear the rhythmic sounds of knife on butcher block. The meat is then cooked, probably a quick poach, and mixed together with a host of chopped herbs – lemongrass, spring onions, cilantro, and mint – as well as chiles and sometimes diced long beans (like a green bean, just longer). The dressing is simple, with lime juice and fish sauce featured prominently. The resulting dish is light and easy to eat and is the perfect answer on a hot afternoon.

The Night Market

The night market was its own treasure trove. Crowded pathway with stalls on both sides selling everything from snacks to a full meal. And unlike some markets we’d been through, everything smelled amazing. At the front, women fried coconut milk fritters in a cast-iron pan with perfectly round divets, fitting them together into perfect little spheres to be sold for 75 cents for five of them. Best hot – like all fried food – they had a custardy consistency with a heftier toothiness and a subtle crunch at the outside. Although a logical dessert, we actually STARTED a number of our meals this way, unable to pass by the stand without getting a taste.

The rest of the food stalls opened into table after table of noodles and veggies in all thinkable combinations which you could pile high on a plate for $1. Need a little protein to go with your meal? No problem. Every place has a grill going with chicken skewered between a piece of bamboo for another $1 or a whole grilled fish for $3/4, depending on the size. Our first few visits we stuck to the chicken. It felt the safe option. And it was definitely tasty. But on our last visit, we went in for the whole fish and oh my god was that the right choice. Now, I know as well as the next person that fish is best done simply and when fresh, which this was, but I am honestly not sure if I’ve had another fish this good. Ever. I even ate the skin. And the cheeks. And the underbelly. And just about every other nodule of meat I could get off the thing. The outside was slightly crisped and nicely salted from the marinade brushed on (something with soy sauce, I assume). The inside had been stuffed with lemongrass and the outside had been scored, lending the meat a positively succulent quality as it expertly balanced the light, aromatic lemongrass with the darker, grilled exterior. It was meant to be shared, but given my feral reaction, the Hubs smartly backed off and ceded much of his half to me.

Beerlao

Beerlao is the national beer of Laos. And with a claimed 99% market share and a wide distribution, it seems like it’s the only beer in Laos sometimes, too. But that was fine by us. The beer is brewed with local rice, and imports the yeast and hops from Germany. As opposed to all the other domestic Asian beers we’d tried, which can charitably be called light lagers, Beerlao combines a crisp, well-carbonated experience with a rich, medium-bodied flavor and a pleasantly balanced note of hops. $1.25 bought us a 640ml bottle, which is the perfect size to share.

I don’t know what it is about people and places that sometimes make them click. I feel like we got to know Laos at just the right time, both for us and for Laos. And we bought in. Hard core. Sticky rice as an implement? I don’t even remember not eating this way. Only one brand of beer? No problem. It’s the ‘beer of the wholehearted people’, after all. And those are my favorite people.

Welcome to Laos!

I have so many positive things to say about Laos it’s hard to know where to begin. The pace of life here is aggressively unhurried. The food is simple but filling. Any befuddled attempts we make to speak Lao are met with BIG smiles. The people are kindhearted and exceedingly generous. And their children are adorable. This country is like a warm hug.

We flew into the Luang Prabang airport, made our way through immigration, baggage claim, and out to the ATM before seeing about a taxi to our guesthouse. Now, for those of you who read my post about arriving into Hanoi, this is about as far from that experience as humanly possible. Actually, it’s created a new dimension for itself, just to get a little extra distance between the two. We walk out of the airport to a desk where we purchase a ticket into ‘downtown’ and then one of about a half-dozen or so guys gets up to walk us over to his van and drive us the fifteen minutes to our hotel. So calm, it’s like… I don’t even know, I’m too relaxed to think. No one is hounding me for a fare or trying to sell me something I probably don’t need. But the real reason I know that me and this country are gonna get along real good is that there’s a bobble-headed white unicorn mounted to the dashboard of our taxi. Sit with that. Let it soak in. And then watch in your mind’s eye as the head bobbles around, like a shining beacon of all this is good and right with the country of Laos. Welcome! Or as you would say in Lao, Sabaidee!

At this time, it should be noted that this country is brought to you by the letter Beerlao.

Also, by the number Beerlao.

P.S. Beerlao.

Northwest by Northeast: Closing Out Vietnam

The Night Train

The first thing you need to know is how to purchase train tickets to Sapa, which was my own personal version of hell. There is so much about this experience that’s not in English that I’m not sure the English language exists anymore once it’s over. And personal space definitely doesn’t exist, either. There is a place to get a number and a waiting area with chairs, but if you get a number and sit down, rest assured that you are never – literally, never – going to be summoned to a window. Instead you must stand as close to an open ticket counter as humanly possible, and then step even closer. Somewhere between two and a thousand other people are also doing this with you, elbowing and edging their way closer to the ticket lady. By the time you’ve managed to get a turn and hand over your pre-written note with what you want (in Vietnamese, of course – as previously noted, this experience is not available in English), she tells you it’s not possible. She writes out the time of another train, but by the time you understand that this isn’t actually what you wanted, she has hit the purchase button, taken your money, and handed you the tickets. You stand at the counter, dumbfounded, confused, not even fully comprehending that the tickets have been purchased.

But the night train itself? One of the highlights of Vietnam. Aside from just sounding romantic, our difficulties purchasing the tickets paid off, because we ended up in a cabin with six other Vietnamese folks. There was a family of four with two little girls who shared two bunks between them as well as a woman and her elderly father in the other two bunks. We had succeeded in specifying that we wanted the lower bunks, which meant everyone hung out on our bunks until the train departed, watching our card game, scrutinizing the sandwiches we’d brought for dinner, and the hubs even had the pleasure of getting his bicep squeezed when I went out to the toilet. Apparently, our size is impressive. I think we were as much the highlight of their journey as they were ours.

Sapa, the town

Arriving into Sapa was discombobulating as any experience before 6am, but despite the lack of sleep, we had no trouble delighting in the absolute glory of mountains in the morning light. The landscape was intense, and made more so by the fog that plagues the area. I hadn’t realized how much I missed mountains! And it was cold. Not cold like at home, for sure. There was no snow. But remember that we only brought super lightweight wicking clothing for all the heat and humidity we were expecting to encounter, and when faced with weather steadily in the 50s we suddenly found ourselves wearing everything we owned. Lots of restaurants and cafes sported fireplaces and much of our downtime was spent cozied up in places like this. It almost felt like we were tucked in a small ski town in the Alps, although the hill tribe women rivaled that fantasy as they made their way to the Sunday market dressed in their intricate traditional clothing.

Trekking the Hill Tribes

Trekking is big in Sapa. There are hill tribes that live tucked amongst the mountains, managing rows and rows of terraced rice paddies and also leading tourists through a maze of paths to explore in and around their villages. Although the day began with a sea of other tourists being led down into the valley, we were lucky to be in a smaller group with just one other couple. Our guide was named Coo and she was from a H’mong tribe. We were accompanied by four or five other women from Coo’s village, picking our way down and down on ever more rustic roads and paths, often taking the hands of the tribeswomen to steady ourselves. It was fascinating to see the farming up close and to get some understanding of how the Vietnamese government has started to fund the modernization of these hill tribes. We saw a lot of infrastructure going in, from new roads to a new dam and even new school buildings.

Halong Bay

Halong Bay was just named one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and I would have to say that it lived up to all the hype we’d heard. Much as getting into the mountains felt both comforting and comfortable, so too did our arrival at such a beautiful space of water. It’s hard to explain Halong Bay or even really show it. Maybe a panoramic would do it justice, but even still, it’s hard to capture just how enveloped you feel by the landscape of karsts. It’s gorgeous in all lights. With lots of sunlight, you can see the craggy flora growing in the limestone cliffs and get a good view of the rough surface of the karsts. In shadow, they start to take on varying shades of blue, layering against the skyline and reflecting the serene water around them. And sunrise or sunset is just… so… beautiful.

During our three days aboard The White Dolphin, we got to see a floating fishing village; ride in a traditional bamboo boat (rowed by an ancient man with about three teeth to his name); go swimming off the boat at sunset; tour a pearl farm; hike to the top of Titop Island to take in the breathtaking view of the entire bay; explore in and around the karsts in a double kayak; and watch a group of spider monkeys eat lunch on the side of a karst. Yeah, that’s right: spider monkeys! I can now die a happy and fulfilled woman. The whole thing was like Camp Halong Bay.

My favorite moment of the whole cruise (except maybe the spider monkeys) was our first night on the boat, after a spectacular seafood dinner and swapping travel stories and recommendations with our boat companions, Kay (our guide) came upstairs, quite clearly inebriated, to inform us that the captain was ‘too much drunk’ and our evening activity of squid fishing would not be happening as the crew might have gambled away the eel light. Sure. Operative word here: might. None of us even skipped a beat – we all had headlamps! And so the four of us, under Kay’s patient guidance, bobbed bamboo poles in the water for nearly a half hour, freezing in the chilly night air, and trying to keep our headlamps trained in one spot. Needless to say, we didn’t catch any squid that night, but we did share some chocolate and our views on religion.

Cat Ba Island

We arranged to be dropped on Cat Ba Island at the end of our cruise to spend a few extra nights in the region. There’s a national park over much of the island, but we opted to stick to the coast and the somewhat untouched beaches facing out on the karst-dotted bay. It was a quiet few days at the end of our time in Vietnam. We were winding down both physically and emotionally after a very full month, and there were ups and downs to ride out. We were both fighting something off, enjoying the food and the people less, and suffering from a general lack of patience and good humor. It had been nearly a month; it was bound to happen sooner or later. But anyone who’s traveled knows that moment where you’re put in your place. And you have a choice: you can either laugh at yourself and move on or you can cry all the way home.

My moment was getting locked in the bathroom of our hotel at 10pm, fresh from the shower, wearing nothing but a towel and vulnerability. The door just wouldn’t open. We tried from both sides, but the knob was not having any effect. The Hubs went in search of someone from the hotel as I perched helplessly on the lid of the toilet. I remember actually making the decision not to freak out; this was just too incredible a thing to be happening. The Hubs came back with Hotel Guy who over the course of the next 10 to 12 minutes displayed a shining example of the true and determined Vietnamese spirit.

First, he tries the door. Then, he tries the door some more. After that, he tries the door really forcefully and quickly. Nothing. Next, with no warning, he tries to kick down the door. Repeatedly, he is trying to kick down the door, running at it with his whole body, and pausing long enough for me to start to try to say something, but never long enough for me to be heard. And then, like a true showman, he begins kicking off the doorknob. Again and again and again, he is kicking at the doorknob. At this point, my smile has faded a tad and I get up from the toilet to stand as far from the door as I can, because I am now convinced that when this doorknob is finally dislodged, it is going to come flying directly at my front teeth. It doesn’t happen, but still, it could have. The doorknob never even flies off. In some weirdly poetic handshake, Hotel Guy ends up dislodging it from the door by pushing it into the bathroom and placing it into my waiting palm. Alas! But no, it is STILL not over, because the little nubby thing that sticks into the doorjamb is still there, unmoving.

Have I mentioned yet that although the doorknob is a sturdy metal fixture, the door itself is just plastic? So I am now stuck in a bathroom with a plastic door with a small but gaping hole in it. Unbelievable. Hotel Guy goes for some more tools and is back in a flash, clawing at the remaining hardware, mangling the door more solidly beyond repair. A few more minutes of metal and plastic shards flying every which way, and the door – is – OPEN! I get to see my savior face-to-face, but fleetingly. Only long enough to confirm that no, this has never happened before, but a new one will be installed tomorrow morning. Sure thing, Hotel Guy. I bet the check is in the mail, too.