First few days in Luang Prabang

View our location map in Luang Prabang

When we arrived at our beautiful guesthouse just outside of Luang Prabang we were so pleased that we had chosen it to stay for about 2 and a half weeks here. We had a large, awesome bungalow with a big balcony overlooking the Nam Khan river which was really private and cool. We had a view of rural river life and saw Monks bathing in the river, local fishermen, people tending vegetable crops along the side of the river, and boats gently floating downstream. A cool insight into local river life.

So we were devastated when we found that their internet was really slow, and we had planned to use a week or two for working on the website in Luang Prabang. We stayed for 4 blissful days before reluctantly moving into the town (“city” is the word they use but seriously this is a small town the size of Warkworth).

We had some added excitement when Karen inadvertently put her pack over a hole in the floor and the next morning noticed a couple of ants on top of her pack – which on closer inspection turned out to be about 2000 ants that had taken over her entire pack and required complete emptying of said pack and thorough cleaning! We must be in the slow Asian groove by now though because she found it quite funny and thought it was a good opportunity to clean out her pack anyway.

We have visited some awesome temples in the town and seen some of the pretty French architecture, and the night market is really amazing. So many awesome different foods and some really nice clothing and household items too. So far though we haven’t quite found the magic that people talk about here. We aren’t sure if this is because we are jaded after being amongst so much natural beauty up north, or not, but Eric, Emma and Tricia expressed the same feeling so we think that might possibly be it. Other people are talking about how quiet it is here, and for us it seems quite busy after the serene beauty in northern Laos. Eric and Emma have already left and gone to Vang Vieng, and are trying to convince us to go and join them there… so we will have to see. We are going to spend a few more days here at least to see how we like it in town and then decide what to do next. Our photos are here.

Journey on the Nam Ou and Mekong Rivers

The day before we were going on the river trip down the Nam Ou and Mekong rivers, we all went to the port in Nong Khiaw to negotiate chartering a boat to Luang Prabang. After speaking to several boat owners/drivers, we agreed with one of them that we would come back at 9.30am the next day and pay 1 million Kip for him to take all of us. We weren’t 100% sure if the deal was done, as he was laughing a lot, but he said that 9.30am and 1 million was fine and we’d see him tomorrow morning. So as agreed, the 6 of us (the original 5 plus another girl we met in town) turned up before 9.30 to get his boat, and soon found out that he didn’t have a boat, couldn’t take us for 1 million, and thought the whole thing was hilarious. We thought it was pretty funny too, it seemed like a typical Lao way to start our day, and unphased we went to talk to some other boat drivers. We managed to find someone who would take us for 1.2 million, and we also found 2 other Polish girls that wanted to come with us, so once we’d seen his boat, the 8 of us agreed to go with him.

It turned out to be the most perfect day we could have hoped for – the weather started off a bit overcast with the sun just peeking through, and then the clouds cleared and we had beautiful blue sky for most of the way.

We spent the first 4 or 5 hours going down the Nam Ou river, seeing limestone carsts, local fishermen working, small villages and people going about river life. Then we joined onto the mighty Mekong river and saw the Pak Ou caves, and eventually arrived at Luang Prabang. We were both quite surprised at how beautiful the Mekong is – visions of muddy brown water was not exactly incorrect, but it is definitely a lot more picturesque in real life than in photos. It was a fantastic day and as expected was well worth it to charter the boat rather than getting the bus. Our photos are here.

Nong Khiaw

View our location map in Nong Khiaw

The night before we left Luang Namtha we mentally prepared ourselves for what we had been told was one of the worst roads in Laos. In the morning we boarded the “VIP” bus for the 6 hour journey and for the first half hour we were pleasantly surprised by how good the road was. Pretty much after that, the following 5 1/2 hours were spent bumping along, sometimes it was hard to believe that we were even on a road, let alone the single road to get to Luang Prabang – the only other way to get there is by boat. We made the best of it though, and decided we were in massively vibrating massage chairs, and had quite a lot of fun. The locals were kindly spewing into plastic bags on the bus (Karen was glad for her motion sickness tablets!) and there was a real live chicken on the bus at one point. We got dropped at the bus station and found that our packs were absolutely covered in dust, and then we had to catch a tuk tuk for about half an hour to the town of Nong Khiaw.

Once we arrived, Emma came to greet us and Tricia (who ended up getting the same bus as us instead of leaving the day before) and we quickly realised that the journey was totally worth it to stay in this beautiful town. We decided that since we’d endured the bus we’d stay in the flashest place in town, and from the moment we checked in we knew we wouldn’t regret the extra dollars spent! It was the perfect place to spend the day – we basically alternated between sitting on the balcony looking at the limestone carst and river view, and laying on our asian triangle-pillow day beds looking at the view. A pretty awesome day! It would have been worth it for the bacony alone – what we didn’t realise when we checked in though, was that we also got the most awesome shower that we’ve had for 3 months (Fairmont Singapore was the last good shower) and comfortable chairs. Comfortable chairs – now this is something you can’t even imagine – the joy of sitting somewhere comfy – unless you’ve travelled Asia for a while (or probably any other 3rd world continent). So yes, staying there was a definite highlight of Nong Khiaw.

The 5 of us went to dinner together overlooking the river and prepared with excitement this time, for the river journey the next day to Luang Prabang. Athough it’s much cheaper to get the bus, we’d been told it was the most beautiful river journey in all of Laos so all decided to charter a boat to make the journey. Our photos are here.

Luang Namtha

We’ve had a really fun few days back in Luang Namtha. Our first day back we were here by ourselves and took Alek, a local Lao guy who works at our guesthouse to lunch at the nearby restaurant. He was so happy that he decided to cook us breakfast the next morning and also offered for us to accompany him to the temple celebrations on today, as well as visit his house in his village. We jumped at the chance to do this!

He made us an awesome Lao breakfast with 4 different vegetarian dishes and they were all awesome! We invited Tricia to come to the morning temple celebration with us too and so we all met at 6.30am and set out. It was amazing to be invited and we were the only white people there in amongst several hundred Lao’s and everyone was so friendly. When the ceremony was finished Alek asked the monks if we could have our photos with them and they agreed – it was such a cool morning. Then we went to his house and had sticky rice with some kind of yellow root vegetable. It was so interesting to see the village and inside a traditional home; the walls were wallpapered with newspaper articles and calendars and other various pictures, and they have 4 small wooden chairs for the whole house.

We’ve been running up to the temple each morning and also visiting some days for the sunset as well because it is just so spectacular. We’ve also found even more unidentified foods, some more fruits which we have never seen or heard of before, and the night market ladies basically know us now and we can order our ‘usual’ dish at a couple of places. Last night we saw a small boy looking a bit dismayed so Dre went up and bought him a blow up green dinosaur and the look of pure joy and delight on his and his 2 friends faces was totally unparelleled with anything we have witnessed before and was really priceless for us. His mother and friends were so excited and he ran around the market for the next 10 minutes or so totally elated. It makes us want to do that everywhere we go! It was awesome! Eric and Emma left today for Nong Khiaw, where we were originally going to go tomorrow (before deciding that we might stay here and go back to Muang Sing for another weekend) and Tricia is going there tomorrow, so they have convinced us to go with them instead of staying here and we have all decided to catch the same boat on Sunday down to Luang Prabang. Our photos of the past few days are here.

Muang Sing

View our location map in Muang Sing

Next time you go to Asia, go to Muang Sing. No ifs. No maybes. Just go. On Friday morning after we had finished work we took a van up to Muang Sing, near the Chinese border. Since we were only going for a night or two, we decided to keep renting our room in Luang Namtha and keep most of our stuff here. (We had just moved into the best room in our guesthouse and didn’t want to lose it.) After an incredibly scenic drive (bounce) through National Park, we arrived at Muang Sing and checked into some garden bungalows that Eric and Emma had found the day before. We soon discovered we were the only tourists in town, plus one Dutch girl. We were quite a novelty for the locals it seemed. We then all went to lunch, at a beautiful little shack in the rice paddies with a stunning view. After lunch that included the best red sticky rice we’ve had so far, we were wandering back to our bungalows when we spotted a huge mansion and wondered how expensive it would be to stay there, with it’s expansive view of the mountains and rice fields. We went in to have a look and immediately fell so in love with the place that we decided to move out of the bungalows and into the mansion. We convinced Tricia to move with us, and Eric and Emma and Miriam and Trina decided to stay at the bungalows since we had all already paid for the night ahead. So there we were in Muang Sing, renting the place with the most amazing view, plus renting the garden bungalow, plus renting our room in Luang Namtha, and we were totally stoked!!! We managed to explain to the bungalow people that there was nothing wrong with their rooms, we just decided to move with the help of an awesome young guy Kun-Har who spent the past 3 years at Uni studying English specifically so that he could go back and help his town as an interpreter and information guide. What an awesome dude! After spending a couple of hours staring at the ever changing view, we (us and Tricia) decided to hire bicycles and ride to the Chinese border. Eric and Emma joined us on their scooter so we all kind of rode together. The ride there was so breathtaking and would absolutely be the highlight of our entire trip so far.

We all managed to sneakily stand on the Chinese side of the border so now we have technically all been to China :-) . Eric and Emma managed to ride 4kms into China on their scooter before a Chinese official turned them back! They were so stoked. We all went back to the mansion and watched the sunset. That night we all went to the night market which was so tiny compared to the one in Luang Namtha and had Kauw Soy – handmade rice noodles in a local soup where you put all your own leafy greens and herbs and chilli in the soup when it is served straight from the cauldron of boiling water so they still get cooked and are very fresh.

The next morning we got up to see the awesome sunrise, and Eric and Emma also moved into our mansion after their night in the bungalows because the mansion was so awesome and we had the entire place to ourselves. Then we all went to the morning markets for breakfast. There was some amazing foods there and the entire market atmosphere was amazing with the majority of people there dressed in their traditional tribal outfits just going about their daily lives. Before visiting here we have always held a vague idea that although there are definitely people who do still dress this way, in Thailand especially it seems that most of the tribal dress is just for show for the tourists. To see all the women here dressed beatifully in their local clothes and so many different tribes milling about buying and selling fruit and vegetables and river fish and many other animals (Bamboo rat, pheasant, freshly killed chicken with all the feathers still on, pig, many intestines and offal, silkworms and rhinocerous beetles just to name a few!) was so cool.

After breakfast the two of us decided to have a lazy day looking at the view, Eric, Emma, Miriam and Trina went on a trek together into the National Park, and Tricia went to a local village with another traveller we met from Germany. It seems Tricia got to have the most exciting day of all – not quite in the way she hoped though, while they were in the village they had been invited to sit on one if the lady’s balcony and while there they heard 5 gunshots and then all the villagers started screaming and running. They didn’t know what to do so just hightailed it on their bikes out of there as fast as they could and went to the police station. This made us even more glad that we had a magical day with the view! We decided to stay another night because we were enjoying ourselves so much, so had another group dinner at the night market and sampled some of Eric’s purchase of the day – locally made Lao Lao which is rice whisky. There were two kinds and they were by far the most alcoholic substance we have ever tasted! The smallest sip you can possibly take would make your entire mouth and throat on fire for about 10 minutes afterwards. So we all sat drinking Lao Lao and watching the stars. It was a memorable night and we felt so lucky to have met such cool people to be in Muang Sing with. (And to hopefully catch up with again in later travels).

Our final morning we all had breakfast together at the morning market and then Tricia went off to do her day trek (a proper organised one this time with a guide!) and Eric, Emma and both of us chilled out for the morning and then had lunch at a Sichuan restaurant – we couldn’t leave the Chinese border without eating some authentic Chinese food!! We then walked to the bus station and agreed to meet up in a few days when they arrive back in Luang Namtha. It was such an awesome weekend that the two of us are seriously considering staying here yet another week, and going up to Muang Sing again next weekend as well. (There is no internet in the town so we can’t stay during the week.) Maybe. We’ll see. Our photos are here.

Northern Laos

We started our first full day in Laos with a morning run up to the temple we discovered the day before, and sat at watched the morning mist rise off the forests. It was amazing. We came back and ate some awesome local noodle soups for breakfast and then met up with our new friends from yesterday for a while. Walking around town and going for our run we have found that we are the attraction in town. Apparently this town only started getting tourists a couple of years ago and most locals still have no English whatsoever, and stare at us in bewilderment. In the afternoon we decided to visit the temple again to catch the sunset. We left it a little late and it was a bit dark when we got up there, still really worth it though and such a beautiful view. We think we could spend all day every day up there. We also saw the traditional ceremony by the monks inside the temple with them chanting. In this silent, majestic setting it was so cool. Then we met up with Tricia, Eric and Emma again and all had dinner at the night market, we had even more fruits we have never seen or heard of before and they were absolutely delicious. We also had the most massive green Papaya salad ever. We are yet to take any photos of the night market as this far north the locals consider it quite rude to take photos so we will wait til we get to know them better and then take some. (We have already extended our stay here for at least another week.) After dinner Eric and Emma told us about their afternoon trip to Muang Sing and it sounded so cool that we have all decided to rent a van and go there today for a couple of days along with two other girls Miriam and Trina that we met. As we had spent part of the afternoon helping our new Laotian friend Bun-Mee with his English, we got him to book us the van so we’re good to go. So… watch this space. Did we mention Laos is incredibly awesome and we love it here? Our photos are here.

Entering Laos

View our location map in Luang Namtha

Yesterday we walked down to the Thai Border, got stamped out of Thailand, and got a tiny boat across the Mekong river to Laos. We got our visa’s for Laos and organised transport and then proceeded to wait for our van to arrive to take us to Luang Namtha, in northern Laos surrounded by National Park. Once we all bundled into the van, we met our travelling companions, an American girl Tricia and a Brazilian couple, Eric and Emma. Over the 4 hour journey we all got to know each other, and then parted ways when we arrived at Luang Namtha. The journey was really amazing, with tiny villages and so many rice terraces and mountains. After lunch we decided to go for a walk around town and to the national park and then spend the afternoon chilling – once we’d walked a while though we ran into the other 3 and decided to walk up to the temple. From up there we had the most amazing view and complete silence, it was one of the most amazing experiences of our entire trip so far. We didn’t have our camera and loved it so much that we will most likely go up there again for an entire afternoon and take some photos. When we came back into town we discovered the most awesome night market right across from our guesthouse (we are just so lucky with things like that on this trip!!) and tried heaps of food we have never seen or heard of before – black nuts, small fruits, blue vegetables, we watched them making fresh rice noodles and then ate them, all in all it was just a fantastic afternoon and evening and has made us totally love Laos already. The view up at the temple was like nothing we had seen before, it was just so perfect. We can’t wait to back up there and see some more of Luang Namtha.

Road Trip, Thailand Style

View our location map in Chiang Khong

Yesterday we spent the morning and early afternoon on the bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong, on the border between Thailand and Laos. When we first got on the bus we were both a little dubious as it didn’t seem overly comfortable (especially when we had paid for the luxury bus!) we settled in though and prepared for the ride ahead. We ended up really enjoying the scenic journey; we drove for hours through seemingly endless rice fields dotted with banana and coconut palms and with lush tropical forested mountains surrounding us. When we arrived in Chiang Khong we were pleasantly surprised at the little town on the Mekong, a very laid back place with restaurants playing low-key old music and a really chilled vibe. We basically spent the afternoon wandering around and seeing where we had to go for immigration and the boat across the river this morning, and looking at the view of Laos. Today we will cross into Laos for the next part of our adventure.

Life in Chiang Mai

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been exploring Chiang Mai and chilling out, in between doing some work in our fab little bungalow. We loved the Sunday Walking Street so much we’ve been twice – each Sunday the main street gets closed off and becomes lined with stalls selling food, clothes and arts and crafts, and local families ‘walk’ the street – it was really impressive.

The second time we went we also went to an amazing 14th century temple just as the sun was going down and a huge storm was coming down from the mountains and it was just beautiful. Then we proceed to get drenched (again!) as the heavens opened and we just kept walking in the downpour. We also went to the Night Bazaar which was not quite as interesting as it was very touristy – we did get some good DVD’s though.

We have visited several temples around town, you can’t really walk anywhere without walking past a few temples – quite a few of them are quite different from each other too so it’s been really interesting. One of the temples we visited we were so lucky to fluke our timing with a chanting ceremony with a group of monks – it was so cool to see and hear. Another temple we visited we got to hear a senior monk teaching the young monks (all in Thai so no idea what he was saying!) and then afterwards they did some singing which was very atmospheric as the temple was all lit up and the monks were kind of in a dark area – hard to explain but it was really cool.

We’ve also done all the usual things – Thai massages, night markets, stocking up on malaria medication and other stuff we need etc. Plus we’ve been helping Bon, the gardener here, take care of a baby squirrel that fell out of a tree – it still has it’s eyes closed but eagerly drinks milk off a spoon and likes cuddling. It actually seems as though it will be OK – it must be just big enough to survive without it’s mother as long as someone can feed it.

Chiang Mai has been the perfect place for us to spend the past month and it’s been great being able to work as well as being tourists. We’re also totally ready for our next stop now – it’s funny how you get used to things and only a few days ago we were both thinking “Oh no! Surely our month in Chiang Mai isn’t up already! We want to stay here!” But now we are both really looking forward to the new-ness of going to a new place, and looking forward to spending some more time in National Parks. Bring on Laos!!!! Our photos are here.

Andrej and Karen Brummer

The adventures of the Brummers

Monthly Archives: September 2010