Andrej and Karen Brummer

The adventures of the Brummers

Monthly Archives: September 2011

Collecting Tim from Thailand

We went back to Chiang Rai to meet Tim and show him around for a couple of days before heading back to Luang Namtha.  We went to the white temple again and we were still amazed at how cool it is, even though we’ve seen it a few times before now.  We also went into the art gallery beside the white temple – everything in there has been painted or sculpted by the same artist who designed the temple and has painted the murals inside (still only 3 walls painted, we are eagerly awaiting the 4th wall to see what he does!).  That was insanely cool and we really want to get some of his paintings.

We spent a lot of time motorbiking around, visiting a waterfall, driving through mud to get to tea plantations, and seeing some other temples as well as going to the night market.

We only spent a couple of days in Chiang Rai but it was an awesome way for Tim to be introduced to the craziness of Asia before we get to the real adventure in Luang Namtha.  Our photos in Chiang Rai are here.

Vieng Poukha

After being in Laos for about 8 months, and driving through Vieng Poukha many times, we decided it was finally time we went to visit. Vieng Poukha is only 60kms from Luang Namtha, and although this is about the same distance as Muang Sing, it is a million times faster to get here because the roads are newly completed by China, so it is really very close. Vieng Poukha is pretty much surrounded by the Nam Ha National Protected Area, so there are heaps of things to see and do.

The town itself is tiny, most of the time there were only one or two food places to eat at (one being the morning market), and there are just 5 small guesthouses. You can drive through the entire town in about 2 minutes. Literally if you blink you will miss it.

This was just what we were looking for; quiet, serenity, nice views, and a few days to just chill out, and also explore another area. These days our knowledge is in demand by tourists coming to Luang Namtha, so we thought the best way to be informed, and also get a holiday too, was to come here and see for ourselves how the town works.

The first day we pretty much did nothing, just chilled out on our balcony and admired the view over the mountains as well as find the market and drive around the backroads.

The second day we visited the cave near town – it totally and utterly exceeded our expectations!  There are many caves in Laos and usually they are slippery, sometimes dangerous to walk through and often quite a lot of effort because they are so rugged.  The Kao Rao cave was the opposite of this – a huge long easy to navigate path deep into the cave.  The formations inside the cave were amazing.  It was just so huge and apparently when rainy season is finished you can actually keep walking in for a few days before you come to the end.  We were both so impressed and plan to go back again at some point when it’s drier to walk in further.

Other than that we pretty much just chilled out, a good interlude for us before returning to Luang Namtha.  We left Vieng Poukha thoroughly impressed by the serenity, jungle and cave, so it will have to be added to our list of places to visit more regularly.  Our photos are here.

Paul and Nedsy visit us

Our good friends from Sydney Nerida and Paul arrived from Luang Prabang and after showing them their room and the shop, as well as heaps talking to catch up, we went to Thong and Paet’s for dinner to introduce them to real Lao food.

We spent a day biking around Luang Namtha, visiting the Nam De waterfall (which has much more water now after all the rain) and driving through the rice fields and seeing the temples.

The following day we went up to Muang Sing again, and although we weren’t quite as lucky with the weather as we have been in previous times, it was still awesome; we saw the usual groups of kids and handed out pens and pencils, admired the forest in the national protected area and the rice fields, visited a waterfall we haven’t been to before on the way there, and went to our favourite restaurants.

We also visited a village that we think hadn’t seen westerners before, they were quite curious about us but were very shy and not too sure about us. We gave them some fruit which they accepted and offered some pencils which we think they didn’t know what to do with so they didn’t take them. The sky was getting pretty black so we decided to try to beat the rain and get back to Muang Sing town.

The next day we left before 7am to go to the opening party of Forest Retreat’s new confluence camp, where the Nam Ha and Nam Tha rivers meet. We were intending to stay the night in the jungle there, but in the late afternoon Nedsy got sick, so the 4 of us joined the next boat back to town and returned to the comfort of our hotel for her to recover.

It seemed like we Paul and Nedsy were only here for seconds, we spent so much time riding around and seeing the beauty of the area that we didn’t really get time to chill out as well, but we still had an awesome time. We miss our friends so much so it was really nice to have them here for a few days. Our photos of the few days are here.

Shop Life

Life outside the shop hasn’t really existed too much in the past week or two. We have achieved so much in the shop such as getting new shelves put up, varnishing them, finishing the kitchen benches and getting all appliances set up, painting the toilet floor and door, cleaning upstairs so we have a nice lounge and work area (for now, before we open it to customers), getting our new signs made and putting more information on the website.  We also got given our first pet, a Rhinocerous beetle, which we kept for about a week, got it a friend, but then they were so smelly that we let them go into the wild again.  (Who knew beetles could smell so bad?)

We have managed to get a cleaner, someone to work in the bar, and hopefully someone to cook for us. We have been advertising around town for more staff and hopefully soon we can find more people who have some English to come and work with us.

We are super excited about our friends from Australia coming to visit, Paul and Nerida arrive tonight so we will have a few days off and show them around the area. A few photos of the shop progress are here.