Laos travel stories

1. WILD LIFE IN MUANG NGOI NEUA

2. LAO VISA, IF I HAD KNOWN I WOULDN'T...

3. TO FOLLOW THE RAILWAY IN DON DET: A BAD IDEA!

WILD LIFE IN MUANG NGOI NEUA

I was with Enn (tough Dutch girl) and Leigh (funny Canadian) when I spent some days in the village of Muang Ngoi Neua plunged in the mountainous green north of Laos. It was so hot and humid that we didn't manage (frankly we didn't even try) to do nothing but snoozing on the hammocks under the porch of the hut that was our accommodation. Time flied observing village life: men carving the wooden boats, fishing in the river, kids playing chasing each other, women pressing the corn, washing the clothes..I liked this simple quite life, disturbed just by the quick daily thunderstorms.
One of my best memory is the tubing we did in the river on whose bank is set the village. We rented a huge inner part of a tractor tyre and a boat took us some km upstream. Dropped off we just floated back to the village. It was wonderful being in the middle of this large red quite river that flows around steep wild mountains. We floated two hours in one of the most remote places I've never been. The riverbank is inaccessible: no hut, no trail, nothing. Just green dense forest everywhere. The sun was beating so much that several times I got off the tube and I swam in the river even if a little bit scaring. One funny thing happened after the tubing when we were laying down on the hammocks resting for the daily effort: a small kid passed in front of us grasping a kind of black stick. I got curious and coming near him I realised he was dragging a, at least 2 meters, dead water snake. The kid had caught it on the same river where, few hours before, I was enjoying my bath.
In the same village during the night me and Leigh didn't sleep that much because of the noises. It was a kind of swish but I didn't figure out the source. In the morning one of the first words I heard waking up was Leigh cursing since in the night time some strange animal had gnawed his cap that he had left on the floor. Which animal remained a mystery, but the next morning it was Enn's turn, in fact her handbag got holed by the same animal who reached and stole her chewing gums.
We almost forgot about this, till the day we were on the way back to Luang Prabang sit on one of the truck lao people use as buses. A lady got on carrying a big stinky box that she put right in front of me. It was so stinky that I almost felt to throw up and one man was laughing looking at me. Still giggling he opened the box and picked up a big black flat stinky dried rat!!!!!!!!! Shit!! It is was so disgusting! Maybe not still happy he showed me the box full of such crap rats.
I still don't know the purpose of drying the rats and carrying them to Luang Prabang, but since then I've not appreciated a meat noodle soup anymore.
At least I understood which animal was to blame for the gnawing in Muang Ngoi Neua.

LAO VISA, IF I HAD KNOWN I WOULDN'T...

I was just arrived in Chiang Mai trying to figure out how to get a Laotian visa as soon as possible when I met a woman, who run a hostel, saying she could provide it for 30 $. I decided to trust her (frankly I didn't have other chances) and I left her my passport paying in advance. Unfortunately it was Friday hence there was no way to have it before Tuesday. It meant four days but, at least I could get it in Huay Xai, the town at the Lao border where she had another guesthouse. I was worried of separating from my document at the beginning of such long trip, having just a piece of paper as receipt and I was looking forward to get it back.
Time flied while I was hanging out in the north of Thailand thinking where my passport could be, like a daddy anxious for his kid. Finally it comes Monday and I went to the indicated guesthouse in this small town in the middle of nothing asking at what time I should have picked up my passport with the visa the day after.
"Boh?? Maybe at 7 a.m., maybe at 9 a.m., maybe at 11 am, maybe tomorrow"
"What?? But my boat to Luang Prabang is at 9 am and I've to buy the ticket in advance before it gets fullbooked!!!"
"Don't worry you can buy the ticket anyway"
"That's for sure,!!!! But what about getting back my money if I don't receive my visa in time??"
Here started a persuasion about having promised they would have taken the ticket back. It was pouring the next morning at 6 am while I was standing in front of the guesthouse "reception" (I mean a scrap wooden table) plaguing the girl for my visa. I think she was eager to kick me my ass the fifth time I asked her how I would have known when my passport were received. But she didn't and told me to be patience. Every minute to me seemed hours thinking about my boat. And what about if nothing would have happened?? Where the hell should I have gone to complain??
No way! At 8.30 am a young guy came riding a moped through the muddy puddles with a bag containing my passport! Yeah!! I was excited when I crossed the Mekong on one of this narrow unstable pirogue, but I turned quite upset when I saw it was possible to get it at the border for almost the same amount of money. And you don't even need the pictures!!
Shit !!!
The last but not the least, the boat left Huay Xai more than four hours later; lots of efforts for nothing.

TO FOLLOW THE RAILWAY: A BAD IDEA!

After two weeks hanging around Laos finally I reached the four thousand islands archipelago , called si phan don, placed in the very south, almost at the Cambodian border. I settled down on the Don Det island in a nice hut with the typical hammock under the porch overlooking the Mekong. On this island there is the only laotian railway (just 5 km) built by the France at the beginning of the 20th century and abandoned since the 1945. This made me curious and I wanted to follow its way through the forest. Now I can say it has been a bad idea; better going on swinging in the hammocks. I rented a bike and started following the trail. Of course not many rails were left being dismounted by the locals to build small bridges and houses. At the beginning the trail was just a little bit bumpy, but nice. Then it becomes very difficult to be spotted and I diverted a little bit to the riverbank. Here I decided to reach it again so I headed to north without following a real trail in the forest.
"It's just a matter of some hundreds meters", I thought.
I was wrong!
I penetrated the dense forest pushing my bike trying to open my way. After 30 minutes of struggle against the wildlife, completely sweat and scratched everywhere I realised I couldn't prosecute on that way and it was better to turn back, but how to find the way back?
It took more than one hour to reach a real trail opening my way, in the meanwhile obviously it started pouring, and consequently I started cursing. Anyway I didn't want to give up following the rail so I did, riding the bike in this extremely bumpy way under the rain. Definitely the end of the former railway didn't worth that much effort, nevertheless it was a matter of proud: I wanna get my goal!!! And I managed reaching an isolated village , I mean ten houses, settled nearby the former railway terminal. Then I realised I didn't want to tremble, jolting and jumping for the all way back and I looked for a divert. I follow another trail, it seemed quite easy till I reached a kind of bridge. There were some rails, stolen by the railway, passing over a channel something like six meters long and four meters deep. It just walking on them keeping the balance, it wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't have the bike. Anyway I tried: I put the bike on one rail and holding it I did one step, then motionless I moved the bike 20 cm, and another step..
When I was almost in the middle I panicked!!!!! I felt to lose the balance, and I froze up in that position.
Shit!
Since I didn't know what to do I start calling help. I knew for sure some kids were around. In fact in one minute, during which I didn't move, two small girls came to me and started giggling watching a white blond guy completely soaked in dire straits keeping a bike with one feet on each rail ! Fortunately they helped me taking the bike. It wasn't that easy even for them walking on the two rails with the bike. But they managed. It became quite dark when my trail joined with the bumpy one where I passed before and not that far from the point where I left it. "Ok, there is no way to skip it" I though So my ass started again being beat while riding, but unfortunately not for short time, since in few hundreds meter my bike punctured!!!!
I had to push in the darkness for almost five km completely soaked and dirty of mud.
I think Enn and Leigh, my travel mates, are still giggling thinking about this adventure I told them when, very pissed off, I reached the hut in the evening. After two months I received an e-mail from Enn where she was still teasing me for this.