An interesting start leads to an interesting trip

I guess I haven't really talked about the trip in and of itself. So here goes.

Ari and Jennine, you might want to skip this and the pictures, since we'll be doing much the same thing in a few weeks.

Thursday morning my dad and I went to the airpot to fly to Phongsaly. We had tickets, but it turns out the flight didn't exist. Not that it was canceled. It wasn't scheduled in the first place.

After some shouting by me (which is counterproductive) I talked very nicely to the women behind the counter and they got us on the 10:30 am flight to Luang Prabang, even though it was technically sold out. The alternative would have been to wait until the next day, when the flight to Phongsaly was scheduled to go.

So a quick change of plan. We called to the hotel in LP that we would be staying at over the weekend, got them to send a van to pick us up at the airport and drive us North. So instead of hiring a boat in Hat Sa (up near Phongsaly on the map) and floating down the Nam Ou to Luang Prabang, we hired a boat in Nong Khiaw (North of LP, inside the circle) and went north to about the top of the circle, then came back down to LP, all by late Saturday morning.

We got to Nong Khiaw about 1:00 pm and I started the negotiations with the boat guys. There's a boat cooperative of some sort, where the man in the booth negotiates the price, then whoever's turn it is takes the fare. So we told them what we wanted to do, they quoted $280, we countered with $160, and settled on $200. We got a husband and wife team who live near Nong Khiaw with their six kids. The older kids look after the younger ones when they are off on the river.

Thursday we motored upriver about 90 minutes to Muang Ngoi Kao (Old Ngoi Town, named so because once the bridge went in in Nong Khiaw, the district seat moved there, so now Nong Khiaw is also called Muang Ngoi, making the one up the river with no roads to it the 'old' one. Makes sense, no?) where we were greeted with preparations for the end of Buddhist Lent celebration. We found our $1 luxury accomodations (actually, it found us, in the form of a 15 year old girl named Lak who talked us into following her through her family's yard to their 5 room shangri-la).

We walked around the town a bit, which means up and down the one main walkway. We headed to the town square and town temple at sundown for the celebrations, which were relatively muted, and conisted mostly of kids throwing firecrackers. But it was still fun.

We got up the next day and headed further North up the river. We stopped at Jop Jaem Village and another village whose name I forget, which was fantastic. Plenty of pictures below. We'll go back to Jop Jaem with Ari and Jennine next month to deliver many pictures, and probably plenty of books, pencils and notepads for the school.

After about 4 hours we turned around and came back downriver and stopped in Muang Ngoi Kao for a beer, at which point we picked up some passengers for the return to Nong Khiaw (story below).

We spent the night in Nong Khiaw at our $2 resort. It's a beautiful crossroads, where the river meets the road amidst canopied mountains and limestone karsts. We got up the next morning for a 7:00 am departure, to find that our boat drivers couldn't make it, and would be conveniently replaced by a guy named ThiThuey who lives about 40 minutes from Luang Prabang. No worries, because his boat was newer, had a higher roof, more comfortable chairs, was quieter, and was faster.

The 5 1/2 hour ride to Luang Prabang was broken up by a stop at a Buddha Cave at the confluence of the Nam Ou and the Mekong where we met up with Marilyn and Katherine. A Buddha cave because it is filled with thousands of Buddha statues that have been left by pilgrims over the years.

Luang Prabang was lovely, but maybe Katherine can tell you all about it, as she was there longer. Suffice it to say, the beds at the Sayo Guesthouse in LP were more comfortable than those at the $1 or $2 hotels up North, the food was better, the cable TV better, etc.

All in all, the river trip was pretty damn good.