Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang, Laos

We spent a couple days riding bicycles around the beautiful city of Luang Prabang. In the center of town is a hill that the Lao people call Mt. Phousi.

After many hours of prodding, Chris managed to convince Lauren to walk up the steps, where we were rewarded with a beautiful 360 degree view of the area.

The buddhist monastery at the top of the hill, like every afternoon, was doing their melodic chants broadcast on loudspeakers for the whole town to hear.

Women create elaborate flower sculptures to sell as offerings to Buddha for the annual water festival.

The Lao are known for their beautiful tapestries, so we toured Ock Pop Tok, an organization that employs weavers at a fair wage, learning about the process from the silk worm to the loom.

Dyed silk strands hang above the plants that give them their color.

We went to the Hmong market, where we met this man selling Hmong medicine, small bags full of different varieties of wood and bark and other plant matter, each combination for a specific ailment. The instructions tell you to boil the medicine in water, or steep it in lao lao, the local rice whiskey. Chris bought a bag and let it steep in lao lao for 24 hours, but found it far too bitter to consume an entire dose (2 shots).

We visited two libraries in town: the Luang Prabang Public Library (Actually run by NGOs and mostly funded the US government), and At My Library, a non-profit organization running a great program. We had the opportunity to chat with the ladies in charge of each and got some great ideas for The Antipodes Collective.

It was a great delight to find the evening food market, where dozens of vendors cram into an alley and sell delicious food. Highlights include lemongrass beef sausage, and homemade Lao potstickers.

Nong Kiaw, Laos - Our Little Paradise

Nong Kiaw - Our favorite place in Laos! 

Nong Kiaw sits on the banks of the Nam Ou River

A little girl cools down in the Nam Ou

Nung kiaow- The period of hard traveling in Northern Laos made for a period of great relief once we got to the breezy, beautiful town of Nung Kiaow. It sits on the banks of the Nam Ou river, surrounded by mountains and caves.

Patok Cave

The Patok Cave served as a hidden headquarters for the Pathet Laos resistance near the end of French colonial rule.

Chris looking out of Patok Cave

The insane staircase leading into the cave.

We bumped into a Canadian couple we shared a taxi with in Hanoi, and spent a few days hiking, swimming, and motorcycling around the area together.

Chris in the sticky-rice field.

The four of us hired a guide to take us hiking to a waterfall and kayaking down the river. We followed a lovely trail leading us through sticky-rice paddies and then jungle up to the base of a waterfall with a clear blue swimming hole and a little picnic area, where we swam and splashed around and had a whale of a time. 

After an hour or so we hiked back down to the river where we had kayaks waiting for us for the trip home. These were the type of kayaks you might put your children in to paddle around a pond. 

With two full grown adults sitting in one, the water line was about two inches below the top of the kayak and, needless to say, it was a wet journey. We spent a good portion of the 1.5 hour trip with the boat totally swamped but luckily we managed not to capsize!

The rare and elusive Little Iida tribe ethnic minority with traditional headdress

View from the Nong Kiaw bridge at sunset

Racing in the Rain - Phongsali to Udomxai, Laos

WARNING: This story is not mom-proof.


We were happy to leave Phongsali and head south, with dreams of civilization and the friendly Lao people that we heard about so often. We woke up early and made it to the old bus station just after sunrise.

The bus we boarded was the oldest in the station. It was a Hyundai from the late 70's, I would guess, and we were the only foreigners on board. We nicknamed it the "battle bus", not knowing how appropriate the moniker would prove to be.

The one-lane dirt road was violently bumpy, to the point that Lauren and I had to brace ourselves against the adjacent seats to keep from flying out of our own..  

A few minutes into the trip, we noticed a steel exhaust pipe header precariously propped above our heads banging away on its metal rack so Chris fastened it down with a bicycle tube. 

The road hugged the side of a steep cliff with countless blind curves that the bus driver tore around like we were in a rally car race, causing us to speculate what would happen if a car or truck was coming at the same time. 

Not long after, we learned the answer to this question. We screamed left around a corner to find an oncoming car competing for the same patch of road. We veered further left and dropped two wheels in the ditch as the car passed. We pulled right to get back on the road but overcompensated and everyone on the bus was convinced we were heading off the cliff. On cue, a chorus of cries crescendoed into a dreadful and hilarious wail. With only inches to spare we veered left again planting two wheels, once more, in the ditch before regaining control of the bus and continuing down the road.

Following this, many of the Lao passengers became quite car sick and proceeded to vomit into plastic bags, one after another, like dominoes. A couple of old Lao women, in an attempt to calm their stomachs, tied their scarves around their heads like a blindfold. This wouldn't have been my first choice in dealing with car sickness and, we learned about 15 minutes later, it wasn't particularly effective for the Lao women either. 

Lauren and I agreed that the Lao were a tough bunch though- no crying or asking the bus driver to pull over, just three simple steps- vom in the bag, tie up the bag, bag out the window.

A few hours later we stopped at a roadside stand for snacks where a young boy was selling something furry tied in a bundle.

On closer inspection, we saw that it was about a dozen dead "squirrels" (We called them squirrels because they looked like nothing we've ever seen, but roughly resembled a squirrel).  A couple of the Lao passengers casually bought a few and brought them back on the bus. Lovely.

During the second half of our trip it started raining. Par for the course, the windshield wipers didn't work. A few minutes into the rain Lauren noticed her shoulder getting wet. This turned into a steady trickle of water coming through the roof onto our seat. 

Evidently, this was not a new problem as the particle board roof was swollen and moldy above our heads. So Lauren put on my rain jacket and was comfortably dressed for the outdoors for the remainder of the trip.

The bus station clerk told us the trip to Udomxai was 8 hrs, and in Laos this usually means 10 hrs. In our case, the trip took 7 hrs thanks to our race-car driver. But really you don't gain any time because you spend the next 3 hours decompressing from the most stressful trip of your life.

Phongsali, Laos - "We're from Spain"

We arrived after two days of travel on the Nam Ou River and by bus to Phongsali, the capital of the north of Laos.

We found very few things to like about poor Phongsali, a depressed town overrun with Chinese investors.

This market is the center of activity in Phongsali.

Highlights include:

- We failed to find a single guesthouse that wasn't completely filthy (like, BIG fresh stains on the sheets) so we finally had to opt for the largest hotel in the town (4 stories!) which is owned by a Chinese man who made his fortune elephant poaching! Even that was filthy, but the big brown stains were on the walls, not the sheets. 

- The bathroom in our hotel had white tile walls, except for one tile next to the toilet which displayed the picture of a naked Chinese woman. Sexy!

- We entered a restaurant where many other people were eating to escape the rain and have a bite and the owner, an elderly woman, refused to serve us, presumably because we were from the West. 

- Our diet for the 2 nights we spent there consisted of primarily instant noodles and hot dogs which a shop owner cooked on a tiny BBQ each night across the street from our hotel. 

- The most well reviewed restaurant in town was in our hotel. We brought our hot dogs in there one night to eat and noticed the doors were bicycle locked shut, the tables were dusty, and half of the dining room was being used for storage. 

- We went for a hike and Lauren cried the whole way up the mountain and it rained on us when we were coming back down.

There are plenty of "restaurants," but they all serve the EXACT same noodle soup- only. 

While walking around town we saw an old lady selling Lao Lao (homemade rice whiskey) and decided to buy a small bottle. The old woman's husband was sitting there so we offered him a drink and immediately realized he had already been enjoying Lao Lao for some time. 

He asked us where we were from and, after we said America (big mistake), he said "America!" and gestured with his hands planes flying over head dropping bombs. Again he said "America!" and pointed an imaginary assault rifle at Chris and made bang bang bang noises with his mouth. (yikes) Then he started naming cities in Vietnam (presumably where he was stationed?) and counting off numbers (1, 2, 3, 4) and gestured the assault rifle again. 

We suddenly felt an urgent need to remove ourselves and hide in the guesthouse. We decided at that point that when talking to drunk old men it was much safer to say we are from Canada or Spain. 

This was the only thing good about Phongsali.

Nam Ou River - International Team!

Boys playing a bacchi-esque game after school in an isolated 500 year old village.

Northern Laos

We left Sapa on a night bus that took us to the border with Laos. We paid our visa fees and our photo fees, then went to the next window and paid our “check-in” fees, then went to the next window and paid our “ebola-check” fees, and then we were in Laos! 

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, 
A tale of a fateful trip 
That started from this tropic port 
Aboard this tiny ship. 

We had been on the bus for about 18 hours by the time we reached Muang Khua, a sleepy town in northwestern Laos. We were on the bus with several German tourists who were all very friendly and spoke better English than us. We followed them to a cheap guesthouse perched over the Nam Ou river and, after 2.5 hours of waiting around for any sign of hotel staff, checked into our room. 

Our guesthouse (right)

We learned that this is the new normal. Compared to Vietnam, it seems difficult to get people to take your money here in Laos. We ordered soup from a woman on the street and before we were finished she had taken off- 20 minutes passed before she came back to take our money.  

The next day, having had no access to internet and relying only on our (outdated and terrible) guidebook, we boarded a boat upriver to a town called Phongsali, with a transfer in Hatsa (Hat Xai). Little did we know, this was the beginning of our soon-to-be Gilligan’s island-style "three hour tour" journey with a Vietnamese couple, a French couple, and a Lao tour guide. The French couple, Aure and Malina (and their hired guide), were on their way to visit a small village where Malina’s father was born, a village we would soon know much more about. 

Photo: Aurelien Dupas

The narrow wooden boat made its way up the muddy river for four hours, navigating through the rocks and rapids, snaking through the untouched jungle. We saw beautiful birds, huge lizards, and monkeys climbing the bamboo stands on a backdrop of endless hills buried with trees and vines in decadent layers of green.

The Chinese have an increasing presence in northern Laos, and their latest project involves the construction of two large dams on the Nam Ou. For us, this meant getting off the boat to be shuttled past the dams by bus, where we would board another boat to take us the rest of the way. Well, we pulled up on the shore where we were supposed to catch the pickup truck and, after two or three phone calls, learned that the second boat had left without us. 

We sat around for a while until the tour guide managed to arrange a different boat for us. We piled into the back of a pickup and bounced our way up the dirt road for an hour or so. We waited for about an hour, slowly chipping away at our water, crackers, and laughing cow cheese.

When the boatman finally showed up, we realized he had drunk a bit too much “happy water” so we passed on that opportunity and sat on the banks of the river while the tour guide negotiated with some unknown Lao men for a couple more hours. 

We sat here for hours.

Finally another boat came down the river and delivered the information that he would only take us part way up the river, to the village where Malina’s father was born. Rather than camping out in B.F. Nowhere, we opted to spend the night in the village along with the rest of our crew. Relived to be on our way, we were once again delayed when the second boatman decided he needed to off-load some cargo in a neighboring village before he loaded us in, so we sat back down and waited another hour.

We arrived in the village just before dark and were greeted warmly by the elders, while the younger villagers stared at us wide-eyed, not sure what to make of our motley crew in their completely foreigner-free community. 

Peeking into the kitchen.

Interior of the house.

We found ourselves in the awkward, yet awesome situation of witnessing the homecoming of Malina, whose father had left the village at the age of 6, but shared the same last name as many of the villagers. We were welcomed by her father's relatives into their home and were fed a tasty Lao meal consisting of chicken parts, vegetable soup, sticky rice, and cucumber, which grows in the shape of a small melon. 

Photo: Aurelien Dupas

Their trusty tour guide translated for us and we learned many interesting things about the 500-year old village and its impending move to higher ground on account of the heightened water level caused by the Chinese dams. We were fascinated by the village's lack of roads which meant that there were no cars, no motorbikes, not even a bicycle anywhere for many miles.

Walking paths only here.

We slept, men and women in separate rooms, until 5:45 am when the roosters started, and the neighbors blasted their bass-heavy tunes, stuck in my head to this day. 

Good morning! 

The local primary school.

After a tour of the local school, Buddhist Stupa, and a delicious meal of the prized "Northern Nam Ou River fish" we finally managed to board a boat for Hatsa.

Photo: Aurelien Dupas

A little hammering on the propeller should fix the problem...

Despite a couple of stops along the way, first for a riverside propeller repair and the second so that the Vietnamese guy could hunt down some unspecified jungle critter with a knife on shore (it - whatever it was- escaped luckily) we did finally make it to the bustling metropolis of Hatsa.

Chris passing the time inside Grand Central Station, Hatsa.

Sapa, Vietnam - Meeting the Hmong

We took an overnight train from Hanoi to Sapa where we met a lovely Norwegian couple with whom we shared stories and gin. The beds were actually quite comfortable in the train and we had a good night's sleep.

The train was great, once we actually got on it. Before that it was a muddy, rainy, mess.

We arrived in Sapa and were immediately taken with its beauty. 

It's nestled in gorgeous mountainous terrain and filled with ethnic minorities including the "black" Hmong, "flower" Hmong, Red Dao, Giay, and many more. 

Red Dao woman.

Hmong women are the most prolific street vendors, trying to sell their delicately embroidered handicrafts, although sometimes their sales techniques are anything but delicate. 

Group of Hmong street vendors.

We encountered the same woman, Yao, a couple times and were drawn to her energy. We cancelled the trek we had booked and hired her to take us trekking instead.

Yao demonstrating traditional Hmong embroidery for Lauren.

Along with Yao came Lala, a thirteen year old Hmong girl training to be a persistent saleswoman and tour guide.

We hiked for two days through amazing picturesque mountains ornamented with waterfalls and rivers cut into valleys. The trails were slick with mud on account of the past week of rain, but Yao had asked for sun for our trek and we received it. 

Yao showed us the indigo plants lining the trails and how you can rub them until your palms turn green and after an hour they have turned dark blue. 

She showed us the different fragrant plants used in Hmong medicine and the 10 foot tall stands of marijuana used for hemp (to make their traditional clothes) and sometimes, reportedly, for smoking. 

We stopped into the village where she lives with her family and  watched her neighbor weave homemade hemp thread into cloth on a loom. 

Yao's husband made us bamboo walking sticks which made the remainder of the hike much easier for the graceless honkys. I became quite attached to my walking stick and was sad to leave it behind. 

We spent the night in the village where Yao's mother lives. We were fed a delicious meal, the highlight being fire-roasted chilies and green tomatoes mashed together in an apparently hundred-year-old wooden mortar and pestle. Of course the cooler climate means the chilis aren't spicy, just dense with flavor, like a concentrated red bell pepper. Su brought out some "happy water" before bed and L and I fell fast asleep. 

12 hours later we woke up to another nice day, our muscles tighter than the day before. We continued on through the terraced hillsides, the rice paddies already harvested and water buffalo bathing in the remaining ponds. L and I decided that almost every moment looked like it could be in a National Geographic piece. 

L had decided to try to piece together a short film about Yao so we stopped periodically to interview her and we ended up learning many interesting things about the Hmong culture and their relationship with the Vietnamese, which is tense.

We also learned about some interesting misconceptions propagated in Sapa with its blend of heavy tourism and very little formal education. For example, when asked, “Where you from?” we would reply, “America.” “Ooh, America, or California?” Hmm.. not California, so America I guess.

We learned that the Hmong people know about three races; Hmong people, Vietnamese people, and Tourist people. When talking to Yao, we got to the topic of Vietnamese-Americans. Yao wanted to know if some of the policemen in America are Vietnamese people, or if they are all Tourist people. We informed her that there are probably some Vietnamese policemen in America, but most policemen are Tourists.