Pace of Laos

Beautiful Lahu girl.

It took me three days to get to my destination in Laos from Sapa. In total, I spent 24 hours in a bus to make a distance of around 400 km. But once across the border, you could immediately feel that you were in a different country. The pace got slower, people smiled more and the atmosphere just felt nicer. I didn't need to travel alone as I was accompanied by a group of people escaping the cold of Northern Vietnam just like me.

Setting a banana leaf lunch table in the forest of Nam Ha national park. Menu: sticky rice, omelette and veggies.

I finally got to Luang Namtha close to the border with China in Northeastern Laos. Although I again found myself in the rain, I booked a 2-day trek to a Lahu village through an ecological travel agency. Eco-tourism is actually a big thing in Laos and half of the money coming from tourism comes from eco-traveling (meaning that a large share of the money from tours goes to local villages). The trek was nice and visiting the local Lahu people was much more interesting than in Sapa. Our communication was restricted to taking photos and showing them to the children. A Dutch women's magasine was also very popular among the locals.

Life in the Lahu village was calm, children were playing with some simple wooden toy they were throwing around, men were gone working, young girls circled around us shyly. Our greatest interest was obviosuly in the "reproduction houses" (below) as we started calling them. These very small huts were Lahu's love hotels. As the whole family lives under one roof, in one big room, the little houses were there for some privacy (we of course imagined some handcuffs, Playboy magasines, and other accessories to be found there).

Finally, after enough of rice wine ("happy water" or lao lao), the international language of music entertained as well through the evening when the whole village joined us in our hut. The small cup with rice wine went around as long as there was something to drink. Memories about the evening were only to be found in the photos the next morning; rice wine had surprised the trekkers big time but whatever had happened it made us a great group of travellers enjoying each other's company. And here I am in Huay Xai with my fellow Quebequoise trekker waiting for a boat to take us down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.