Roosters greeting the day were pretty hard to ignore so I got up and took another walk around the village. There’s a lot of early activity as people are preparing for the day ahead. Fires are lit, food prepared and lots of sweeping up in the house and streets. Most of the homes have dirt floors but they really are kept clean if that makes any sense. I walked over to the local wat (temple) and heard a monk singing to himself. He was also sweeping all around the outside of the temple and then the sidewalk leading to the gate. I said hello to him and he said the same. I got back to the hotel in time to meet the others for breakfast. I heard the big drum from the wat and thought the monk(s) would be walking to collect offerings from the people. It seems that in this small village the people bring food to the temple instead.
After breakfast we loaded up again into a nicer boat for the return trip to Nong Kiew. The bags were collected from storage at the River Side Resort. The security guard recognized me as “Viet Nam” as I’ve been sporting a military pith helmet. I had to have a picture taken with him. This was after I saw a kid wearing and Illini shirt when we got off the boat. Small world – I’m sure he had no idea why I wanted a picture with him.
We had 2 vans – 2 couples in each and we headed towards Luang Namtha. It was supposed to be a 7 hour ride with 4 stops to visit different villages. The road was so bad that we only made 2 stops – with a forced stop of around ½ hour to wait for the road to be repaired. I struck up a conversation with 3 kids from Norway that were on a 5 month trip around most of the world after their high school graduation. Their English was perfect – makes you wonder why we don’t speak other languages better.
This road was pretty bad and we bounced around quite a bit. Eventually we arrived at the Boat Landing Guesthouse and it is spectacular. Nice cabins, hot water, lots of electricity and another fabulous meal. This Laotian food is simply amazing! I may never use utensils again – the whole grab some sticky rice and pick up the other stuff with the rice is really easy to get used to.
The rest of the group goes off on their trek to stay overnight in a local village tomorrow morning so Connie and I will be by ourselves for the rest of our trip. Our guide for the past 4 days is heading off with them as well so it will be good bye to them all at breakfast. We’ll be sad to see them go but we have a great day planned for ourselves. Another guide is meeting us at 9:00 for a 6 hour bike ride through and around Luang Namtha. As always, stay tuned……
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