Luang Prabang to Luang Nam Tha

We left Luang Prabang the day before yesterday by taking a seven hour boat trip up the Nam Ou River to Nong Khiaw where we met up with Sian and Jim as planned. The boat was hilarious – one of the passengers remarked that it was more of a Hobbit boat as it was tiny and we were all sat on small seats like the ones from primary school at home. The size of the boat was later explained when it became stuck in a low part of the river and nearly all the people on board had to get out and push. We thought that was crazy until we heard that on the boat the day before they had had a motorbike…(The things you see, eh?). We got there in one piece and the scenery was spectacular but we had the first hint of the coldness that all the guidebooks warn about. The hut had 24 hour electricity but the shower facilities left a bit to be desired and the whole ‘village’ closes down at 9.30. We were all tucked up in our sleeping bag liners early but not before we had hatched a plan to move on first thing in the morning. We hired a minibus to Udomxai and from there got a public bus to Nuang Nam Tha where we are hoping to stretch our legs after an entire day of travel. Both the bus journeys were interesting, the first because we were sharing with two older French men who had bigger budgets than we did and who were keen to go the whole journey on the one bus when it was more within our budget to do it differently. The second bus journey was great because we were squashed into a small bus with as many other people (mostly local) as could fit and then some more. The broken seats were the biggest challenge but sadly there weren’t any chickens running around so I was actually a bit disappointed. We heard a rumour last night when we got here that someone from one of the travel companies has ‘gone missing’ and we confirmed this morning that indeed a businessman who owns the more up-market Boat Landing Guesthouse and the Nam Ha Ecotourism Project has been abducted so the trekking options are thin on the ground as I guess guides etc are out looking for him. We are confident that this is related to a business matter and we are perfectly safe although a bit disappointed that we can’t go kayaking after making the long trip up here. The room we are staying in now is lovely and I am sharing with the lovely Suzi from Manchester and will probably travel back to Laung Prabang with her. Then I am hoping to travel for a day to see the Plain of Jars and after that go down to Southern Laos to see an area called the Four Thousand Islands before I head over to Saigon around the 9th of February. Most of the people that I am with are going to the Gibbon experience not far from here we are now but it is very hard to get a place. It sounds fantastic to travel through the jungle between tree-house-guesthouses from tree to tree on zip lines. My lack of sense of direction is as terrible as ever and may well become something of a memory for my companions but they generally point me in the way to go and I’m OK ;¬)