JOURNEY IN LAOS PART 5

We are now heading to the northwest. By now we feel like veterans on the local bus, but unfortunately there is always a surprise around each corner. Every bus trip had unexpected delays. This time the problem comes from a big truck broken down in the middle of the small mountain road. The only way around it is to dig a new path on the side of the road but with small-borrowed spades, it takes forever. It does give us time to check a close-by village where the farmers were in the process of milling corn. Many times we got cought in mud-slides and floods blocking the roads, a common situation during the rainy season, but so far today the weather has been dry.

Next stop, the National Protected area of Luang Nam Tha, which is located in a stunning unsploilt primary forested area. We travelled around to the surrounding villages. We discovered that this area was formerly used to grow opium. As well as finding other varieties of beautiful weavings, we also found fascinating old tools and implements used during the opium trade days.

One problem with those long bus journeys is to find a place in the middle of the jungle to go to the loo. It's not so hard for men since they can use the side of the road, but it's a bit trickier for ladies... As soon as you leave the road, you can be sure to come back with your legs full of leeches. On this journey, I didn't have to venture so far into the bush since I (MaryPat) found a low road sign to perch behind. The exotic sign read "We are proud to have tigers around here".

For the past few days the weather has been terrible. It has rained non-stop. From Luang Nam Tha we bused on to Muang Sing where we visited more ethnic villages in the area on pushbikes. We had plans to go to Xien Kok to a monthly fair attended by ethnic groups from Burma, China and Thailand but the fair had been cancelled, so we decided to head to Udomxai.

Udomxai is a bustling market town since it is a stopover hub for people moving between China, Laos & Vietnam. We expected our bus journey to take 4 or 5 hours, but the usual unexpected was of course just around the corner... Massive flooding had occurred throughout the region over-night. It was devastating to see houses and sometimes complete villages washed out along our way. The rice fields were destroyed and the road was covered over with mud from landslides. As we approached Udomxai the situation worsened. We reached a long line of parked-up trucks. We walked past them to check on the road condition. At first we thought the problem came from electric poles and wires lying in the middle of the road, but further down we saw a huge mud-slide that hadn't been cleared and no trucks on the other side, which meant that there was more trouble ahead.