Eastbound: Phongsali to Luang Prabang

Current location: Vang Vieng, Laos

Once I got my bowels under control again I did a light overnight trekking trip down to one of the tribal villages that surround Phongsali with a couple from New Zealand and our guide, Tuey.

The small village was a collection of wooden houses standing on stilts next to a small river and surrounded by rice fields and the mountains. Life there was centered around farming, and when we arrived in the afternoon every able body seemed to be working on the fields, only the elderly stayed behind to look after the kids.
Dogs, cats, pigs, chicken and ducks ran about in the centre square, and while that is a common sight all over Laos, somehow it seemed so much more appropriate there. Also, you know you're out in the sticks when you see naked kids play in the mud with the piglets.
Just before nightfall the people returned from the fields to have dinner, a Beer Lao and maybe a shot or two of lao-lao, the local rice whisky before going to sleep early in order to wake up at the crack of dawn to head back to the fields again.
We woke up with our hosts, had breakfast and as they headed for the fields to work, we crossed the fields and entered the jungle again for a few hours of sweating, mosquito swatting and leech checking before we reached a main road and caught a bus back to Phongsali.
The next morning I rode my bike down to the river, loaded my bike on a boat and five hours later I was back in Muang Khua. I stayed the night in Muang Khua, drinking Beer Lao by the river with the kiwis who took the same boat down, and in the morning took off towards Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and boasts a shit ton of cool stuff for culture vultures and history geeks, but as you might already know, I'm neither. So I just spent the night and continued my journey south in the morning. Besides, I'd already visited the temples and stupas the first time I was in LB six years ago and I'm pretty sure they haven't changed much since.