A short ferry ride across the Mekong and we were in Huaxay, Laos. Luckily Swiss people do not need a visa (save money) if they stay 15 or less days, felt like a nice tax reimbursement.
Most tourists travel from Huaxay by slowboat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. Since we wanted to get away from the main crowds we first headed east instead of south. The guidebook describes Luang Namtha as the north’s most touristy town. Well, if this little town is touristy how calm are the others? Luang Namtha has three parts, the old town for the locals, the new town part for western tourists and the new town part for Chinese. The part for the western tourists can be explored within 10 minutes and contains mainly guesthouses and tour agencies.
Most prices in Laos are based on the number of participants or passengers. We first learned that lesson at the bus station. According to our book a tuk-tuk ride to the city costs 10’000kip per person. The driver however wanted 25k each. Why? Because we were only two and the 10k are based on 5 passengers… We decided to wait for other passengers, but for one hour, nothing happened. Eventually it became clear, that due to low season no more interested passengers would show up soon and we got the ride for 10k each.
Same for the excursions starting from Luang Nathma; All the prices are based on the number of tourists. The agencies write on black boards outside their offices, which tours do already have people booked on and how many others would be needed to reach the target price per person. The evening before the trip starts the interested people come to the office and check, if there are enough people for the target price or if they will do it anyhow with less people for a higher price per person. This clever system might work very well in high season, in low season however it is pretty hard to find many people especially as there are so many different offerings, preferences and agencies. We teamed up with a single German traveller and booked a kayak-trekking tour for the next days.
Hoping that more people would sign up, we postponed the departure and used our extra day to explore the surroundings by motorbike. Compared to the huge rental contracts in NZ or the US, the ones here are pretty straightforward; 5 rules, this is it. Since the rules do not cover any parts about gravel roads (pretty impossible to avoid them here) we headed back- and cross-country, enjoying the views, little villages and temples.
The next day our kayak-trekking adventure started. We wanted to get off the beaten track and we for sure succeeded.
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