South East Asia Experience

From the Laos border town Huay Xai, I took a 2-day slow boat trip to Luang Prabang. By the time I stepped out of the overcrowded boat with hundreds of noisy western tourists after the first day, I decided to detour and go the local way. At Pakbeng, I befriended a local university student who let me stay in her 'new' family guesthouse. I joined her family for dinner that night. Next morning, we went to the morning market and she sent me off in a minibus to Odomxai.

Like many other small towns in northern Laos, Odomxai striked me as rural China as I walked down the main street looking for a guesthouse. The large Chinese and Vietnam population settled years ago show their prosperity with gated 2-story concrete houses along the main street, as compared to the Laos who stay in wooden and bamboo houses on dirt roads. High trunks carrying construction materials from China are common sight. There are not much to do here since I'm only passing by. So I walked up to the temple to watch sunset.

The following day, after a bus ride with beautiful scenery from Odomxai to Pekmong, and pick-up truck to Nong Kiew where the road construction had stopped. A 45-minute boat ride along Nam Ou (River Ou) later, I arrived in Muang Ngoi. Not knowing anything about it except it was recommended by my guidebook.

It was love at first sight. Surrounded by limestone mountains and a beautiful river with water strikingly clear, Muang Ngoi is what I leave my home for. It was a place to forget about stress, unhappiness and worries. I dropped my backpack and swinged around on the hammock outside my $2/night room, watching locals and naked children bathing and laughing in the river and secretly wish that I can stay forever...

There is no advertisment, no cars, no motorcycles, no mobile reception and no internet here. Most people still rely on farming, fishing and hunting for a living. Satellite TVs showing mostly Thai /Chinese TV shows, music videos, movies and football games are most people nightly entertainment. Because of my limited Lao single-word vocabulary, most people talked about Hong Kong movie stars with me.

Chicken fed on uncooked rice. Cats and dogs walk around freely looking for leftover food. Ducks walk down to the river for daily swim. Herds of buffalos bath and lay under the sun to dry off.

Next morning, I trekked to the nearby Tom Khang Cave where locals hide inside for 12 years during the Vietnam War when Americans bomb this area for no particular strategic reason. We lunched in a small village with a few Canadian French, visited more villages and headed back.

My next venture is a fishing and camping trip. I followed the local fishermen upstream, watched them fish the traditional way using a net, fruitlessly for a few times. Finally, we caught two small fish. My guide used his multiuse knive to split and tied the fish skillfully on the bamboo and placed carefully on the fire. With fish soup were made with fresh herb picked nearby, bamboo shoot purchased from floating merchants, and of course, sticky rice, we dined with our hands under a million stars.

A few days later, I did an overnight trekking with a taiwanese girl whom I met at the Gibbon Experience but travelled separately until now. We trekked uphill for hours and finally arrived at a village called 'Kiawkan'.

Exhausted, we joined the locals at their good-luck festival right away and drank moonshine straight from the jar with a 1m straw. It is a tradition to circulate Lao Lao (local moonshine) or Beer Lao during lunch or dinner. We had a delicious family dinner at the chief's house and talked over Chinese radio stations before going to sleep. More Lao Lao of course... Next morning, we watched breakfast prepared over wooden fire, filled our stomach and headed back downhill to Muang Ngoi.

Time flies here. There is always something to do. One morning, the hunters drowned a pocupine and we all helped pucking the needles, cleaned and cooked. Everyone treat me like family.

Other days, I helped out at my friend's restaurant as waitress, watched and learned food preparation and cooking in a small and basic kitchen. (While most of us would not even know what to begin with to cook given the facilities here, 'professional' locals make it look so easy.)

Sometime, I'm invited to dinners at local fishermen houses when big fishes are caught while other times, I indulged myself on noodle made fresh from sticky rice. Then drained my energy playing with little children.

Life should be simple afterall. I think I found my happiness and my future home. It must be fate that took me to Muang Ngoi.

After spending almost a week in Pai, I took an overnight minibus to the border Chong Khong and crossed into Laos. While I was still in Pai, my new friend, Jea, a 20-something girl who works at an internet cafe and makes jewelry for sale part-time, ethusiastically told me about something called the 'The Gibbon Experience' in the border town, Huayxai, of Laos. So instead of following the rest of the 'falang' (foreigners) to take the slow boat to Luang Prabang. I requested about availability for myself. And sure enough, they squeezed me in the following day. Even with a slight fever and sinus, I was determined to spend the unexpected expense.

The owner of this company, Jeff from France, had dedicated the past 12 years to get the government to set up a national park in the northern part of Laos, where forests are still pristine enough, compared to the overlogging in the neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, by companies in China. After 10 years of hard work, Jeff and friends had a brillant ideas of building treehouses around the forests and linking them with ziplines so people can have a bird-eye view of the forest.

An unusual morning shower postponed our departure, but they doesn't deter our drivers' desire for speed on a very bumpy and slippery road in the jeep. We arrived in a very poor village hours later and started immediately trekking across corn fields and uphill to the main station where we were greeted by two hyperenegetic monkeys and 1-year-old asian bear.

After a brief intro, our group strapped on our zipping equipment and zipped into the first treehouse. Due to my sinus, I stayed in the first treehouse while the others kept going. There I met two New Zealand women who are cycling thru Laos and an American woman taking a break from her journalist work in Nepal. We decided to zip around freely and tried our luck on spotting the black gibbons.

An hour of walking through bamboo forests did not allow us to see much of anything. In fact, gibbons jump from tree to tree quickly and extremely difficult to spot. But we did hear their loud noise. That's probably enough for us.

While we were having delicious family-styled Lao food for dinner, a civet appeared on the brance right in front of us. Although I like to quietly observe the forest that night, busy dinner conversations had overrided my plan.

Next morning, I was waken up by the sounds in the jungle, 50m above ground in a misty fog. Breakfast and fruits were served promptly. I birdwatched and spotted some amazing beautiful birds with bright-colored beak, head or tail, joyfully searching for their own breakfast.

After a brief lunch, I zipped to another treehouse to join a small film crew preparing to document 'the Gibbon Experience'. At last, a moment of silence that I had hoped for. We stayed still and quiet for hours before playing cards and dinner. Early the following morning, the crew played a recording of gibbon calling. Surely after a few minutes, the real gibbons call back. I enjoyed my two-second 'experience' of a gibbon jumping from one tree to another at least 100m away from us.

After having a lovely western breakfast with the crew, and by this I mean toast with nutella, I zipped back to the base station and hanged out with my new monkey friends before trekking back to the village for departure. Of all the time I spend watching Animal Planet at home, this experience had worth more than I had expected.