The glorious early morning sunshine on the karst mountains just across the river from our hotel signalled the commencement of another day of perfect weather for our travels north to Luang Prabang.
We were on the road by just after 08:30 and our first stop was where we crossed the Nam Song River about 20 km upstream from Nang Vieng. The steep escarpments of the karst peaks reflecting in the river’s mirror smooth water was a vivid reminder of our fabulous travels on the Po River in China. Beneath the bridge were numerous quite large fish, probably carp that gather near a river- bank where the locals hand feed them.
Our travels then proceeded to enter an ever climbing road that became more and more narrow and increasingly potholed and frequented by numerous large trucks and freight carrier semis.
The number of tight ‘S’ bends in the road meant that our speed was severely limited particularly when we were caught behind a semi-trailer moving up the steep inclines as snail pace.
There were some highly dangerous over-taking procedures observed but fortunately all went without incident.
We took short stops at a couple of small villages where the residents are referred to as ‘highland’ people and in terms of their religious beliefs they are mostly Spirit believers. The small farms that exist within the mountain valleys are mainly growing sticky rice, peanuts, chillies, bananas, green vegetables and sweet potato. The sticky rice plant does not require the flooded paddy field for production and thrives in this mountainous climate.
At one of the high points near Kasi there was a lookout offering a 360 degree panorama of this spectacular vista. While we were there a film crew with twelve vans and equipment from Romania were recording a segment of a ‘survival’ TV programme involving sixteen young couples traversing South East Asia on next to no funding. The show is due to be screened on the Discovery Channel next year.
At Muang Phu Khun there was a major intersection with the road to the east leading to the infamous war zone called the Plain of Jars some 160 km away.
We wandered through the clothing, shoe and food market at Muang Phu Khun and then had lunch in a nearby dingy little roadside café. In amongst dogs, flies and smokers there was merriment from a group of locals who were enjoying the eating of long white caterpillars extracted from within boiled bamboo sticks.
Our long and winding road continued until we reached an altitude of 1370 m above sea level and then we commenced a tortuous slow descent for the next three hours to eventually arrive at Luang Prabang just on sunset.
We said farewell to our wonderful guide Song and our gallant driver Kobe and wished them well as they proposed to drive the whole distance back to Vang Vieng which would have meant about twelve hours driving in the one day. We strongly advised against this but they had made up their minds and that was it!
We are staying in an old colonial style hotel that is comfortable and has ‘old-world’ charm such that one expects to walk around a corner and bump into Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward or Rudyard Kipling.
We have four days to explore this famous location and tomorrow we meet our new guide and spend most of the day viewing sites in this World Heritage City of Luang Prabang.