08/12/2026
Continuing the tale of Backpacking in Laos...
**Luang Nam Tha or Bust — Laos, Part II**
*Northern Laos. March, 2005.*
"Adrian’s face was ashen as he returned to the warmth of our crowded bamboo hut. Bowe and I had been enjoying the camaraderie of our Lao hosts while sampling lao-hai on a distinctly chilly evening. The second evening of our trek through the upland villages of northern Laos had been exciting and welcoming. But our Swiss friend’s expression spoke of shock and fear. We leaned forward to hear his tale…"
Bowe and I had survived our river voyage up the Nam Tha. A long day of multiple boat transfers and a three-hour *saengthaew* trip laden with pigs, ducks, and a nauseous puppy eventually brought us to Luang Nam Tha in northwestern Laos.
We spent a few days trying to find a village trek that suited what we were looking for, while also fielding persistent sales pitches from Akha women selling handicrafts to the new *falang* arrivals in town. All in all, it was evident that Luang Nam Tha had already appeared on the traveller radar and was beginning its transformation into something of an alternate Chiang Mai for eco-tourists. Reports of village visits with plenty of waiting souvenir-sellers surfaced through our conversations with other travellers. Bowe and I considered our options and decided to continue onward.
Our departure from Luang Nam Tha came via a washboard road littered with occasional craters. Ample evidence of Lao road conditions could be seen in the liberal offerings of sick-bags spread strategically along the roof hooks on the ceiling of the bus. Nevertheless, we survived our journey to Udom Xai, a less-than-glamorous transport hub, where we transferred to an open-sided truck and proceeded to Muang Khua in the north of Laos.
Our less-than-fortuitous timing had us making this journey on a day when the temperature had dropped to a rare five degrees Celsius. Bowe and I huddled among our fellow passengers in the back, using shared bodily warmth to keep from freezing in the biting wind. Three hours of chattering teeth and shaking limbs later, we arrived at our wee destination, close to the Chinese border. The town was composed of bamboo huts spread along the dusty road, a central market area, and access to the Nam Ou River, the traditional transport link to other parts of the country. A conveniently placed sign pointed the way to our guesthouse for the evening, the appropriately named Nam Ou Guesthouse, situated looking over the river.
As we settled into the open-air restaurant attached to the guesthouse, we took note that nearly all the non-locals in town seemed to be patrons of our chosen inn. We were surrounded mostly by a Swedish tour group, with a few remaining tables occupied by a scattering of independent travellers. It was there that we met Adrian, a Swiss fellow looking for hiking companions to join him on a trek in the Muang Khua area.
A hand-written advert had been posted by Khammane, a local guide, offering 1-, 2-, or 3-day treks from Muang Khua into the surrounding villages. Adrian had already gone to the house described as Khammane’s residence, left a message, and was awaiting his arrival to discuss trip details. And so it was that Bowe and I fell into a new opportunity to do some trekking, after assuming it was not going to happen.
Khammane arrived: a lean man with a jaunty cap, soft voice, and kind face. It turned out that he was the local high school chemistry teacher, doing guide work on the side to help support his family. He outlined the rough itinerary for his proposed three-day trek and summarized it with a set price of $15 U.S. per day, per person, everything included. Who were we to turn down such a stroke of good fortune? A mere five days into our stay in Laos and we were already embracing our appraisal of the country: laidback, go-with-the-flow, and full of surprises. Adventure awaited.
We were up early to get a head start on the trekking day. Khammane arrived at the guesthouse at the pre-determined hour and introduced us to his aide-de-camp for the voyage, a young man sporting a red baseball cap and yellow flip-flop sandals. We wound up nicknaming him John for no particular reason except that the three of us could not remember his Lao name, which says rather more about us than about him.
We set off with full daypacks into the market of Muang Khua to purchase our food supplies. Quite frankly, the choice of vendor was mostly how we made our purchase decisions, given that each of them seemed to carry more or less the same goods. We eventually settled on a wonderful older woman with a big smile and kind eyes. She carried on a very animated conversation with us, pointing randomly to vegetables, Bowe’s long hair — still causing occasional confusion about his gender — my impressively sun-reddened colouring, and so on. We smiled, nodded, repeated our *Sabadii’s* like beginners, and eventually made to leave. Nearby women looked on with interest as we loaded up our bags.
Our rations included assorted vegetables, some chocolate snacks, and pens for the village children we would be visiting. We made our way toward the town centre, about 20 metres from the market, to jump on the *saengthaew* that would carry us toward the village where we would start our hike. Luckily, I remembered it might be well-advised to take some toilet paper with us. I suspected the facilities in the villages would be basic.
We boarded our mechanical chariot, bound for our starting point. Khammane had organized our *saengthaew* as a sort of charter bus. Heading south, we stopped at a town Bowe and I had passed through the day before on our chilly journey to Muang Khua. The truck stopped and we hopped out, following Khammane obediently to a part of the village where a large vat of bubbling liquid awaited.
Adrian, Bowe, and I looked askance at one another. The fear was not that we were about to be boiled alive. The fear was much more immediate and realistic: we were going to be expected to drink something at nine o’clock in the morning.
Lao-lao.
Our stomachs rebelled prematurely.
A village woman was tending the distillation of the liquid in preparation for the New Year festivities that would come early in the next month. *Pi Mai*, the Lao New Year, typically involved several days of throwing water at one another and consuming generous portions of *lao-lao*. We got to sample the new batch, distilled through a wonderfully basic yet elegant barrel design.
With a small crowd of village children hanging about nearby, amused and curious about the new *falang* in town, we dutifully raised the lao-lao to our lips and supped of its power.
Ergh. Belly roll.
“Fai-mai,” I coughed, a recently acquired Lao expression referring to fire that Lonely Planet had seen fit to put in its dictionary. No doubt they had used the same term once they had slipped this esophagus-burner down the throat. The woman tending the brew cracked a broad grin and laughed. She looked suspiciously akin to the woman we had bought the vegetables from in Muang Khua.
With warm bellies and a mild buzz — enforced after an obligatory extra shot of demon liquid — we tripped back to the truck. Our couple of extra passengers waited patiently for the grinning *falang* to scramble aboard, and off we went, leaving the clucking chickens, barking dogs, and waving children in our dust.
Another half hour on the road brought us to our starting point. It was another small village with familiar sights: chickens, dogs, children, and all that. Khammane greeted some of the villagers, and one woman brought us along toward a bamboo bridge that connected the banks of the river and sent us on our way. We negotiated our way across the wooden boards, waved goodbye to the children watching from the other side, and proceeded up a track and a particularly steep hill.
Very steep.
My Mexican poncho was off in no time. Sweat trickled quickly and in far greater quantities than I wished. I looked at my trekking partners. Bowe was fine, but then again he was a sprightly 28 years old. Adrian looked to be in similar shape to me, literally and figuratively. John was probably around 16 years old, and this seemed to be a walk in the park — or hills — for him. Khammane, older than us and clearly far fitter, essentially floated up the path.
I questioned my choice to have a couple of quiet Beerlao each night since my arrival in the country.
Adrian and I were not to know it yet, but these three days would entail a number of sharp ascents and descents that would test our mettle. Perhaps this is why Khammane had fortified us with the lao-lao before the journey began. Fortuitously, as the sweat became commonplace, my fatigue wore off and I started to embrace the cooler temperatures that greeted us as each step gained us more altitude. Cool temperatures were something of a novelty after the first two months in Southeast Asia.
As we ascended into the low cloud of the hills, Khammane pointed out that the haze was largely smoke from slash-and-burn agriculture in the region. The Lao government was attempting to reduce the o***m trade that still operated among some upland communities. Slash-and-burn was one strategy being used, while NGOs and the UN were also trying to encourage more environmentally sound alternatives, including the benefits of planting crops other than poppy. Our views across the surrounding hills and the villages far below were obscured by smoke clinging to the slopes.
Our first stop of the day was for lunch, and it was our first experience visiting one of the upland villages in Laos. Khammane greeted people as we entered what was becoming an increasingly familiar set-up of bamboo huts, some raised on platforms and others on ground level. Excitement brewed among the local children, and we heard the now familiar refrains of *falang* and *sabadii* echoing through the dusty lanes.
Khammane guided us to a hut, ostensibly the home of the village elder. Preparations were quickly made, and we were shown where to drop our packs and sit down. Food was brought out and cooking began. Khammane acted as translator as the elder and his family asked us our names and where we were from. For some reason, the fact that a Canadian was present seemed — and would continue to seem throughout the trip — to be something of a novelty. Questions about where Canada was and how long it would take to get there invariably followed. Evidently, they already knew about Switzerland and the States.
We were also asked if we could help treat a condition suffered by the village elder. Adrian and I deferred to Bowe’s knowledge of first aid, but it was not something we could help with. The village had had some experience with westerners before, and those visitors had been doctors. There seemed to be some expectation that we might know too. Alas, we did not.
Our meal began after a rattan table was placed in the middle of our haphazard circle on the floor. Bamboo containers full of sticky rice were placed within easy reach, and communal platters and bowls of unrecognizable food were set on the wicker platform. We were prompted to dig in, using sticky rice in one hand to pick up vegetable-like morsels from one platter and soaking up broth-like victuals from the other. All of it was really quite tasty and fortifying. Energy seeped back into our tired muscles. Our sweat-soaked backs, which had grown chilly with rest, warmed to the satisfying fare.
We still had no idea what we were eating. Until Bowe picked out a wee paw of bone from his broth, that is.
Hmmm.
A broad grin from Khammane greeted our discovery. He searched his knowledge of English for a moment and then said, quizzically, “I think it is what you call… squirrel?”
Bowe shrugged, took some more, and said, “Not too bad!”
I’d have to agree. It was quite tasty.
Our meal complete, our quintet of trekkers bade farewell after many thanks to the elder and the other villagers. We gave out some of the pens we had purchased that morning in Muang Khua. The children, who had been watching us eat with much intrigue, surprised us with a cleverly designed mask that they wore for us, taking turns, before we departed. An extra bit of cardboard had been cut away to form a face, and some kind of marker had been used to add a beard and moustache to the mask. Bowe and I had some admirers for our facial hair.
The kids laughed and giggled as they swapped the mask around while we made our way to the outskirts of the village. We laughed with them, taking some photos and showing them the results on our digital cameras. The children squealed with more delight. Leaving on a high note and full of yummy squirrel lunch, we headed further up into the hills.
As our trek took us further into the high country of Phongsali province, it struck us again how different Laos felt compared to other countries we had visited in Southeast Asia. Thailand and Vietnam had populations of roughly 66 million and 81 million people respectively, while Laos had roughly 6 million people in a similar area of land. Now that we were far above the toil of the river towns, we were alone and soaking in the vastness and isolation of the hills. I found this very soothing.
Our afternoon of hiking through the upper reaches of the hills was much easier once we had reached our high point. We made quick time along the paths that cut through the thick growth of plants on either side, except where we broke out into wide swaths of previous slash-and-burns. As the sun cut across the sky toward the end of the day, we descended into a gully in the side of the hill, formed by water ages ago. A river still ran its way down toward the valley below, and it was obviously used by the nearby village as a bathing area.
We realized this a little too late and gave people time and space before continuing onward. There was some mutual embarrassment, but also curiosity. The newness of the foreign element seemed to bring out the friendly nature of the villagers, and we were soon being shown a recently captured pygmy slow loris, a small, big-eyed mammal related to the primates and capable of a venomous bite. The villagers had trapped the creature and tied it to a large bamboo stick using a piece of string.
Its big mournful eyes looked back at us. We were curious and fascinated, but also saddened by the sight of such an extraordinary animal kept tied up. Khammane told us the lorises were sometimes captured by villagers in hopes of being sold, though more often they might be used for food. I had to develop a bit of a thick skin around animal concerns while travelling in Laos, though looking back, this is one of those moments I remember with mixed feelings.
We took photos, and I am not entirely proud of that now, but in the moment we were still young backpackers trying to process what we were seeing. After the encounter with the loris, we followed Khammane onward to the village of Kiawkam, home to the bathers we had accidentally surprised. The entry to the village was over a basic wooden fence that surrounded the main huts. Short wooden ladders provided access over the fence. The imminent arrival of the *falang* had clearly been broadcast ahead of us. The children of Kiawkam were giddy with anticipation of their new guests.
It was already late in the day, and we were led to the hut of the head of the village to put down our packs, rest our feet, and be welcomed by the elders. But as in so many similar occasions, we had barely hauled off our packs and positioned ourselves toward the back of the hut when the children gathered quickly around us. Time for magic tricks and digital camera fun.
It turned out that we would be the first *falang* to actually spend the night in this village, so the novelty for the kids was overwhelming. Before we knew it, we had the Great Wall of Kiawkam children in front of us. It was very amusing. Although we had some concern that the floor of the hut was going to collapse from the weight, the children did their best not to actually make contact with us, in spite of the growing pressure from behind. By the time the digital cameras were being shown, the wall was wavering back and forth, imminently ready to tumble down into a pile of laughing children and surprised *falang*. Surprisingly, this did not actually happen.
Entertaining the children with our emerging grasp of Lao took its toll on our fatigued minds and bodies. As food was prepared and brought in, the children gradually drifted back to their own huts and supper times. We were joined by our host, the head of the village — who appeared somewhat younger than the three of us — and his mates. A robust meal of *khao niaw*, chicken (?), and vegetable matter similar to burdock root was followed by *lao-hai* time. We were now quite familiar with the process of gathering around the clay pot full of fermented rice, filled with water, and sucking furiously on the four or five bamboo straws poking out of the vessel in an effort to empty the liquid as quickly as possible.
Now, having three *falang* come and stay in your village for the first time is pretty exciting stuff. The topping up of the lao-hai got faster and faster. Soon, everyone seemed to be having a merry old time. It was somewhere around this point that Adrian excused himself, making his way into the darkness outside to answer a call of nature.
We continued our frivolity as our Lao and English conversations seemed to become much more understandable to everyone involved. Thank you, *lao-hai*. And then the door to the hut burst open as a panting and mortified Adrian returned, ashen-faced. Our sudden silence and wide-open stares obviously said: What, pray tell, had happened?
Simply this: Adrian had made his way beyond the primary fence-line of the village to the animal enclosure — really, the pig enclosure. We had been assured that if the need to urinate came up, it was easy enough to find a spot and feel a lot better. However, if you were to have a bit of trouble with your stomach and bowels as a result of, say, ingesting some questionable squirrel, you needed to make your way to the pig enclosure.
With impenetrable darkness surrounding him, Adrian hunched down to go about his duty when the sudden snorting of pigs — who knew the sound of an upcoming meal — caught him by surprise. The snorting became harrumphing, and the harrumphing became a general sound of melee as a drove of pigs honed in on Adrian, hunkered down and sorely exposed, as it were, to danger.
Let’s just say Adrian made like a Swiss train and was off over the fence before the pigs had a chance.
Mind you, the pigs were not after Adrian exactly, but he was not about to risk being caught in the feeding frenzy. Wide-eyed and heart thumping like a bunny, Adrian burst into the hut to our quizzical stares, and this was the story that spilled out of him — poor choice of phrase, perhaps, but here we are.
Adrian finished his tale and we greeted it with about three seconds of silence, whereupon Khammane, Bowe, a couple of others who understood the gist of the story, and I broke into huge fits of laughter. We tried to stop the tears streaming from our eyes long enough to tell the others, but we had to wait until Khammane was able to translate. Once he managed, there was another general outbreak of mirth from our Lao hosts.
All good times really, aided and abetted by *lao-hai*.
So, potential Laos trekker, heed this warning: questionable squirrel can lead to voracious pigs.
Bet you’ve never heard that used in a sentence before.
