Phongsaly

Dien Bien Phu, located in the extreme North East of Vietnam near the border with Laos, is a historical landmark of Vietnamese recent history. Indeed, in this lovely valley (after harvest the mix of colours in the fields was a great sight from the aircraft) the Vietnamese won one important battle against the French army that pretty much ended their colonisation of Vietnam. Well, the city does not live its reputation as it’s a very ordinary Vietnamese provincial town, composed of a lively market, many communist style buildings, a well-documented museum and on top a French memorial which is … ruined.

The next morning, we departed for another epic bus journey directly to Phongsaly. As no travel books neither websites mentioned this option, we were lucky to discover a direct link. And it seems it’s a hit with the locals because this 20-seater bus was literally full beyond capacity. At its peak, we must have been 30 persons in the bus, that was on top fully loaded of cargo. After all it was not so bad in comparison to our Nepali experience. We left early in the morning and it was “only” a full day bussing. At the border, the visa process went smooth and we realised that Laotian administration was well ahead of European airlines in regards to ancillary revenue. So many hidden charges there were: the visa stamping fee, the week end surcharge, the contribution to tourism fee (they are indeed very inventive!!). Theses few dollars for each “component” added up to a nice amount.

After passing the border the road to Phongsaly was actually better than we expected - it was written in blogs and guidebooks that we would be facing horrible dirt tracks but it was in fact asphalt road. Once arrived, we were dropped off at one of the hotels in town, the Viphaphone hotel, managed by westerners since a few months. Nothing too special, but given where we were (the middle of freaking nowhere), we were glad to have something somehow clean. That evening we met a French couple, Justine and Julien and enjoyed together a dinner at the most smiling and welcoming restaurant in Asia (I hope you sense my irony).

The next morning, we checked the full tourist offer in Phongsaly, meaning 2 places that propose tours: the tourist office and Amazing Lao agency. We were thinking carefully as our last decision in Sapa ended in a rather medium mainstream tourist experience, but already the decision to make our way up to Phongsaly was good as around there literally nothing was mainstream nor touristic (at the time we were there, a total of 12 tourists were in town!!). At the end we decided to join our French colleagues on a 3 day trekking tour in the more remote north-eastern area of Phongsaly (anyhow there were no more guides available hahahaha).

After finalizing the trekking details with the agency, we visited the town which had some hidden charms like its food market, a hill for sunset (Phou Pha) and a historical center populated with old Chinese trader houses. Another interesting side of Phongsaly is that the town has been discovering modernity only very recently. Asphalt roads and cars appeared only 3 years ago and electricity made its way to town only 5 years ago. Just imagine what an experience it must have been to visit Phongsaly about 10 years back!

Now back to our adventure: the following day we started our journey to the Akha hill tribes. First step, a local bus ride to the dam via Hat Sa. On the way to Hat Sa, we had the pleasant experience to have one of the most stinky persons we ever crossed on earth sitting right behind us. To add to her own smell, she had decided to eat some really un-fresh river crabs (and it was early morning). We were pretty much holding our breath until she left the bus!!! The arrival in Hat Sa, a local river port was as well interesting. The road crossing the village was a one way sized, steep road to the bus station next to the river. I can tell you, we were expecting our bus to have the breaks loose so we would end up straight in the river…luckily it did not happen :) Then we left Hat Sa for the ugly Chinese dam 20 min north of the village. From there we took a small river boat on the artificial lake (it used to be a river before the dam was constructed) and realised the ecological impact quickly. Getting closer to the drop off point, we were blocked by tons of pieces of dead tree. Going through it was quite challenging as they were concentrated around the same place. We finally arrived at a drop off point to start our trek. By the way, we almost forgot our guide, Mr. Boss. The cutest young man you can find around (the girls wanted to hug him). He was coming from one of the local minorities and had studied in Luang Prabang before coming back to Phongsaly to work as a guide. When we first met him, he literally hugged Alex, as I said, sweet!

We started walking across, through and along a river for a while before climbing up to the top of a hill, through pristine forest until we arrived to the village (Ban Paicho, North East of Phongsaly) where we would overnight. This day we were lucky to meet some old friends of ours… leeches!!! And they were as ferocious as the Nepalese ones but at least it provided us with some entertainment watching Justine and Julien dealing with these fearsome beasts for the first time (sorry in advance if you read this article, but you were too funny).

However, the real highlight of the day was the evening at the chief’s house. Traditionally, when tourists come to visit a tribe, they are invited to stay in the chief’s house for meals and for the night. In an Akha household men and women have strictly separated sleeping “rooms”, some thin mattrasses and blankets on a wooden platform separated by curtains only. Tourists usually stay together in the men’s sleeping room for the night. The wooden houses are all very basic with hardly any furniture, no toilet, no shower and only one battery to light the main room of the house. These tribes still live like a couple of hundred years ago.

After introduction with the Chief’s son-in-law, we went bathing in the closest stream with the local men and our guide. After that we were introduced to the Chief himself and thanked him for hosting us. Then it was time for dinner for the men together with our guide and the 4 of us (in the Akha culture, the men eat first while the women wait for them to finish to eat the rest). Dinner started with the traditional “lao lao”, a sort of rice whiskey and our lao lao cups were literally never empty. We were surprised by the selection of prepared dishes:  there were Laotioan beans, pumpkin soup, buffalo meat, omelette, pickled salad …. and off course sticky rice. And hey, the first thing we got served in the morning for breakfast was... lao lao :D.

As Akha people are mainly animist (officially they are Buddhist because that’s the national religion), we had to respect certain rules like “do not put your chopsticks on top of your bowl” (this is only done when someone dies so it is a bad omen) or “do not whistle in the house” (it disturbs the spirits so you would have to call the services of a shaman and perform animal sacrifices). Following dinner, the men started one of their favourite activities (they all do that): smoking tobacco in a massive bamboo water pipe. After more lao lao and tobacco, the atmosphere got on really friendly, especially when the Chief’s cousin started his magic tricks. It mostly involved playing skilfully with a string while pronouncing the magic word “tomolossi” (we imagine it was something like "abracadabra"). We took the opportunity as well to show them some tricks and everyone was laughing at one or the other trying to reproduce the tricks. We must admit that was a very funny evening given that neither our hosts understood our language nor did we speak theirs.

On the second hiking day, we first visited the local school where we could hand over some books and pens before walking through a valley cultivated by the local tribes. The change of landscape to the first day was dramatic as local tribes burned the forest to cultivate rice fields. On our way we stopped in Ban Naporxang (another Akha village) to meet a family that had lost a member one week ago (the grandmother) and were mourning her. The mourning custom in the Akha culture requires that the family keeps the body in their house to give enough time for the spirit to leave the body and of course to celebrate the dead person. The celebration involves killing many animals (in that case it was 2 horses, a dozen pigs, cows and chickens) in presence of a shaman to donate food to the spirit of the dead. The rest of the meat is eaten by the inhabitants of the village. Additionally, if you were a close relative of the dead person you needed to eat the inner part of the body, i.e heart, liver .... That day they were eating something very smelly and we were supposed to eat with them. Luckily we managed to get away without eating and drinking a few “lao lao” with them instead – hehehehe.

After our “liquid lunch” it was time to hit the road again but unfortunately we got completely drenched by heavy rain. Luckily, we found shelter for a while in a local house full of very curious kids.  As the rain slowed down we finished our trek for the day and went to the village where we would overnight. At the end of the day we were carrying an additional 3kg of mud on our boots and 1kg on our pants. Cannot remember when was the last time we were so dirty in our lives, probably playing in the mud when we were kids, but damn, it paid off!!! Arriving at the village (called Peryenxangmai), we thought we had landed in one of the Asterix and Obelix stories as the village looked like a reproduction of the Gallic village (wooden thatched house, muddy ground, black pigs everywhere). The kids were off course very curious to see us tourists and gathered all around us giggling like crazy. The evening at the Chief’s house was as well very interesting, especially as his wife allowed us to take pictures of her. That was quite an event and all the woman were gathering, commenting on the pictures. Akha women wear usually quite splendid clothes, a black long dress and tons of necklaces and bracelets around. On their heads, only the married women wear a big hat decorated with coins and pearls. By looking at the jewellery of an Akha woman you can derive the financial situation of her family: the wealthier, the more coins, pearls, bracelets and necklaces. The Chief’s wife was a specifically beautiful and wealthy woman so we were glad we were allowed to take pictures of her as the kids and women usually run away if you take out your camera and ask for permission to take a picture.

On the morning of the 3^rd hiking day, we woke up early to attend one of the most beautiful sunrises we have seen in Asia (make sure to check out the pictures). The colours, the misty clouds coming up, some photogenic Gallic artefact, it was incredible!!!!  After breakfast, we walked through another valley and up a hill to arrive at the last tribal village (Chakhampa) of our trip and to visit the local school. It was in this village that we met the probably fattest pig on this planet (we took some good shots of it) .The rest of the way was going back down to the river and the “artificial lake” under burning sun. During the boat ride back, Julien took the opportunity to freshen up (see picture). We then drove back to Phongsaly and set apart with our guide after a final … hug off course :)

After such an adventure, we had a final dinner with our new friends Justine and Julien before taking different paths but what an incredible experience we shared!!

This was for sure worth all the money we paid and probably one of the most authentic experiences you can have in South East Asia these days, given that Phongsaly is so far north and still so much less travelled by. If you do not mind long journeys and really basic conditions, please go and visit this place as long as they are not used to tourists yet. The authenticity along with one of the most spectacular sunrises ever make this part of our journey one the most memorable ones.

Take care and chek out the time lapse video of the incredible sunrise in our video gallery,

Alex & Moni

Sunrise in Peryenxangmai (time lapse)