We left Dien Bien Phu for another long day on the bus. It took over three hours just to get to the Laos border, which was only 37km away! For once it wasn't because of bad roads or a broken bus, but a massive lack of organisation, stopping for cargo (buses are used as couriers too), stopping for extra passengers to sit in the aisle, pulling over for the police, and getting off the bus for the luggage and cargo (which had occupied some seats) to be strapped to the roof! The boarder crossing went smoothly, but apparently because it was Sunday we had to pay a few extra dollars.
The roads from the boarder to Luang Namtha were very mountainous, which of course means lots of bends! We had three people (all Laotians) throwing up around us. One had been puking since the start of the twisty roads. Another was a little 4-5 year old girl who had been eating all day. She ended up projectile vomiting, all over her mum! Then the other, a smiley young Laotian lady, who boarded later in the journey. It took just a few corners and bumps down the road before she was puking down the aisle, as well as on my leg! She smiled at me, and got off about 5km later (I think she walked the rest).
We arrived at Luang Namtha's bus station, about 10km away from the centre, at around 6pm. Only armed with a small amount of Dollar and Vietnamese Dong, we weren't able to pay the tuk tuk drivers to take us the 10km (only 1 dollar short and they still refused!). We had no option but to start walking. Luckily, about 1km down the road we managed to hitchhike with a very friendly Thai man, in the back of his pickup truck.
A little windswept and $5 better off, we arrived in central Luang Namtha, a very small city, but the biggest in the Luang Namtha province. With a few hotels, guesthouses, hostels, tour offices, shops and a small food night market on the main strip, there wasn't a huge amount to see. Most people, like us, just come for the trekking.
We checked into a fairly big hotel called Dokchampa. It was nothing special, but cheap, clean and comfortable (our three main priorities). Dinner was at the night food market for some crispy pork belly, spicy papaya salad, and sticky rice - which in Laos is used as a utensil for eating. After dinner we booked onto a 2 day/1 night trek and kayak tour in the Namha NPA (National Protected Area), to start the following morning.

A group of 10 of us were taken by tuk tuk to a market at around 9am, for the guides to gather supplies. We all wandered around admiring the presentation in the market. It seems the Laotians take great pride in presenting their fresh fruit and vegetables, in perfectly stacked pyramid arrangements, which was great to see, and brilliant for photos! We only had 15 minutes before being ushered back onto the tuk tuk. Half an hour later we were dropped right next outside the NPA, along with our guide Si.
Si studied to be a secondry school English teacher at college, but struggled to find a job, which is why he ended up in tourism. Their loss, was our gain. Si was able to explain in great detail about different types of edible and inedible plants, and also some plants with supposed medicinal properties.
The trek started off with a steep incline, and included a fair few stops for the elderly French group who were tagging along with their tour guide. For lunch, we ate on the jungle floor with banana leaves for a table. We ate cooked shredded bamboo, minced pork larp (minty and refreshing), river weed - dried and fresh (straight out of the river) and sticky rice, eaten the Laotian way.
It was all down hill (literally) after lunch. We trekked for a further two hours before reaching our final destination in a village called 'Nalan Neua'. This was supposed to be a full day trekking, but only turned out to be around four hours. Travel worn and sleep deprived, Amelia and I were far from bothered. So we spent the afternoon relaxing by the nearby river and trying to decide between staying in the Eco-lodge (built by the tour agencies) or in a Homestay.
Previously, me and Amelia have had great experiences with homestays, but let's just say this one seemed a little different! We'd be staying with a middle-aged man and his mother, the man wasn't the most welcoming of people and he barely spoke a word of any language. So it didn't take us long to come to a decision.
The French group who were also staying in the Eco-lodge went to bed at around 7pm! Me, Amelia, Marcia (Argentinian), Alfonso (Spanish) spent that evening with three tour guides and a couple of locals, drinking rice whisky or Lao Lao as they call it, and eating duck blood salad, duck bone broth, and whole chillies dipped in fish paste. We slept pretty well that night.

We awoke the next day to the sounds of pumping... our inflatable kayaks had arrived from up river. After a Laotian style breakfast, we said our goodbyes to the others, sealed our belongings into the dry bags and headed down the Namha river. Amelia and I were now on a 'private' tour with three guides. Their inflatable kayak was full to the brim with supplies and fishing nets, ours with just a couple of dry bags. It was tough going, mainly due to the time of year (dry season). We were all frequently getting stuck on submerged rocks. The only way of getting unstuck was by either a lot of shifting (in time) back and forth, or by someone (that someone being me), getting out of the kayak and pushing or pulling it off the rocks, whilst Amelia sat back and enjoyed the ride.
We stopped off at a couple of tribal villages to say hello ("Sa Ba Dee"). Nahlan village was inhabited by Khmmu people - originally from Cambodia. Married women in one of the villages we visited shave their eyebrows off!
The guides stopped a couple of times on the way to our lunch stop for a spot of fishing (nets and spears), one guide even managed to catch a blowfish! It was delicious, we had it along with some chilli salt and leaves of some sort. This turned out to be a nice little appetiser before our feast of a lunch - more fish, sticky rice, rattan and veg, again all eaten with your fingers off a banana leaf table.
After lunch the kayaking seemed to be getting better, more rapids and less stoppages, maybe the water was getting deeper or we were just getting better at avoiding the rocks. Being at the back I had to steer and Amelia had to shout directions, but it didn't always go well! As those of you who may know, she quite often gets her lefts and rights mixed up! At one point we managed to 'beach' ourselves on a massive rock in the middle of some fairly fast flowing rapids, which caused the whole back of the boat (my section) to fill up with freezing cold water! This was later tipped out in a calmer section of the river. 3 hours of non stop kayaking later, with shoulders, arms and backs aching we arrived at the swimming spot. Here we were shown how to enter the 'pool', by rope swing. First you had to climb up a tree, then swing and let go at the right spot to plunge into the nice deep section. It was great fun, Amelia had one go but found it a bit too refreshing! One of our guides took the opportunity to lather himself up with soap, grab hold of the rope and plunge into the fresh water to get nice and clean. From here it only took us about half an hour to get to the location where our tuk tuk was waiting.

Still damp we took a night bus on the worst road to date! Our destination, Luang Prabang.