The road tracklog
From Luang Prabang to Luang Namtha
From 09/02 to 15/02/2009

Sunday February 8 afternoon around 6:00 p.m. local time I took nearly two hours to transfer files of the new pages of my website from my computer to Orange. Moreover the Orange mailbox was inaccessible I cannot diffuse the information message to subscribers. Orange is presented in the form of a first in the opinion polls, yes perhaps but in the hexagon; at international it is the last one, I can affirm it when I see the response time of other mailboxes such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail. Finally on Monday morning around 09:00 a.m. local time, when French people are still in bed, Orange mailbox was accessible, Oaf.
Then I left Luang Prabang to go to visit the two Pak Ou Caves which gather several hundreds of Buddha images. For that it is necessary to take a boat to cross the Mekong River. I had lunch on the spot vis-à-vis this mythical river going down from Tibet, on several thousands kilometres, to its delta in the South Vietnam.
I had thought to bivouac on the spot; alas there was a festival in Pak Ou with, as usual, an over boost SoundBlaster diffusing bass to break tympanums. I found a bivouac along road 13 towards Pak Mong.

Monastère 
Pak Ou 
09/02/2009 

 
 
Caves
Pak Ou 
01/02/2009 

History 
Pak Ou 
09/02/2009

 
 
Discovered
Pak Ou 
09/02/2009 

Tham Ting Cave 
Pak Ou 
09/02/2009 

The 10/02 the road 13 from Luang Prabang moves northwards by skirting the Ou River. Then in Pak Mong it inflects westwards to go to UdomXai target of this driving day. According to Lao’s standards the first part is good; the second part is very dilapidated with holes like lunar craters. I arrived at the end of this stage around 5:00 p.m. to establish a bivouac in the city on a waste ground. No outstanding fact came to scatter this move if they are not the usual exits of schools with their troop of schoolboys along the road making the driving dangerous.

School is finished... 
en route 
10/02/2009 

The 11/02 I left OudomXai as of early dawn because road 13 to Na Teuy would be undoubtedly in bad condition. Actually it was still worse than the day before; better is a laterite track than a bituminized road completely battered. I took 3:30 hours to drive 80 kilometres. Admittedly the road roved in splendid landscapes above clouds. Then in Na Teuy it was the excellent Boten road from the Chinese border to the border of Thailand. I was able to have lunch in Luang Namthat where I made initially a halt in Tourist Office to ask if there were a trek in departure, que nenni. I continued up to Muang Sing where by chance Tourist Office had a two day trek as of the following day, I booked it. I  bivouacked at a Weight Station.

During the two day trek, with two Frenchwomen Christine and Isabelle, we walked tracks in without forest mountains, landscapes were devastation. Visited villages were populated with Akha people whose women did not carry a traditional costume except in the evening for us, the tourists. Men, in dry season, were occupied either with the improvement of the habitat or with deforestation. Children were in great number.
We were disappointed, because we did this trek certainly to see ethnic villages but also women in costume. Photographs exhibited at the Tourist office were a promising publicity.

The guide 
a trek 
12/02/2009 

Lao alphabet 
a trek 
12/02/2009 

Child with a cap 
a trek 
12/02/2009 

Women with ethnic costume 
a trek 
12/02/2009 

Laolao alcohol 
Muang Sing 
14/02/2009 

French old garrison 
Muang Sing 
14/02/2009