As a way to break up the boat ride along Mekong river Laura and I located a small town that is just off the river and decided to see if we could hunt down some of the “real” Laos.  The major cities we’ve seen have been great, don’t get me wrong – most of Laos’ cities are so very quaintly sweet and comparatively small – but they’re still extremely westernized and we were hoping for something a bit more authentic and off the beaten path.  With that in mind we said goodbye to the slow boat (the slow boat was a lesson in slow and painful torture…church pews…we sat on church pews for 9 hours!) and watched it push out from the bank and head onwards – and when we turned around to face our next journey we found ourselves face to face with a huge bank of loose sand.

We hoisted our packs and trudged up through the sand to a small gathering of wooden huts with thatched roofs and open sides.  Having successfully bested the sand dune our next task was to find the way from the river up into the mountains to the small town of Hongsa – lucky for us, although nobody spoke a lick of English we held out some cash and repeated the word “Hongsa” once or twice and secured a seat in a tuk-tuk with about six locals who had come to the river to trade and two other painfully white western couples.

With everyone crammed into the back of the tuk-tuk, small bags weighing heavy on our laps, huge sacks of food and traded goods piled under our feet the tuk-tuk struggled to make it out of the sand and onto the raked road (no pavement here!).   Once we made it onto the road a couple of other Laotians hopped onto the back, jumped up top onto the luggage racks and generally decided to take the hour and a half ride standing, straddling, and perching themselves on ledges or just hanging on tightly on the roof.

The road to Hongsa winds up and down through the mountains, kicking up huge quantities of dust (you are given no choice but to cover your face with a scarf and hope for the best) while careening around switchbacks and dodging oncoming vehicles, small children playing on the side of the road, chickens, cows, road workers, potholes, random debris, and women balancing loaded baskets on their heads.

We finally made it to Hongsa and checked into Jumbo Guesthouse – a recommendation in the Lonely Planet and one of the best places we’ve stayed yet.  Monica, the Austrian ex-patriot running the guesthouse is so warm and welcoming that we felt like we found a mini-oasis in the middle of Laos.  Monica makes breakfast and dinner for her guests and everyone gathers around the huge wooden table talking and sharing travel stories and engaging in philosophical discussions well into the night.

Our first day in Hongsa Monica arranged for four of us to take an elephant ride through to the outskirts of town.  We had Medoc, a female elephant who got the day off of hard labor in the mountains to come take us on a leisurely stroll through dried out rice paddies and through a bit of the mountain forest.  The Asian elephant is endangered right now because it is so highly prized as a work-animal in most of southeast Asia – for that reason we were a bit skeptical about doing an elephant ride.  Monica though noted that these elephants face hard labor every day unless she calls their owners to come down from the mountains for tourist rides.  And for just $20 each we paid for the day of labor she was missing up in the mountains.

There is a definite rhythm to an elephant’s  gait and it took a bit of time before we were accustomed to the side-to-side calumping sway.  Once we got out of town our elephant handler walked beside us as Laura and I took turns straddling Medoc’s neck – she meandered along the paths, stopped for a bit of a snack from the tree branches nearby, and moseyed on her way for a bit more than an hour before we made our made back to Jumbo Guesthouse to disembark from Medoc using the Elephant platform in the front yard.

The ride was great and although it’s controversial to participate in elephant riding in Asia, I felt like I did a good thing, I had a great time, and I think that Medoc had a nice break from her daily labor – plus, this is a great alternative to the highly touristy choices outside of  Luang Prabang that are questionably eco-friendly.  Once we made it back to the guesthouse we were greeted by Nan, a lovely 9-year Laotian old girl who was on a break from school for the week; her aunt is the housekeeper for Jumbo and she hangs around because of all of the attention she gets from foreign tourists.  Laura and I were more than happy to oblige her – she is terribly photogenic and we had a mini photo session with Nan and her little cousin…and the dogs of course!  They were so sweet and receptive to the attention and eager to learn English – I taught them a rousing rendition of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes – then they performed a bit after dinner to the delight and applause of all of us foreigners who clapped along.

For day two in Hongsa Monica suggested a trek a bit further up into the mountains and even farther away from westernization.  We were psyched by the prospect and took Monica’s recommendation of purchasing some toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soaps to hand out to the kids in some of the poor villages we would be passing.  Before we had gotten out of Hongsa itself we found ourselves trekking along the dirt road next to two young girls (not older than 17) who were hiking back to their small town; our guide interfaced with the women and it was really an eye-opener to ask them some questions and discover just what their daily life is like.  Both girls wake up every day of the week at  4am, hike two hours into Hongsa to sell their village’s food and goods at Hongsa’s market, then hike home again.

They paced themselves to our small group of six and we hiked out way through a slew of remote Lao villages – no electricity in many. Once we were in these tiny villages our guide indicated that we should present our gifts to the village chief for distribution to those who would most benefit.  Laura brought a small handmaid puppet we  bought in the Luang Prabang night market and the kids were delighted by her impromptu puppet show – I loved Laura for that because the puppet, even though we knew very little Lao her puppet crossed the language barrier and even elicited some laughs (and one mighty guffaw) from the elders in the village.

All told, Hongsa was pretty rockin’.  We got off the beaten path a bit and the only other travelers in the town are the ones that are also looking for a bit more than the catered for, westernized comfort.  The ride up the hill from the river edge is uncomfortably dusty and sweaty, the guesthouse is lovely, and the trekking gave us a deeper look at what life is like in these small and poor Laos villages.

For more tips and travel stories you’ll want to subscribe to my RSS feed…it’s free and I promise I don’t bite!

Related posts:

1. A Little Dream…Zip-Lining Through the Jungle (Part Two)
2. A Little Bus Ride…Laos Border Crossing in the Cold
3. A Little Dream…Zip-Lining Through the Jungle (Part One)
4. A Little Adventure…Dodging Wild Rhinos!