Robert, a reliable travel expert, takes charge of paddling trip up the Nam Ou river. A four-national crew of Robert(Swiss), me(Japanese), Roberta(Brazilian) and Alessandro(Italian) in middle of wilderness with no sign of human civilization.
Lesson 1: how to overcome a shallow rapid. Our uncoordinated paddling work is no use for this situation. it would have been a disaster if we had entered that boat race.
fisherman splash a bamboo stick to scare the fish into their net
after an hour and a half of paddling we take a break on a quiet beach with butterflies and buffaloes
after two and a half hours of paddling we finally see the next village, the children of Sop Jam greet us as they have never seen the foreigners
you thought Mueng Ngoy was a small village? Sop Jam is tiny. one strip of 100m road with 30? houses on it. To my joyful surprise the town is very clean. No trash on the street and there is a trash basket in front of every house, and as we offer pieces of water melon to the children, they all know to put the rubbish into the basket immediately. Somebody must have come here and helped them developing their own infrastructure of saving their environment. As Ted(the Swedish guest house owner in Mueng Ngoy, see Chapter 20) once said, it's impossible to change the way they have been for hundreds of years, but if you're smart enough and lucky enough, you might be able to plant the seeds in their minds to grow new ideas and thoughts, and they will want to change their way of living.
every house in Sop Jam has a hand woven textile shop
end of the road is the Sop Jam primary school, the furthest point I ever reached on this trip so far, was hinted with signs of foreign supports. Charity box for the school is set up in center of the town, and Japanese origami birds are decorating the school building empty for the new year’s recess.
“I miss Lek too much.” Next day I change my mind to spend New Year in Mueng Ngoy, and decide to follow her down back to Luang Prabang. First, boat to Nong Khiaw, then I was gonna take a bus to LP…
then there at the boat jetty I see Lek. I say “I came to catch up with you in Luang Prabang…” then Lek says “I was coming to see you in Mueng Ngoy.” It takes me a few seconds for me to change my mind again. Lifting all my bags from one boat to the other, I’m coming straight back to Mueng Ngoy, with Lek whom I’m spending the new year with.
Robert, a reliable travel expert, takes charge of paddling trip up the Nam Ou river. A four-national crew of Robert(Swiss), me(Japanese), Roberta(Brazilian) and Alessandro(Italian) in middle of wilderness with no sign of human civilization.
Lesson 1: how to overcome a shallow rapid. Our uncoordinated paddling work is no use for this situation. it would have been a disaster if we had entered that boat race.
fisherman splash a bamboo stick to scare the fish into their net
after an hour and a half of paddling we take a break on a quiet beach with butterflies and buffaloes
after two and a half hours of paddling we finally see the next village, the children of Sop Jam greet us as they have never seen the foreigners
you thought Mueng Ngoy was a small village? Sop Jam is tiny. one strip of 100m road with 30? houses on it. To my joyful surprise the town is very clean. No trash on the street and there is a trash basket in front of every house, and as we offer pieces of water melon to the children, they all know to put the rubbish into the basket immediately. Somebody must have come here and helped them developing their own infrastructure of saving their environment. As Ted(the Swedish guest house owner in Mueng Ngoy, see Chapter 20) once said, it's impossible to change the way they have been for hundreds of years, but if you're smart enough and lucky enough, you might be able to plant the seeds in their minds to grow new ideas and thoughts, and they will want to change their way of living.
every house in Sop Jam has a hand woven textile shop
end of the road is the Sop Jam primary school, the furthest point I ever reached on this trip so far, was hinted with signs of foreign supports. Charity box for the school is set up in center of the town, and Japanese origami birds are decorating the school building empty for the new year’s recess.
“I miss Lek too much.” Next day I change my mind to spend New Year in Mueng Ngoy, and decide to follow her down back to Luang Prabang. First, boat to Nong Khiaw, then I was gonna take a bus to LP…
then there at the boat jetty I see Lek. I say “I came to catch up with you in Luang Prabang…” then Lek says “I was coming to see you in Mueng Ngoy.” It takes me a few seconds for me to change my mind again. Lifting all my bags from one boat to the other, I’m coming straight back to Mueng Ngoy, with Lek whom I’m spending the new year with.
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