November 7th Muang Khoa to Phongsali

We started early as the drive is a long one - eight and a half hours, although the distance is less than 200 miles. After the first hour on the asphalt road, we travelled on a graded dirt track which is being paved as another route from China into Laos. Sometimes there was mud, particularly in a stretch where a rainstorm had just preceded us and our driver was having difficulty making progress uphill while a large bus was sliding down toward us and having trouble regaining control, but all worked out. The middle portion of road had sections with new paving mixed with sections of dirt, and we had several hold-ups while we waited for flagmen to allow us through single lane construction zones.

Various tribal villages were scattered along our track, with Kamu along the river banks, Tai Leu, and Akha at the higher regions. Most of the people did not wear their traditional clothes, but some wore at least the headwear and a few of the women wore their full costumes. We stopped at an Akha Pixor village and distributed notebooks and pencils, and Leslie gave a few ladies that were very friendly some lipstick or nail polish. Our driver and his wife were interested in all that was going on. On this second day of the trip the wife realized we were speaking Thai and that she could understand us.

We arrived in Phonsali at about 4:30 and found our preferred Viphaphone Hotel, the only one reputed to have Internet, but it turned out it had Internet cables in the room but no WiFi, which is needed by our IPad. The room was basic, had a view over the mountains, windows but no fan, was central, and cost $12.50 a night. We found another hotel down the street for Chinese dinner and checked it out: It also cost $12.50 a night and was supposed to have wireless, but we were never able to connect with our IPad, so we did not move. We called the guide Somtouy (020-2300-3309 / 020 9773-3114) who's name and number we had gotten from Martine. Somtouy was out trekking so could not work with us so he had a friend call us and we arranged to met the friend at the Tourist Office the next morning at 8 pm.

We organized our junk and collected laundry to hand in to the hotel, and retired.