September 16, 2013, Monday Luang Namtha
Sucked in, zooming down a vacuous tunnel, no sound, no light, no color, no breath, no slowing down, going beyond light speed, the only direction allowed is that of one toward the center of this unstoppable earth planetary UNIVERSE moving-force. An explosion of pull towards this infinitesimally small point of singularity, isolated, standing still in time and space. Oh my god! This is crazy! We move faster, faster, faster towards th-OH MY GO-WAIT-WHAT-huh?
We’re not moving at all..
We’re in a Black hole.
I continue my writing from the same day as the last post because.. we’re still here.
The black hole, you remember, right? It’s been a while. Maybe we’ve come across a few wormholes(Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai?) But a proper, never-able-to-leave, how-long-have-we-been-here-?, weren’t-we-supposed-to-leave-yesterday-? black hole was left all the way back in KL, Malaysia. Thailand, none. Now three days into visiting Laos, we’re stuck. What causes it? The wiki definition yields that a blackhole occurs because “a star has too little ‘fuel’ left to maintain its temperature through stellar nucleosynthesis, or because a star that would have been stable receives extra matter in a way that does not raise its core temperature. In either case the star’s temperature is no longer high enough to prevent it from collapsing under its own weight.”
For us, the cause is a bit simpler. In the case of traveling, it’s a confluence of factors: waiting for surf, a good host, staying with a friend, WiFi, and awesome food, nice scenery, good markets-to name a few.
Here, it started with the people. Sandor and Vilga, a dutch traveling couple living in Luang Namtha to help manage Forest Retreat Café and trekking agency. Bianca, an Italian PhD student studying the effects of rubber plantations on two villages in northern Laos. Melanie, from France, a development worker, helping to formulate the province’s strategy for two agriculture products. Josh and Jillian, sailed from Hawaii and settled down in Luang Namtha to handle a construction project to build a guesthouse. . Goli, a staff member at Forest retreat, from a nearby village, who has the most brilliant smile ever. Sandor, Vilga, Josh and Jillian plan on grouping together to form a vegan sailing crew.
Between all these people, there was a lot to laugh, smile and chat over at Forest Retreat that evening.
September 17, 20913, Tuesday, Luang Namtha
Luang Namtha is small but has a cluster of wonderfully awesome food venues for good prices. We started our day at Manikong bakery, an egg sandwich on real bread and a real muffin.. and a real croissant.. All good.
Raj and I worked off a fraction of our breakfast by walking for a few hours through town, perusing the front, side and back streets ending up at the banks of the Namtha river where we found a bamboo raft attached to a cable spanning the length of the river.
We were intrigued.
And of course, the thought to cross the river on this raft immediately came to the forefront of our minds. Before we took action, a girl walked by, stepped on to the raft and started off. Shit! The raft is leaving! We both jumped on and we slowly made our way across the river, all the while getting glares from the girl dragging us across. I think her usual breezy crossing was more of slog because of us, tall, heavy fa-rang. Whoops.. A group took the raft back across, a few waiting kids forded it back. Raj took the helm and dragged us back across saying shit, that is hard.. Sorry little girl..
I did my best to put some work in on the computer, 6 photos edited/hour. This thing really is a piece of shit. Before I was actually driven over the edge, I gave up and went for a bike ride around town. If I’m effective/efficient, I’d feel okay about putting in hours of computer time. But when my time is spent not working, but waiting.. I get seriously close to breaking this machine over my knee. I really could rant forever about how shitty this thing is-instead, I’ll present you pretty pictures from my bike ride.
Again, dinner at the night market and hanging out at forest retreat. Melanie, Bianca, another traveler and myself played mahjong until closing. We closed up Forest retreat and headed back to our guesthouse, but this time with a third person, Thomas, a backpacker locked out of his hostel, we we’re stoked to be able to host someone! It doesn’t at all equate to the hopsitality we’ve received, but we tried to pay forward a lil’ bit, at least.
September 18, 2013, Wednesday, Luang Namtha
Early breakfast with Bianca and Melanie. Said farewell to Bianca, as she’s heading back to her village in Muang Sing.
Ate up the morning catching up my family online. We headed over to Melanie’s office to fix her bike, and by midday it was just too damn hot, we broke down on leaving and asked Melanie if we could crash at her house and she kindly allowed us too.
Raj and I bought veggies at the market, and tagged teamed a dinner at Melanie’s house. Then we talked development up until the wee hours.
September 19, 2013, Thursday, Luang Namtha
Luang Namtha’ been good, but we’re set to leave. First task before leaving is to replace my chain. I’ve chewed through another chain after just 2000 kilometers, too many mountains, plus shitty quality. Don’t buy GT chains.
Covered in grease. Chain replaced. Bike packed. Goodbyes said. Ready to go.
Not.
One pedal stroke emits a grinding slip of my pedals and no movement. All different gears-same problem- save, my two or three highest gears-not possible in the mountains. We took off all the bags-problem persists. We took the chain off and found it to be a few links too short, at the nearest motorbike shop and salvaged some sections of my old chain. Great, that should fix it.
Nope.
Same problem: pedals move, chain is stationary. A close inspection reveals that the teeth of my cranks are sharpened spikes, like a circular saw “shark teeth” as the bike nomenclature goes. The teeth are so worn that a new chain doesn’t sit on the teeth properly and thus there is no grip. 
Doesn’t look like we’re leaving today, either.
We unpacked and went over to Manikong bakery to hop and WiFi and research our options for getting replacement parts. Looks like the best bet to get quality parts is in Vientiane, the Laos capital, 600km away.
22 hour bus ride it is..
Our delay in leaving worked for the best because we were able to meet Rene, the host we were intending to stay with if we had made it to town a day earlier than our arrival. He brought us to a nice local’s spot, the sauna! So nice.
September 20, 2013, Friday, Luang Namtha
Simple day, breakfast with Rene, worked, then lunch with Rene and then I rode up and down the streets of Luang Namtha in the afternoon and in the evening we all met up a local’s bar. We had plans to leave on Saturday, but today Rene offered us to join him in a hike to a nearby, infrequently visited(by travelers) village. Looks like we’re leaving Sunday.
September 21, 2013, Saturday, Luang Namtha
Today, Raj, Rene, Goli and I trekked to Goli’s grandfather’s village, Ban Sida. A mere 1 hour’s hike past Nam Dee, a popular waterfall frequented by the backpackers who pass through Luang Namtha.
Despite its proximity, the village is seldom visited by westerners/travelers. Close enough to walk, but not far enough away to be included in a trek itinerary (if backpackers go on a cultural trek, they want to slog through mud and jungle for hours to get to a village)
We sat at Goli’s grandfather’s house, observed by some children and adults; some up close, some at a distance. We hike further into the mountain valley through the village’s rice padis. Baskets of wood lay on the path, abandoned by kids coming back from collecting. Goli shouted out to coax them out, no one showed and they didn’t come out while Rene Raj and I were there.
Walked up the river a bit, Raj and Rene dipped in the water and Goli and I headed back, Goli asked the playing kids to gather some leafy greens for us and they all scattered and came back with bunches.
Back at Goli’s, I had an impromptu cooking lesson, seeing how to prepare the greens and we feasted on the greens and lunch we bought at the market that morning. A nap was necessary for full digestion.
We hike back to Nam Dee, grabbed our bikes, stopped by the market and I cooked up a few dishes at Rene’s house. Last night in Luang Namtha, well spent.