Udomxai - On the Road to Nowhere

The Road to Nowhere

Through the misted rain smeared windows of the bus I saw an old woman and a little girl struggling up hill. Like many of the walkers we had seen (mainly young children) they were barefoot and carried vast loads from straps slung around their foreheads.
The bus crawled along, scarcely topping 15mph as it limped up the mountains. At every instant the road looped back on itself as it carved a path through the steep ascent, affording a jaw-dropping view of the jagged peaks and the tiny villages that balance precariously on the mountainside.
As we drove through heavy rainstorms the peaks became shrouded in mist. Thin wisps of cloud clung to the mountains as if they had fallen from the sky and become entangled in the tree tops. Here and there we passed a landslide, the monsoon sending piles of mud and trees sliding into the road.
Chocolate rivers snaked their way down to the valley floor far below, swollen with mud and water they burst their banks and spread out, flooding the paddy fields. Skinny half naked children ran screaming through the flood waters while their parents sat in the doorways of their wooden homes watching the rain fall with solemn eyes.
These villages that spring straight out of the hillside are a strange mix of old and new. The houses at the top sit flat near the road but the ones further down teeter on impossibly steep slopes on their stilt legs. All the buildings are traditional and thatched but the washing outside is all football towels and brightly coloured t-shirts.
I'd seen these pictures on TV but you never really fully grasp the situation until you see it for yourself. The mud and the dirt and the one room homes and the sheer remoteness of it all just blows your mind.

The Tree of Life

Udomxai is a small central town completely surrounded by imposing mountains. This small basin contains the larges nearby town for most of the surrounding hillside villages and as such is mostly full of motorbike repair shops and the odd bank. They did have some great restaurants though, cheap and friendly and usually with a resident adorable puppy to wee on the floor while you eat.
The sights of Udomxai are few and we saw them all within a few hours. On both sides of the main street a steep flight of steps ascends the hill. On the west side the steps lead to the local temple, a small quiet place, followed by a large golden stupa (a large pointed monument said to resemble the lotus flower). The stupa and the standing Buddha beside it gaze out over a spectacular view of the whole town. On the east side the steps were steeper and strewn with debris, as if they had been flooded by the recent monsoon. At the top stands a strangely deserted mansion house that contains the town museum. By-passing this w walked on to the quieter part of town and the monastery there that contains the "tree of life".
It is said that a tree that stood on that spot contained great power in each of its branches. It could turn any whole are its fruit wise, strong or into a man or a beast. However, when the fruit fell it caused a mighty earthquake and the animals fled so Buddha sat under the tree and controlled the fall of the fruit so all could eat. The tree there now is made of cement with metal leaved and animals that rattle in the wind. 
Our one final errand in Udomxai was to withdraw enough money for our forth coming trip to Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoi (both without banks). We spent hours traipsing the street to banks, trying different ATMs and harassing a poor pregnant bank worker before finally, four credit cards later, we managed to exchange our travellers cheques and get enough kip. Possibly at the expense of Theo's sanity. I might add that the first thing we noticed on reaching Nong Khiaw was a fully functioning ATM.


And so our uneventful bus hopping through the mountains drew to a close with our arrival at Nong Khiaw. In deepest darkest northern Laos, a place with out internet or phone signal, and we felt for the first time like we'd really managed to get away from it all.