Sampan at Nong Kiaow

Where I went
The trip took me through Huay Xai, north to Luang Nam Tha (where I did a two-day trek) then east to Udomxai, before heading north again via Muang La, Boun Tai and Boun Neua to Phongsali. From there east again to Hat Sa, where I threw the bike on a large sampan and boated south to Muang Khua — the northern most gateway to Vietnam. From Muang Khua, south to Muang La and Udomxai before taking a sharp left and east to Nong Kiaow, where I wound down for a couple of days before riding back via Udomxai to Luang Nam Tha, where I returned my trusty bike and back to Huay Xai and out. All up around 960km by motorbike and even now, a week or so later I can still feel every pothole.

Of all the above, Luang Nam Tha and Nong Kiaow — Muang Khua at a stretch — are the only places that could be described as having any kind of a traveller’s scene. The others are traditional Lao villages and towns where foreign travellers remain more of an oddity then a stable means of income. Public transport remains basic, unreliable and time-consuming — expect early starts and late arrivals — timetables should be treated a bit like a palm reading (I see in your future a bus leaving … sometime). Arterial roads are potholed and rutted, while secondary sealed roads are often excellent. Large stretches of really awful unsealed hardbase road remain — especially in Phongsali province.

Scenery between Luang Nam Tha and Udomxai

Beds and stuff
Accommodation varied considerably. Promised hot water was only hot on two occasions — who makes these forever broken hot water heaters to stick on walls? Mosquito nets were the exception to the rule — only two places had them. An average room cost around 50,000 kip, with the cheapies coming in at 30,000 kip and a pricey one 100,000 kip. Often not a stick of English was spoken, but if you speak at least rudimentary Thai you’ll get by — though Lao would be better!

My room at the Boun Tai Hilton

Feeding frenzy
I ate a lot of pho. Every day in fact. Sometimes twice a day. I ate a lot of larp — something I’d happily eat thrice daily. Lots of fresh vegetables matched only by the copious amounts of MSG. There is no need to seek refuge in western food in Laos — the local food is great — but I’d pass on the bowl of fresh duck blood.

Staying hydrated
I drank a lot of water. A LOT of water. At least four litres a day. All day in the sun, on a bike, makes Stuart a thirsty boy.

I drank a lot of beer. BeerLao. Not four litres a day though — ok maybe once — and I found it doesn’t work as a water substitute.

I was offered laolao (local ricewine) all too regularly, at all times of the day. I don’t recommend it before breakfast, nor in the evening if you expect to be able to function (ie ride motorbike) before lunchtime the next day. I do recommend trying it — there’s more to laolao than getting pasted — it can also be a handy in with the locals.

More mountain scenery

Like anywhere, I met a typical mosaic of travellers — some great people — some less so. The good thing about travelling is when you finally escape the political lecture from a French nutbag in Phongsali, you can just travel in the opposite direction.

Special note of thanks to Harma, the British traveller who offered me her jacket.

Most travellers knew very little about Laos. “We came for the tubing but stayed” was a typical refrain. Most were having a ball and everyone said it was “like Thailand 30 years ago” — even those who hadn’t hit 30 yet.

Misty morning start out of Boun Tai

On guides and gospels
Every single English speaking traveller I met was using either the Lonely Planet Laos, or the Lonely Planet SE Asia Shoestring book. On the dead-tree book front, LP own Laos as far as English speaking travellers are concerned.

Travellers complained bitterly about both — in my opinion, fairly regarding the SEA book, unfairly re the dedicated Laos book.

Most people I met had never heard of Travelfish — they all have now

Chinese house, Phongsali

Lingo
I was amazed how little of the Lao language travellers tried to learn. Few ventured past “Sabaydee”. Counting, thankyou and basic Q&A are not difficult in Lao — don’t worry about the tones — just try it — you’ll certainly be the exception to the rule.

Hat Sa boat landing - yes, it was cold!

Words over pho: Muang Ngoi
Everyone I met who had been to Muang Ngoi had either been robbed there themselves or knew someone who had been. If you go to Muang Ngoi, don’t leave anything of any kind of value in your room.

Words over pho: Vang Vieng
Reports on Vang Vieng were mixed. People tended to start out scathing but came round to admitting they had a fun time there. Most were happy Vang Vieng was the only place in Laos that is, well, like Vang Vieng.

A lot of reports of assaults, robbery and fights alongwith some quite distressing stories of stupidly smashed people doing incredibly stupid things. Also most who had been tubing had the scars to prove it (cuts and abrasions).

On the river an hour south of Hat Sa

Trekking
Trekking in Luang Nam Tha is more expensive than in Thailand. Trekking in Udomxai is more expensive than Luang Nam Tha. Trekking in Phongsali is more expensive than trekking in Udomxai. The main challenge you will find is finding enough people to do the trek you want to do without it costing the earth — this is an acute problem in Phongsali where there are very few foreign travellers — despite there being what looks like some fabulous trekking.

There are now treks operating from Phongsali into Phou Den Din Protected Area — looked very very interesting, but a bit expensive (four-day trip starting at 1.6 million kip for two people). Your main challenge will be rustling up enough people to get costs down.

Akha village near Boun Tai

If you want to see Akha villages and Akha people doing their thing, but don’t want to go trekking, then get a motorbike and go riding — by the time I got to Boun Tai from Udomxai I’d been through a half-dozen or so villages and observed far more of the “Akha day to day living” than I saw on the trek out of Luang Nam Tha. Still, unless you’ve got an A-level in Akha don’t expect too much on the conversation front.

There are a growing number of travellers doing “apres trekking” where they just show up in an area and go for a walk in the woods to see what they find. This sort of thing is well established in Luang Nam Tha, Muang Sing and Muang Long but less so elsewhere. I would give a note of caution in this regard — especially in the remoter border areas near Boun Tai and Boun Neua in Phongsali.

I met two Europeans in Boun Neua who, having arrived by bus from Phongsali planned to ditch there bags at a guesthouse and go trekking off into the hinterland, with no guide and no language skills — I narrowly escaped being murdered by bandits an hour later. This is cowboy country — get a guide — and be wary of putting yourself in a situation (as I did) where you can easily be taken advantage of — not all locals are happy smiley people who want you to have a great and fabulous time in Laos.

Kids at Samphanh

Boats and stuff that floats
Boat travel remains one of the best ways to really take in Laos’ beauty in a comfortable manner. Travel downriver when possible — it is faster and more comfortable. The boat from Hat Sa to Muang Khua is more scenic than that from Muang Khua to Nong Kiaow. It takes the same time to get the later boat as it does to motorbike between the two via Udomxai (we had a race!).

South of Samphanh entoute to Muang Khua

There were two foreigners (including me) on the boat from Hat Sa to Muang Khua and five from Muang Khua to Hat Sa — it is still very much a “local experience” — and a striking contrast to the floating cattle trucks that used to ply the Huay Xai to Luang Prabang route.

I’d go as far as to say it is worth getting the bus to Phongsali just so that you can take the boat from Hat Sa to Muang Khua. Be sure to allow a day or two in Phongsali once you’re there.

Sunset boating

Pretty stuff
The scenery (from a motorbike) is spectacular. Despite my mishap, the Boun Neua to Phongsali road offers tremendous mountain scenery, closely followed by Sin Xai to Boun Tai and, in particular, Boun Tai to Boun Neua. Much of the Udomxai to Sin Xai road follows a river and so is quite pretty.

Udomxai to Nam Bak less so and I don’t recommend leaving Udomxai at midday guaranteeing you four hours under a scorching sun. Luang Nam Tha to Udomxai is pretty rough and ready. Some good viewpoints, but heavy roadwork making for a lot of dust and distractions.

It gets cold. Very cold. No need to pack a jacket — just buy a cheap Chinese one in Udomxai or Luang Nam Tha. Try and get one with a cool phrase like “People say Cats green now please!” emblazoned on the back.

My trusty steed - 960km and not a single flat tire!

When planning your time in the north, bear in mind two things. Public transport is infrequent and it takes a long time to get from A to B. Trip times vary considerably. From Udomxai to Phongsali by bus I heard from travellers who saw the trip take 8, 10 and 12 hours — on consecutive days. Dien Bien Phu to Muang Khua was taking 12 hours (due to massive roadworks on the Lao side of the border).

Travellers reported Luang Prabang to Luang Nam Tha taking 7 hours, yet another saw Udomxai to Luang Nam Tha (roughly half the distance) taking 8 hours due to multiple breakdowns and a truck in front of them blocking the road when it dropped a load of rubble. Travel in Laos, especially in the north, is not a strictly timetabled affair.

If you’re looking for a more unadulterated Laos, this slice of north could be what you’re after. In the scheme of things there are few other foreigners (never more than about a dozen in Phongsali) but all the basic infrastructure is there — guesthouses, restaurants, even internet — to make it relatively easy travel.

Nong Kiaow

There’s no boisterous party scene, but there’s always a wedding or streetside laolao session beckoning and you’ll struggle to come across locals that are particularly jaded and sick of stooopid falang antics. It’s not Luang Prabang when it comes to sights, but the hilltop stupa in Phongsali offers tremendous views and there is a great herbal steam in Udomxai — you know — it’s the little things that can make a trip so memorable.

Boats to ferry me back to Chiang Khong

The far north is a low key antidote to the better travelled central and southern regions of Laos. It’s difficult to put one’s finger on just what the appeal is, but most of the travellers I met were really having a good time. As an Israeli traveller I met said, “Laos lacks character but has a magic”. While I wouldn’t say it lacks character, it most certainly has a magic — go check it out for yourself.

Let me preface the following by saying that having reported the attempt to the hotel owner, the Phongsali Tourist Office and the Tourist Police here in Phongsali all three have said categorically that this is the first time they have ever — EVER — heard of something like this happening. So I want to make clear that the following is intended not to scare people off coming to Phongsali — it’s great — but more as a warning — especially to travellers on bikes or motorbikes that are travelling solo.

I left Boun Tai in the morning at around 06:30, arriving in Boun Neau some two hours later. Once there I stopped for breakfast (pho and a diabolical Nescafe and sweetmilk concoction) and unfroze my arms for about 30 minutes. I was at the cafe opposite the bus station and sat in the sun (in an attempt to dry my wet/frozen feet). I believe the thieves spotted me here and ascertained I was travelling alone.

I tend to ride slowish and a few kilometres out of Boun Neau I noticed a bike that was hovering a distance behind me — odd because locals tend to overtake me as I stop to take pics etc, but this bike came and went, but never passed me. I noticed it, but didn’t give it much thought. When I reached the viewpoint I stopped and climbed the stairs up to the sala thing and back down. This is when they must have passed me (though I didn’t see them).

I got going again, and a few kilometres onwards rounded a corner to see a black bike stopped and positioned partially across the road with a single male on the far side of the bike. I slowed a little and he waved, yelling “stop stop” (that he was yelling in English should have tipped me off, but it didn’t), so I pulled up right beside his bike, but (very luckily) didn’t turn off the engine. As I turned and took off my helmet to ask what the problem was I spied the other guy (no idea where he was hiding) running at me with both hands firmly gripped around the barrel of one of those stockless AK-47s that you see all over Laos.

It was very very clear to me at the time that he was intended to bash me on the back/head with the stock of the gun. I swung with my left arm, which held the helmet and knocked the gun out of his hands. I then turned, and kicked their bike as hard as I could, knocking it over (and almost myself in the opposite direction) and forcing the other guy to jump back, I then gunned my humble Suzuki, tossing the helmet in the basket and sped around the crashed bike and escaped. The entire event was over in about five seconds — though it took about five minutes for my hands to stop shaking.

I rode as fast as I could, almost dropping the bike a couple of times till I reached the next village where I slowed right down, and coasted through — if they were chasing me, I preferred they did so in a village. I never saw them again.

It is my firm belief that these loons, whoever they were, were not out to politely relieve me of some cash, they were out to disable me in a very remote area, clear me out and take my bike — leaving me for dead.

Those that know me know I’m tall but certainly not the fittest dude on the block — Fight Club material I am not! The whole thing happened so fast I can’t really explain how I did what I did. I think, crucially, I didn’t turn my bike engine off, and equally I took my helmet off — if I hadn’t there is no way I would have seen this other guy coming at me.

So what to take out of this. I’d say if you’re a single traveller on bike or bicycle, treat any kind of “broken bike” scenario you happen to come across with extreme caution. Don’t turn your bike off. Phongsali is a beautiful province to ride in — very challenging, but beautiful and I’d definitely do it again — BUT I wouldn’t ride it alone. Motorcycles can now be rented in Phongsali, so there is no real need to ride here — unless you want to. Oh, and make sure you have travel insurance

I’d also like to note that the Tourist Police and Tourist Office here have been outstanding in their assistance — and their apologies certainly were not needed. These things happen — even in Laos unfortunately.

So that’s my story. To the family and friends that read this blog, rest assured I’m fine save a nervous tick in my right eye and a small hole in my right leg — just flesh wounds as they say!

The trek involved around 31km walking in total over the two days with an overnight stay at the Akha village of Ban Nam Lai. It took us through primary forest, secondary forest and through vast tracts of the NPA that are being exploited by the villagers who live within the park’s confines.

For the group of seven it cost US$51 a head and that was pretty much all inclusive (except for a couple of warmish BeerLao upon arrival at Ban Nam Lai). As anyone who has been to Luang Nam Tha before will attest, there are no shortage of tour operators to choose from — all of whom offer variations upon the same base tours (albeit to different areas of the park).

Cost varies considerably and Green Discovery is one of the more expensive. I opted to go with them because they came very highly recommended but also because they had the biggest group already signed up (thus making the cost lower than two other groups that left the same day with four and five people respectively).

The trekking scene is set up in a manner not unlike that in Thailand. Many of the guides are freelancers (so may work for more than one company) and companies are not allowed to trek into the same areas, nor use the same trail networks as one another. This means it is very unlikely you will come across another group during your trip. On the downside, this means that you have a bunch of operators, all offering quite similar services, but struggling to get enough people to make the trip financially viable. There are a lot of stories of travellers, with their heart set on a particular tour, waiting for days and days for enough to sign up for the trip to be viable. So if time is short, be prepared to compromise a bit on what trip you’ll actually do.

Also, be prepared for your trip to vary considerably (without any explanation) from what you were actually promised. In our case, the order of the trip was jumbled, some services (eg Akha bird calling) never appeared and some people’s requests (”no fish please”) were ignored.

Most importantly, just because you’re told you’ll be trekking through a NPA, don’t expect to spend the majority of your time in primary forest — you won’t. Of the roughly 12 hours of trekking, we had perhaps four hours in total in primary or very old secondary forest. The majority of the time we were either walking through exploited areas or along dirt roads and rice paddie. The walking was very strenuous.

Even taking that into consideration, I’d say it is worth doing, for the period in the primary forest is simply tremendous.

You will not see animal life and while you may hear a lot of birds, you’ll see few — to be fair it doesn’t help when you have seven people tramping through the forest chattering away. Our guide said he’s cross his fingers for a pheasant. We lucked out.

But it isn’t about the critters, rather it is about the forest — and it is a pretty mixed scorecard in that regard.

The Nam Ha NPA tries to meet the needs of both protection and development. It strives to protect the interests — and lifestyles — of the villagers that have moved around in the region for hundreds of years — way before the term “National Protected Area” was ever coined. Villagers are permitted to conduct slash and burn agriculture in areas of secondary growth, but where in the past the land would be left fallow, only to be returned to in years later to be slashed and burned again, today other cashcrops go in. These are long-term crops with yields spanning into decades meaning that the park may well end up as a patch work quilt of primary forest and extractive industries.

In order to try and tap down logging, villagers are permitted to use fallen timber solely for firewood and construction — they are not permitted to sell it (though I assume that still goes on illegally to an extent). What this means is when secondary forest is cleared the lumber is left where it fell. The resulting impression to the casual onlooker is vandalism. That exploited parcels of land directly abut untouched forest makes the impression seem all the starker. To leave the trees there, while I understand the thinking behind it, seems wasteful in the extreme.

Villagers are ostensibly only permitted to clear secondary forest. Once cleared, sticky rice goes in and when the rice fails another cashcrop — we saw expansive cardarmon and rubber plots — goes in. Thicket used for brooms goes for 5,000 kip per kilo, dried cardarmon 45,000 kip — all of it pegged for export to China.

Competing with this, you have revenue from tourism. A per person fee is paid to the NPA and the village we stayed at also derives revenue from our stay, but this revenue must be chump change when compared to that derived from the cash crops. Tourism also employs a bunch of periphery services — we had an English-speaking Thai Lue guide and a local guide, drivers, agents in at Luang Nam Tha and so on.

The stay in the Akha village, as expected, was a bit of a human zoo-like experience. Us gawking at them and them at us. Lots of children living in grinding poverty. Our guide couldn’t speak their language so interaction and explanations was limited in both depth and value — though we did have a prolonged discussion regarding Akha love-shacks and they’re penchant for marrying very early. Some of our group decided not to visit the village at all, instead staying at our appointed accommodation a five minute walk, but still within eyeshot, of the village. With no real means of communication or interaction the visit, as with much of the hilltribe trekking in Thailand, was for many a frustrating and uncomfortable experience.

This could be improved on in many ways. For starters we could have been appointed an Akha-speaking guide. Perhaps with a different timing of the trek, we could have met the Akha in the fields working — and be offered the opportunity to see what they do and assist — be it clearing fields, sticking rice in the ground or cutting down the very forest we were there to admire. An hour spent interacting on this level, after which we returned to walking and saw them again at the end of the day could be a more satisfactory experience. As it was all we saw were a bunch of knackered people who appeared to have been working their arse off all day.

After meal time we all got treated to an “Akha massage” by a bunch of the village girls (our guide’s “masseuse” was 11 years old) — I can say without pause an Akha massage is not worth six hours walking to reach!

We were trekking in the dry season, so some of the walking was done on dry river beds. In the wet season I’d imagine the walking to be considerably more challenging. The downward slopes were often set in a bauxite-coloured clay soil that would have been treacherous and slippery after a prolonged period of heavy rain. As it was I slipped, spraining my wrist and two dropped out after the first day because of knee problems. It was a challenging walk and while our guide said he thought it was one of the best tours — from a traveller’s perspective — he hated it because it was so much work. “I’d rather be kayaking” was how he summed it up.

Despite the various flaws, I’d still recommend trekking in the Nam Ha NPA because the tracks of primary forest are simply breathtaking. I wouldn’t be overly drawn to use Green Discovery again and if I was to show up in town and one of the other operators has a bigger group, I wouldn’t think twice about trying someone else.

Some closing advice:
Check the group list to see where the other people are from and ideally meet them beforehand to see if you’ve got the same mindset.
Discuss and agree upon the pace of the trek before departure.
Ask all the questions you want. Ask how much time is in the forest, how much time is in paddie, how far by tuk tuk and so on.
If you are going to have time in a village, make sure your guide has local language skills.
If you have dietary (or any other) requirements — be very explicit.
Do your trip research as soon as you arrive and get on the list you want — the sooner you sign up, the better chance you’ll have of more people joining with you.

Just do it!

PS Excuse any typos – I’ve got a sprained wrist!

When your day starts with a bowl of offal you just know it is going to get better and better — as mine did when I found the above fruit vendor as I choked down the last of the intestines…

I’d caught up the previous evening with a researcher for another travel publisher and had swapped notes on Laos and gossip on where the industry is headed. Against the odds, the most common complaint isn’t so much about the money as much as the time restraints — publishers are often expecting ridiculous coverage in short periods of time.

This gelled neatly with another researcher I had met the previous week in Bangkok who does a lot of work for a very well-known US travel guide publisher. Their “letter of appointment” included a line explaining that just 20% of the properties needed to be revisited — I bet they don’t brag about that on the half cover!

But jokes aside, if you’re effectively allowing someone three weeks to cover all of central Thailand (from Sangkhlaburi in the west to Ko Kut in the east — including Bangkok) then that is probably going to show in the finished product.

Back to the fun side of travel.

I lapsed and opted for the tourist minibus service over the local bus from Huay Xai north to Luang Prabang, but with only three passengers it seemed like 400B very well spent (even if it did leave an hour late). The trip, striking more or less straight north for the duration passes some scenic secondary forest and quite attractive mountain vistas — all the easier to enjoy as I wasn’t crammed into a local bus. The trip was over and done with after just three hours — a fraction of the 12 hours it took me last time.

Last time, none of the road was sealed, rather it was packed red dirt — or dust. In dry season it was one of the dustiest trips in Southeast Asia, in wet season one of the muddiest. But I was in luck. Hanging out in a cafe in Luang Nam Tha I met a Swiss aid worker who offered me a ride in his six wheeler “personnel carrier”. I jumped at the chance, all I needed to do was buy the guy a beer and I didn’t even need to pay. Afterall, he was carrying what he described as “special cargo” and I was intrigued.

The special cargo wasn’t a pound of smack but rather something ever more valuable (in my eyes anyway). An ancient frog drum and it’s Thai dealers. They’d purchased it off a minority village north of Luang Nam Tha and were sneaking it out of the country — a highly illegal activity. They’d paid the village a mere US$500 for the drum, while the middle man they’d pass it over to in Chiang Khong was paying them $1,500 for it. Final destination was perhaps Rivercity in Bangkok or a savvy private collector who’d snap it up — it was in mint condition, and you’d expect a significantly higher final value at end of sale.

Sad days indeed — a priceless artifact leaves Laos forever for essentially just $500.

The trip took us 12 hours — I hate to think how long it was taking regular transport — but a friend who did the trip a year earlier (without six wheels) saw it take two full days — with an overnight stop in Vieng Phuka.

Why has this road improved so much? There’s a large coal mine near Vieng Phuka and as in most Lao cases the roads are built to assist the extractive industries — be it Route 3 for coal, or the eastern routes for lumber to Vietnam. Yes the road from Vientiane to Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang has improved over time, but this was always an arterial route and probably (guessing here) the first sealed long distance route in the country.

Enough of roads.

Luang Nam Tha is often put on stage as the poster child for eco tourism in Laos. This was largely kicked off by considerable efforts coming out of the Boat Landing Guesthouse and today there is a wealth of trekking activities operating out of the provincial capital.

One of the easiest things to do is hire a bicycle and ride around the outskirts of town — something I’ve just done. I have no idea how long the ride was — it felt like about 600km, but it was probably more like 20-30km and the first third of it was lovely. Lots of, dare I say, bucolic paddie scenery with the hills rising behind them, and absolutely no shortage of chatty Lao students who’ll ride along with you for an impromptu English lesson. It’s a relaxing and peaceful ride.

Tomorrow I’m going back to my backpacker roots, doing a two day trek — should be interesting. It’s a two day walk that starts only 15 minutes out of town and is run by well regarded Green Discovery Tours. Green Discovery get a bad rap from a lot of budget travellers because of their higher prices, but it seems we’ve got close to a full contingent of eight punters, so it isn’t toooo expensive.

More to come after the jungle adventure!

It has been quite some time (at least ten years) since I was last in Huay Xai and I was surprised by just how little it had changed — at least from a traveller’s perspective. The hilltop wat still has a bunch of monkeys — including one on a lease that the monks were getting to fight with a dog — and the main drag is still home to a gaggle of guesthouses, travel agents and hole in the wall eateries.

In comparison, the boat trip hasn’t changed one iota — costs a bit more now (30B per person and another 10B if you have luggage — dare I ask who doesn’t?) but it’s otherwise the same old one minute spin across the Mekong’s waters. Immigration is open from 08:00 to 18:00 and it is worth getting there early if you want to avoid long queues at the visa on arrival counter.

I’d neglected to get a visa beforehand and regretted it as soon as I tried to, well, get one on arrival. Despite being the first arrival of the day it still took a good 45 minutes to get that sorted out — if you can, get your Lao visa beforehand — and make sure you have the US cash (US$30 for most nationalities) as if you pay in Baht you get a very special exchange rate — special for the immigration staff — not at all special for you.

Once through I took a wander up the main drag and found a handy little soup stand just after the Lao Airlines office for a steaming morning breakfast. The lady that whipped it up was friendly enough, but she then sat opposite me for most of the meal eating chillies and baby tomatoes, while spitting on the floor and smiling at me. Odd.

I’m hanging out in Huay Xai rather than moving on as am hoping to meetup with M this afternoon fresh out of the monkey-project, so another wander up and down the drag found me some very comfortable lodgings at the Guesthouse Sabaydee. A top floor room with hot water (so they say) TV and a view over the river for 400B — certainly not the cheapest in town, but very very clean and they seem to be a friendly enough bunch. Only thing missing is the WiFi!

Down checking email I heard on the Twitter-vine that one of the slowboats from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang had sunk yesterday — furthermore all the boats were now cancelled. It seemed odd as when I wandered by earlier it appeared backpackers were being rustled up for the boats, but, after further enquiries it did appear one of the boats — a flasher offering than the standard backpacker boats — had had some issues. I asked a couple of travel agents — both said no more boats — heading north (to Xieng Kok) or south (to Pakbeng and Luang Prabang), while regarding the particular happening, one said that yes the boat had sunk, while the other just that it was “broken” — which brought to mind the thought, how does a broken boat float? A further comment on Twitter, that the boat had snapped in half, answered the question — it doesn’t.

Anyway, importantly, the swirling rumour-pool suggested that while there were some injuries, there were no fatalities. Further discussions with yet another travel agent (who, by the way, happily volunteered that there is absolutely nothing to do in Huay Xai), suggested that it was still possible to do the boat trip but that a boat change at each set of rapids was required and that the trip may take “more days” — rather glad I’m heading north.

Rounding off what was a pretty eventful morning by Huay Xaian standards, I went for a great lunch at the oddly named “BarHow?” vaguely reminiscent of Angkor What? in Siem Reap but similarities aside, the food is great. My very generously-sized chicken larp and sticky rice at 30,000 kip wasn’t the cheapest in town, but was nevertheless very good. And they’ve got a winelist — difficult to fault.

So what does the afternoon hold? Not a lot. A bit more walking and from Chiang Khong there looked to be a large restaurant with a terrace down the other side of town that I’ll go search for once the heat backs off as it could be an ideal place for a couple of afternoon BeerLaos. Then an earlyish evening and off to Luang Nam Tha tomorrow.

Parting comments — don’t listen to the touts in Thailand — don’t make the mistake of buying your Lao bus or boat tickets in Thailand — they’re around 200B cheaper on this side of the border and stories of lack of availability are rubbish.

Let’s get the gizmos out of the way first. My new MacBook, with which, having just switched from PC a month ago, I’m still enjoying a forceful love/hate relationship with. My iPod Touch (8g) which I absolutely love, and the cables for both of them. Camera wise I’m taking two — my Nikon D70 and a pocket sized Canon Ixus 860 — with related chargers and a USB cable to hook them up to the MacBook. My trusty Nokia 3-sumthin collector’s item and a charger. I’ll get a spare flashcard for photo backups when in Bangkok.

Books, I’m rereading “A History of Laos” by Martin Stewart Fox alongwith the rather inscrutable “If on a winter’s night a traveller” by Italo Calvino that I’ve found difficult to get into and think I’ll need a few slow days in Sam Neua to really get the gist of. My red moleskin appointment book and, dare I say diary (something I’ve eschewed since 1992 when my last diary was stolen on a French train by some scumbag lowlife who is hopefully dead in a ditch somewhere). One general notepad for mapping and further notetaking should I succumb to researching madness.

Clothes, as anyone who has met me knows, I’m no fashion horse. One pair of Levis jeans, one pair of Camel cargo pants one pair of long shorts with around 362 pockets. I wouldn’t normally mention that the cargo pants are Camel brand (Camel as in the cigarette company) but their cargo pants are excellent, with lots of pockets and very hard wearing — so I just swallow their sneaky branding exercise, foreswear the ciggies and just wear the pants. Other clothes, four tshirts, four sets of underwear, handkerchiefs, no socks (see below). I’ll also be packing a bunch of Travelfish Tshirts to give to a few bods along the way. One baseball cap (Billabong branded in case that matters).

For shoes I’m taking my new lace up canvassy Crocs they wear soooo well, are very comfortable — and cool because of airholes and the light fabric. I have slip-on ones as well but when they get wet they tend to slip off far more often than slip on, so the lace-up ones work better — you just tie the laces real tight! Best thing, no socks required.

I’n not packing any guidebooks, though I do have some printouts from the TF Laos forum that answered some specific Laos questions I had, plus prints of some helpful emails I received. Will pick up a phrasebook while in Bangkok as my Lao is pretty patchy nowadays.

Other minor stuff, a small towel and standard toiletries. My miniscule medical kit includes bandaids and plaster (for blisters) and nurofen (for Beerlao and ricewine excess — especially for the Hercules Wine in Udomxai). Mosquito repellant but no malarials.

Random stuff; a ball of string (helpful for fixing mosquito nets, and, according to a travel partner, tying up annoying children). A spare pair of glasses (if I can find them) but no sunglasses (I don’t have any). A cigarette lighter (for leeches). A dog-eared Australian passport — as a complete aside, the printer the Oz govt uses for their passports needs to be drawn and quartered — they’re a complete joke.

Then the stuff you can’t see: One Bali – Bangkok – Bali eticket, one Bangkok – Chiang Mai eticket — they’re the only flights; and one World Nomads travel insurance policy. Insurance — don’t leave home without it!

Lastly, and probably more important than any of the stuff above, an open mind and as few preconceived notions as I can manage.

Oh, and what am I stuffing all this in? My very nice 40 litre Victorinox pack. Easily fits within the requirements for carry on and is about two-thirds full with all the above (assumming Nikon is on my shoulder)

So there you go.

As we moved our first app into beta testing last week, we thought now would be a good time to let you know about some of the features of the app and show you a few more screenshots — just so you are completely tantalised!

First, a special thanks to those who volunteered to help with the testing. We had more than 100 people volunteer — thank you to you all. Unfortunately it wasn’t practical to get everyone involved in the testing, so we whittled the list down to a dozen or so to put the app through its paces.

I can’t really discuss anything in more detail without letting the cat out of the bag: Our first app covers Cambodia’s Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.

The app is called “Angkor”.

Keeping it simple
One of the tempations with the iPhone/iPod Touch is that few limitations stop you cramming whatever you can into the device, so our immediate approach was to put everything bar the kitchen sink in. The problem with this is that you quickly develop a massive dump of information that is both intimidating and unwieldy for the poor guy on the street that just wants to find a cheap noodle joint.

There’s nothing worse than opening an app packed to the lintels with information, only to get a list that goes and goes and goes and goes some more. So we tossed the list out the window and went with eight simple top level categories:

Background | Sleep | Eat & meet | See & do
Transport | Walking tours | Photos | Maps

Each section contains sub-categories and sections, but at a glance, you should know exactly which section of the app you want to head to. Here is a screenshot:

Makes sense?

Delve a little deeper
Each section then has sub-sections. In the Background section, for example, you’ll find information under the headings of History, About Cambodia, and Planning. Each of these may contain smaller sections themselves. History for instance is broken up into more than a dozen chapters, each talking of a specific period and where appropriate matched with a picture. About Cambodia has chapters on Food, Language and Safety (among others), with these often broken into sub-sections — food has Eating Khmer Food, Snacks, Insects and so on. So it’s four levels of fun.

Before you recoil from what sounds like a hellish conflagration of lists, listen to this: No lists are involved. Well, there is a list if you want to use it, but the important thing is you don’t need to. Instead we make use of the great iPhone swiping feature to allow the reader to flick through the sections looking for one that catches their eye — sort of like how you’d leaf through a book. Here is a partial screenshot showing a couple of history snaps.

What this means is that you can dig deeper and deeper into various subjects, learn a bit (we hope!) and be helped along with the photos.

If you’re scratching your head and thinking “Hey I didn’t read any of this on the Travelfish website!” you’d be right. The app contains around 40,000 words of extra content that we have written purposefully for the app.

Save time and money
As you probably know, many guesthouses and hotels can be booked online. Within the accommodation section, all the contact details are clearly displayed, but if a place works through property resellers (like Agoda or HostelWorld) then we also give the reader the option to click through to that site to make a reservation.

The problem is, resellers often have different rates, meaning that if you’re looking for the cheapest option you have to go check each provider and compare rates. We save you the trouble and show you the cheapest rate in our records that is available at each reseller. See the screenshot below for an example.

Decide where to go before you get there
Most of the sights, especially the Angkor ruins, have been matched with a photo. There’s nothing worse than reading about a site that sounds at least half interesting, only to get there and find four laterite blocks and a sleeping pooch. By matching the sights with pics, and with our straightshooting write-ups, you’ll be able to decide quickly what you do and don’t want to spend your time doing.

This is further buttressed by a handful of walking tours that give you a range of different options and routes — helpfully marked on the maps — to help you get the most out of the app.

Stay on the straight and narrow
It’s just not an app without a map right? We’ve packed up some neat bundled maps with the app. You’ll get down to the ground detail for Siem Reap and Angkor Wat along with a bird’s eye view of the rest of Cambodia — including the capital and border crossings. This means you’ll have all you need to plan without needing to get online once, so no need to fret about totally insane roaming bills.

The maps are annotated with markers that lead you straight to listings (so click on Angkor What? bar and you’ll be taken to their review in the Eat section). It also works in reverse, so if you’re reading about Two Dragons Guesthouse, you can click on the map icon and have the map pop up to show you just where you need to go to pick Gordon’s brain.

And there’s more
The app also contains a photo gallery with hundreds of photos along with the standard stuff like bookmarking, help, glossary and FAQs. Results also can also be reordered and sorted to make it even easier to find what you’re after.

On the subject of search
There isn’t one.

We don’t mean to brag, but we reckon the information is so well organised and so easy to find that there is no need for a search facility in this app.

We thought it was better to eschew one totally rather than go for what would have been nothing more than a glorified filter — a solution that has been much derided in other travel apps. If you can’t find something in this app, we’re willing to bet that is because it isn’t there.

That said, if you’re reading this and just happen to be able to write a natural language search algorithm for the iPhone, please do get in touch

So when is it going to be available
We’re planning the final beta-build tomorrow (Tuesday) and as long as no last-minute problems flare the app should go to Apple shortly afterwards. Once they have it, we need to bide our time while it runs through the approval process.

Once it is available, we’ll be celebrating and will be giving away coupons for the app at the iTunes store. If you’re a blogger interested in receiving the app for review purposes, contact me at stuartmcdonald@travelfish.org.

Want to stay in the loop? Sign up for our iPhone mailing list here.

Yesterday I caught up with a couple of Travelfishers who happened to be in Bali and took them off for an afternoon of beach sitting and BBQ seafood eating — yes, you should always get in touch if you happen to be in Bali!

As an added bonus I had the first functional build of our first Travelfish app on my iPod Touch and so, after I’d clouded their judgement with enough Bintang, I said hey take a look at this — and they were suitably impressed.

So, given the cat is starting to sneak out of the bag, I thought I’d sit down and go through in a bit more detail what we’re trying to do with the new Travelfish app.

SOME HISTORY
A few months ago I knew nothing about apps. I knew iTunes was great for downloading free Sesame Street podcasts for the kids and, ahhhh, Village People albums for Samantha, but that was about it.

Then in July my parents visited and Dad had an iPhone 3Gs with him. Within ten minutes I was a convert. Over the next ten days we took the phone through its paces. We used Google maps to trace a drive up to Bedugal. We checked email and browsed Travelfish on White Sand beach north of Candidasa. We browsed hotels in Sanur while sitting on the beach. As a travel research device and planning tool, it was absolutely awesome.

Not long after this we partnered with a developer and started building our first app.

When I finally got around to getting my own gadget, I went for the considerably cheaper iPod Touch that came in at a third of the price of an iPhone 3G (the 3Gs is as yet unavailable in Indonesia). First I went and downloaded Flight Control — a totally addictive game that you should get too, but once I’d given up on bettering my amateurish score of 64, I started looking at it as a work and research device.

Now, as long as I’m within range of a WiFi signal, I can use the Touch for email and web browsing, Twitter, Facebook, chat and basic note-taking. On my next trip all I will be taking is the Touch — no laptop.

Then I went in search of travel apps, purchasing and downloading all the other Asia-focused travel apps I could find. The majority were poor, in quality, execution or both. There were some gems, HostelHero for example, but the bulk were quite disappointing.

But out of this disappoinment came the opportunity of doing some things better:

CONTENT REMAINS KING
In some apps the content is primarily derived from free sources on the net, for example Wikipedia or WikiTravel. I’ll be the first to say some Wiki content is great, but when the only listings offered in the food section of one city is a single Indian restaurant that we’d banned for spamming Travelfish I’m not sure how many times, the need for curation is highlighted. Uncurated Wiki content is problematic. As is reams of totally unformatted text dumped straight out of a Wiki.

So comes the first goal of the Travelfish app: The content must be as good, if not better, than what is available on the Travelfish site and it must be tailored for use on the iPhone.

THE IRONY OF NOT WANTING AN INTERNET CONNECTION
A lot of the cheaper (under $3) or free travel apps are really just a gateway to an actual website. There’s nothing wrong with this if:

a) you’re in an area where internet connectivity is ubiquitous;

b) you’re on a local sim card so roaming charges are not an issue.

If you’re tramping through rural Cambodia on a five-day break, chances are you’ll have zero connectivity and you won’t have a local sim card.

My father’s roaming bill after the aforementioned 11 days in Bali was A$4,400.

So came the second goal of the Travelfish app: It must not require internet connectivity to be useful.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Other apps, notably Lonely Planet’s, are absolutely packed to the rafters with information, but when it comes to simple tasks such as finding a guesthouse or a place to eat, the process is very complex and not at all intuitive.

In a very clever move, Lonely Planet has set up an excellent resource courtesy of GetSatisfaction that allows people to lodge praise and complaints for their apps. This proved to be an ideal resource for seeing what issues customers were having and how Lonely Planet was dealing with them.

So comes the third goal of the Travelfish app: The app must be intuitive to use and the information must be easy to find.

MAPHEM
One of the challenges faced by the other real travel apps is maps. It is a frustrating business to be browsing offline and in a situation where you really need a map only to get a “You gotta be online” message when you click on a map link.

So comes the fourth goal of the Travelfish app: The maps must be totally cached and be able to be used offline at all times.

THE FAMILIAR VS THE FUNKY
Lastly, once you’ve looked at and used a few apps, the design, look and feel all gets pretty similar — a dollop of lists, a smidgen of pics, a dash of icons and a pinch of dropdowns. We decided we wanted something that looked. really. good. So we’ve largely dispensed with lists and drop downs. While it isn’t quite as fancy as the big screens Tom Cruise played with in Minority Report, the app interface really turns traditional travel appdom on its head, yet it is so simple, you’ll have it down in seconds.

So comes the fifth goal of the Travelfish app: It must be funky but not at the expense of functionality.

I’m happy to say that, with the first working build in my hand, all five of the above have been satisfied.

Q AND A
The response to our newsletter list has certainly surpassed our expectations, and we’ve been getting a lot of questions — so here’s answers to the 10 most frequently asked questions regarding the Travelfish app:

Q) Where will the app cover?
A) The first Travelfish app is destination rather than country focused. The launch destination is somewhere in Cambodia.

Q) Will the app be free?
A) No, but assumming all goes to plan there will be free apps on the way.

Q) How much will it cost?
A) We expect it to be priced at a similar or slightly higher level than the Travelfish Guides. Please bear in mind that Apple takes 30% of the final selling price.

Q) Will the app contain extra information compared to the Travelfish site?
A) Yes. It comes with a far more detailed background section — history, culture, guidence on health and safety, money matters and so on. Sort of similar to the introductory section you’d see in a legacy guidebook. That said, while we’re putting a lot of new material into the app, nothing is more than four “clicks” from the splash page.

Q) When will the app be out?
A) We’re currently working towards having it to Apple by early December.

Q) Will the app have ads in it?
A) No.

Q) Will I be able to update the information in the app?
A) At this stage no, but this feature is on our longer development timeline.

Q) Will the app have Google maps in it?
A) No. We’ve used Google Maps for the interactive maps on Travelfish, but due to licensing issues, we can’t bundle these maps how we wanted to. The app does have fully interactive maps, but they are not supplied by Google.

Q) Will I be able to book places online through the app?
A) You’ll be able to contact places directly via web, email, phone and fax and where we have a link to an online reservation supplier you’ll be able to make reservations through those other sites (in which case you will obviously require internet connectivity).

Q) Will I need an iPhone for it to work or will an iPod Touch be enough?
A) The app will work on either an iPod Touch or an iPhone.

SCREENSHOTS
We really don’t want to give too much away in this regard, but here are a couple of screenshots of sections of the app. Note these are not final and the finished product may look a bit different to this.

Some of the details on the accommodation profile above have been blanked out.

Yes, Sam does like her crab — especially with a liberal dose of Kampot pepper.

Thanks for signing up for the list and we hope to have something ready for you to use in the very near future.

Cheers

Stuart and Sam

But it’s not all bad news, and our Singapore-based Travelfisher has put together a cheatsheet for some ways to stretch your Sing dollars out that little bit further. We’re not saying your stay won’t still cost a motza, but these tips will save you some money!

You can read the full story here: Singapore on a budget.