After eight hours of travel along the worst road of my life I arrived in Luang Namtha, a small town in the north of Laos, just 20 miles south of the Chinese border.

The road from Chiang Kong to Luang Namtha must be the worst road I've travveled in my life. The bus was jumping through potholes so badly that at one point I saw a girl be lifted from her seat by a whole meter. And I'm not exagerating! A few times our lugguage was nearly catapulted from the backrow to the rows ahead. It wasn't even possible to read a book - that's how badly the bus jumped up and down - at times next to rather steep drops. And this is a main road! Still - in a way it was really funny since the seats were quite soft and comfortable. I don't want to know what it would have been like to make this trip in a pick-up!

The scenery was a is very spectacular though. There are tons of rather steep hills that rise seemingly out of nowhere and a lot of them still covered with primary forest. Everyhting is much greener then in Thailand or Myanmar - really lush. It's beautiful! Unfortunately the weather is not too good. Yesterday it rained for quite a bit and tonight it was pouring! I walked to a nearby village today with a dutch girl, Petra, I met on the bus. But I think I'm gonna skip the trekking I wanted to do here. It's still very cloudy and quite cold. And I don't want to be caught in the rain. Besides, as we discovered on our short walk, it's pretty slippery if you have to climb up anywhere.

Petra was really funny when we arrived at the Many Chan Guesthouse (30,000 kip/night. 10,000 kip = 1 Dollar). We didn't really speak much with each other during the bus trip. But when we arrived at the guesthouse we discovered that here you actually pay for the room and not per person. And practically minded person that she is she asked: "Who wants to share with me, I think that can be so much more fun then sleeping alone!". Needless to say that I was sold :-).

Since it doesn't look like the weather will improve any time soon, I'll probably head east to Muang Njoy (or sth. like that) tomorrow and continue further down to Luang Prabang from there a few days after.