Cold and wet - but not miserable

Tues 13 Jan 2015

Ahhh – that’s better. At last the sun is peeping through the morning mist and the air will soon warm up. We need sun after a couple of unseasonably cold and wet days here in Laos. It felt more like a wet weekend in Wales. On Saturday it was so dreary we stayed in bed all day, huddled under the blankets to keep warm in a leaky bungalow with water pouring in through the thatch.

This was not how it was meant to be!

Lookin out at the pourin rain

On Thursday morning before we left Pai, Tony, our host at the Pai Nub Dao bungalows, looked up at the gathering clouds and said “It’s raining in Chiang Mai”. Having had clear skies and temperatures in the high 20s for a month it didn’t seem feasible. But sure enough, by the time we reached Chiang Mai (down the 762 curves) and had spent an hour circling the city while our taxi driver found our guest house, it was tipping it down in true monsoon fashion. And it continued during our flight to Luang Prabang on Friday afternoon. And then Saturday and on and off Sunday. And it is COLD! 12 degrees. Brrrr

Evening light in Pai

Pai Nub Dao looking lovely.

Chiang Mai airport

Tony, our host at Pai Nub Dao bungalows.

Still, we had a warm welcome from Khone, who met us at the airport and bought us raincoats and umbrellas.

Ready for anything!

Very fetching get-up.

Much has changed at the bungalows since we were last here in February. When we tried to book for this trip in September we were surprised to get no response to our emails to Khoun&Khone and noticed that the bungalows had been taken off Agoda. Eventually we gave up trying to contact them and booked another guesthouse for February this year. It was only when Khone sent us a message on Facebook in December asking when we were coming (!?) that we decided to book after all, curious to know what had happened.

The huge moths are still in residence at Khoun & Khone's

Blue sky starting to peek through.

The bungalows are looking very forlorn and run-down. Apparently they’ve had few guests in the last six months and have more or less closed down. We thought at first that Khoun had moved out but he re-appeared yesterday and explained that he’s been staying in town working to earn money. Meanwhile Khone is trying to sell the business to a friend from Vientien and use the money to buy a house somewhere for her and the children (Meena 22, Fly 17, Mimi 13). Khoun still wants to get the bungalows up and running we think but he doesn’t have the money needed for the repairs.

As far as our stay is concerned all is well. Leanne the cook/cleaner is still here, O, Meena or Fly can drive us into town when we want, Khone is very happy for us to be here “as family”, we can choose whichever bungalow we want, and now that it’s stopped raining we can settle in on the balcony and relax.

Love the local dieties.

And there’s something about this place. I don’t know quite what it is, whether it’s the clean air, or the light, or the balance between green wooded hills and sky, but it just presses my “sense of well-being buttons” like no other place on earth. I feel great here!

Yesterday we went for a walk up the dirt road through the villages. I’ve never seen the mountains looking so clear. No dust or smoke after the rain. We gathered the customary band of giggling children “Falang! Sabaidee!” they cry, waving happily.

Walking up the dirt road

Sabaidee!

Strange, when we first came here 2 years ago I feared that the rapid gentrification and development would engulf these small villages around Luang Prabang World Heritage site. In fact the opposite has happened, business are closing down and sites falling into disrepair. How odd. Khone says that visitors these days are more often in tour parties, perhaps from China and Korea, rather than adventuring couples from Australia and Europe. A different market. We shall see.