As a group of 5 plus guide & 2 assistants we set out in the late Morning by tuktuk to go on a 2 day hike with camping in the forrest. As soon as the hike began, it became obvious that the group was wanting to go quicker than the guides, who took a lot of stops in short intervals. At each they would explain For moment a little about herbs & fauna, then rest. This way we got to learn about herbs/roots against stomach ache, a tree whose juice smells like bathroom refreshers, how to set up path markers & what they mean. Some of the food was carried along, so we had a delicious lunch by waterfall (chicken, soy sauce with chillies, sticky rice, vegetables & small, aromatic bananas). In the afternoon the hike passed through parts of the nam ha national biodiversity reserve that were used for growing opium years back & now are taken back by nature. In general opium is still grown, but not so widely consumed these days, a bigger issue seems java, a meth like synthetic drug. Since one of the groups members had been in the same area 25 years ago, he could confirm that many changes had taken place for the better living conditions of the people, mostly at the cost of nature. Not just in that region but also elsewhere large areas of woodland had to give way to rice-paddies, sugar cane agriculture & gum trees. As now is the dry season the extend of those decidious forrests is obvious. Later in the afternoon the camp was found, cleaned & the shelters refurbished with fresh banana leaves & soon the preparations for dinner began (rice prepared in bamboo, fish, banana flower with pork, soy chips, vegetables & lao-lao of course, the selfmade "whiskey"). the assistants from the akha tribe were also demonstrating how to create patterns, build baskets etc from bamboo & rattan. The morning after we set off to their village & passed by the "newly" claimed lands as well as see areas which were just "prepared" for utilization, mostly growing gum/rubber trees on the slopes of the hills, where old & young would work (weeding or planting, hunting with selfmade rifles,...). some former village had been outgrown, thus the field lay unused as the settlement had moved on to a different location.

Upon arrival we saw the usual picture of a rural village, mostly wooden houses with open storage on ground floor & living area on first, traditionally covered with plants, these days more likely with metal/asbestos sheets, loads of kids in the streets, satellite dishes on every other house, lifestock & garbage in the streets. At one of the assistants place a fantastic lunch was prepared, incl. Smoked eggplant.thereafter we set off for the mainroad & transportation back to muang sing. In town it the new years celebration of 5 hilltribes was still ongoing at the local temple, yet by the time we got there most participants had enjoyed their fair share of food & beer lao. By sunset all remaining activities, e.g. group dancing, rope pulling etc, would be over & the tribes would head back to the villages on scooters.

The next day the busride to oudomxai via luang namtha took several hours each & it was impossible to make the connection for phongsaly the same day (another 8hrs). Not much to see except chinese influence everywhere from signposts, chinese-Laotian coorporations & posh buildings along the mainroad. to phongsaly there is for now only a 1-2 lane road, frequented by old busses, scooters, chinese trucks fully loaded with sugar cane etc. The road winds up & down many hills, passes through poor settlements & towns, growing fast depending on the ressources available (large fields of peas/beans, rice paddies, herb gardens). Along the road it is not uncommon to pass over hills entirely covered by what might still be native forrest, just to turn a corner & see reclaiming of lands in process or an equal area covered with a banana plantation. Phongsaly itself is located beautifully on the back of a mountain & from the local temple one can look far. Since there was a large wedding happening it was a bit difficult to find a place at first. In the evening a few other travellers & I went to eat chinese, which was very good indeed.

The next morning the tourist office said no tours could be booked for the day, so an appointment was made for the afternoon to find more people interested in doing trekking. Meanwhile roommate thiery & I set off to see the nearby tea plantation (apparently the tradition of growing tea here goes back some 400 years - in our hotel some was given to us & not so tasty, but maybe we're just lacking the knowhow of proper preparation of same), found a bakery with tiny baguettes & went to visit the newly build village nearby. There is construction in progress of a new dam & thus a village had to be relocated. Upon returning to the tourist information it was said their guides / the ones for the trek we were interested in had to do surveying over the next few days, so weren't available. The prospect of taking a different tour quickly lowered the number of participants resp. Didnt make much sense as it would be just a walk out of town.

Not far from town is a place called komaen, in which the locals say tea has been grown since the early days of the settlement, around 400 years ago. For reasons unknown the tea plants weren't cut / trimmed for sometime, so that nowadays there are some tea trees (up to small fruit tree size), making harvest more difficult as the locals will have to climb up in them to pick the fresh leaves. At the moment just general upkeep of the plantation & houses is happening as it is dry season. In collaboration with the german development program "giz" a pavilion with info about the history & impact of the plantations on the villagers daily lives has been set up & is actually well done. All around this part of the country the efforts undertaken in order to improve the living conditions of the lao people are visible, e.g. information boards about food hygiene & disease identification /prevention by unicef & the swiss, promotion of accommodation facilities by new zealand, support in relatively small, more general projects by EU or germany. The largest contributions or at least the ones with the highest immediate impact for the locals are however the chinese ones, be it infrastructure, electrification, natural ressources or anti-drug campaigns. after visiting the plantations & catching a good share of sun walking there & back, its time to leave Phongsaly by boat starting tomorrow.