trip from Oudamxai to Phongsaly

20th To Phongsaly from Oudamxai

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Chan the driver arrived at 1030AM Started out for Meungla by 1050 hours . Stopped at Mueng La to see the 400 year old Buddha. Till Pahd Nam the road was asphalted and good and Chan zipped around the bends as if he is driving in formula-1 racing.
We stopped for lunch here at the weekly market- all tribes converge here to buy their monthly rations. It was fete time for most. The Thaimeung women were trying to sell silver bracelets but I was not interested. The lunch offered were mostly tribal food but I tasted the rural fare of Steamed bamboo shoots with chilli powder, steamed spicy sea weed with sticky rice and two bananas and two very juicy oranges from China.Usha would not have survived seeing the barbecued squirrels looking so alive.
The mountain side was swiddened i.e., slashed and burned for cultivation. When the ground looks charred and scarred it looks bad but then this is the way they rotate the richness of soil to grow rice. If It was rice alone then it is ok, but the poverty of losing land due to many reasons has tempted the people go in for Rubber which will create a vacuam in the cycle after 30years and there will severe aforestation. Some of these plantations are partly owned by the companies from China and Thailand. At the end of 30years when the present rubber trees will be cut and the next one starts yielding after 8years will create such a vacuam the people will be forced to sell their lands to tidy over the gap. and thus loose their land too! Watermelon, pumpkins, sugarcane and corn are other cash crops that get exported to China everyday .
The road from then on was worse ; no surface, the sand has dissolved and through stones were like cobblestone paths some hundred times worse. The cinnarizine I took helped a lot and so did the belt and the seat belt which protected me from whiplash injury. This continued for about 90 odd kms when we reached the cross roads to China and the road became makkan. Reached Phonsaly around 5-45PM. Chan recommended the only good hotel in town : it was clean but very shoddy. Am not too comfortable in it. Like the one in Satana , a shade smaller and more grubbier.
Dinner is by 7PM and the town shuts by 10PM Even the electricity shuts at 9PM and supposed to come on at 6AM No life after sunset. We went walking trying to find a place to eat and found this hotel called Phou Far hotel set in a wide open space with neat modern rooms and very clean with A/Cs too. The same price as the one we are staying in. And … we could not find a place to eat. Called for Chan who took us to a Chinese restaurant and ordered a typical meal that every body shares: Soup, rice, vegetables and a plate of beef curry for them This came with chilli oil. The soup had Tofu and the veggies were only green leafy ones. It was very tasty thanks to the veg. Plate and the chili oil . Feeling like a python now.
TOMORROW WE ARE SHIFTING TO THE OTHER HOTEL.