My first host family in Laos, I haven't read anything about this country and my goal was not to pay for a places to sleep on the road. I stopped after 8 pm at a small village, not even marked on google maps and I came to seat around the fire with local people. After a short communication via random sign language and my 3 phrases saved in my phone they agreed that I can stay and sleep at their place.
The family invited me for a dinner, that was our food, everyone ate by hands, so did I. We used spoons just with soups. Father of the family passed me rice in his bare and dirty hand - my appetite was immediately gone, I just sampled the food and I pretended that I'm not hungry...
It is common thing in Laos, people seat around fire everywhere after it gets dark, they have a dinner and they prepare to sleep at 7-8 pm, at 10 pm it's already a little bit too late to search for a place to sleep as there is almost no one awake in the villages. Just a very few houses still have a burning fire after 10 pm.
Luckily I saved 3 phrases in Lao on my google translator when I still had a connection in Vietnam:
- I'm from Poland
- can I sleep here?
- no money (meaning I don't want to pay, just to make sure they will not charge me in the morning)
In Vietnam I had no problems to talk to people in Vietnamese about those things, here it was a little bit more tricky, I had no idea about Lao language and I was without mobile internet in a village where no one spoke any word in English.
This thing was cooked in the fire
The mother of the family was the village head and after the dinner there was a big meeting, there were more than 10 people sitting in the circle lively discussing village matters and future I guess. They told me to sleep on a couch while they had a meeting next to me. I decided to use my laptop, organize picture and listen carefully what they are discussing, even I didn't understand a word of what they said.
Approximate village location: 20°03'00.5"N 103°38'26.2"E (paste these coordinates in google map search)
Morning, the perfect time to wake up is just before sunrise at 6-6:30 am, to maximize the riding time during daylight. In the picture there is my host family house, I slept on the couch in the store at the ground floor. I guess that was the richest family in the village. On the next picture there is a table on the right in more details.
I bought a 2 cans of Nescafe and 2 fish cans from the store and I've hit the road again before 7 am.
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The most amazing road during my trip, just after that village:
Very nice! I've actually done an 11 day solo ride from Thailand into Laos. I rode in at Chiang Khong and then down and out at Vientiane. Will be posting my trip report also, later on, when I have more steem points or learn more about it..haha.
I enjoyed your trip report.