Phongsali: trekking in the very remote far North
Phongsali Province was Chinese for centuries, until the late 1800s when France basically pointed a gun at China’s head and said “we’ll have that land for our Lao protectorate, thank you very much”. In Phongsali Province you’re more likely to hear Mandarin or Yunnanese on the city streets than English. And much architecture in Phongsaly old town is clearly Yunnanese.
The reason to come here is that the Hill Tribe culture is more authentic around Phongsali than anywhere else in Laos, maybe anywhere else in Indochina. The jungle has been largely destroyed. You will hike under blazing sun and experience levels of discomfort that are high even by Lao standards. But you will see Akha and other animist-worshipping tribal villages practicing a very traditional existence.
Getting to Phongsali (sometimes spelled Phongsaly) takes a LOT of time: the bus from Oudomxay takes 12 hours, from Muang Khua about 10 hours, from Luang Namtha 12 hours IF it comes at all (no one will tell you in advance whether it will go or not), from Luang Prabang about 16 hours. If you are on a Vietnamese bus that starts or finishes in Dien Bien Phu, the driver will usually be stereotypical Vietnamese — intense, in a hurry, honking the horn constantly. If it’s a Lao bus, the driver will usually be so chill that it will drive you nuts – “Oh hey, someone wants to buy a beer, let’s stop the bus! Oh hey, now that guy needs a piss, let’s stop the bus! Oh hey, I don’t know why, but let’s stop the bus!” In more touristy areas of Laos, tourists can sometimes convince the driver to speed up, but here you’ll likely BE the only tourist on the bus.
This is not a great place for solo travellers, because treks require at least 2 tourists to be cost-effective, and your chances of finding other tourists in Phongsali with whom to form a trekking group are low.
Stay at Villa Amazing Maison Guesthouse in the centre of town (WhatsApp: +856 20 9222 3115) and have them send a tuk-tuk to meet your bus. Like most towns in Laos, the bus station is on the edge of town. Unlike most towns in Laos, no tuk-tuks will be waiting when your bus arrives, unless you have pre-booked them. The walk into the town centre is only about 3 km, but it’s mostly uphill and a bit annoying in the dead of night after you’ve been squeezed into a bus for 12 hours or more.
People in the villages around Phongsali (particularly the women) still wear traditional clothing all day, every day, not just when tourists visit. Some will get angry if you photograph them, as they believe it steals their spirit. Your guide will warn you of numerous superstitions that you must not violate, and tell you at length about their beliefs and customs. It’s a window onto a completely different and fast-disappearing way of life. It is such a shame that the jungle they used to live in is gone — some of it converted into opium poppy fields like that big round patch of light green that you see in the picture above.
In this region, trekkers don’t usually get their own hut to sleep in, as they do elsewhere in Laos – you sleep in a family hut alongside a few dozen extended family members, with the men smoking opium and talking loudly late into the night, the babies crying, and of course as all over Laos, the roosters crowing from 3 AM. A fire usually burns in the middle of the hut, often with no chimney, the fire smoke mixing with the opium vapours. So don’t expect to sleep if you do overnight treks here, but it will be truly authentic.
I am told that the Tourist Office has now re-opened and is offering a wde range of tours again (that wasn’t the case in February 2023 when I was there). In addition, Phongsaly Travel offers tours — they arebased in the comfortable and inexpensive Villa Amazing Maison Guesthouse in the centre of town, WhatsApp: +856 20 9222 3115. The easiest, shortest tour (half a day) goes to a 400-year-old tea plantation. The plantation is scenic but the adjacent town is very modern, and not really what you came so far to see. The more interesting tours to much more athentic villages can be done in one day, but 2 days + 1 night is better. Spending more than one sleepless night in traditional Akha family homes would get exhausting.
In Phongsaly town, the Ethnic Museum that your pre-Covid guidebook highly recommends hadn’t reopened post-Covid as of February 2023, but maybe it has now. The Tourist Office isn’t manned, but you can open the unlocked door and grab some outdated brochures. The walk from town up to the Phu Fa sunset overlook is well worth it, as is strolling the alleys and Yunnanese architecture of the Old Town.
Restaurants in Phongsaly are very limited. Faenmai Food and Drink by the pond is probably your best bet, though the extremely loud karaoke music is annoying if you want to hold a conversation. The town market (labelled in both English and Lao on Google Maps) is good for fresh produce.