Phongsali and BounTai: trekking in the very remote far North
3-D representation of Phongsali province provided by Drasmy SVsone.
Phongsali Province in Laos’ far north 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.
Click here for the website of Phongsali’s tourism board.
Getting to all the way to Phongsali town (sometimes spelled Phongsaly) takes a LOT of time: When I did it, the bus from Oudomxay took 12 hours, from Muang Khua about 10 hours, from Luang Namtha 12 hours IF it came at all (no one could tell you in advance whether it will go or not), from Luang Prabang about 16 hours. And as of January 2026 I’m hearing that all direct buses have stopped — you must change buses in Boun Neua (where Phongsali Airport is located) and take a separate bus for the last hour to Phongsali town, so add at least 30-60 minutes for your bus layover. By all means consider flying from Vientiane, but beware that in the cool season (November to February) morning flights are frequently delayed or cancelled due to morning fog in Phongsali.
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.
Once you could travel by boat all the way from Luang Prabang to Hatsa (the nearest riverside town to Phongsali), but that stopped years ago when the Chinese built all those hydroelectric dams on the Ou river. Now passenger boats only travel between Nong Khiaw and Muang Khua. From Phongsali town you can pay about 1.5 million kip for a private driver to Hatsa and then 1.6 million kip for a private boat to the first Chinese dam, but that leaves you in the middle of nowhere.
As an alternative to Phongsali town, you can also base yourself in the town of Muang BounTai, also in Phongsali Province but 100 km further south and therefore several hours’ less time on a bus to get there. It is south of Boun Neua, so there is no need for that extra bus change that I mentioned above, either. I personally have not been there yet, but enough other backpackers are raving about it that I will definitely do so on my next visit. Several backpackers have recommended Adone Yongmany and Oerng Xsk as guides in BounTai, in particular their 3-day trek option.
Phongsali province 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. Your odds are almost certainly better in Muang BounTai than in Phongsali town.
In Phongsali town, 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.
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 during my February 2023 visit). In addition, Phongsaly Travel offers tours — they are based in the comfortable and inexpensive Villa Amazing Maison Guesthouse in the centre of Phongsali town, WhatsApp: +856 20 9222 3115. The easiest, shortest tour (half a day) goes to a 400-year-old tea plantation. The tea plantation is scenic but the adjacent town is very modern, and not what you came so far to see. The more interesting tours to much more authentic 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 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 town 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.