Northern Laos can be described in two ways; drop dead beautiful and damn hard to get to. I prefer to focus on its beauty but I would be lying if I told you the bus rides didn’t slowly chip away on my sanity. It is about a 5 hour minibus ride from the boarder at Huay Xai to Luang Namtha. The town is large but the tourist scene is small. The main attraction here is a view into the life of the local laotion.

Luang Namtha

We grabbed a motorbike (50,000 kip/day) for our two day stay here and explored the country side. The town is sleepy in nature with only a few restaurants with Zuela Guesthouse really having a monopoly on the tourist dollar. There are numerous trekking and rafting options but they all cost a pretty penny. In my opinion in a place this beautiful all you need is a motorbike to have a great day.

On the road to Muang Sing

Waterfall in Luang Namtha

On our second day we decided to go even more remote by taking a 120 km trip to the neighbouring Muang Sing. The actual town is not much to talk about but the drive is fantastic. If offerred a trip to stay in Muang Sing and trek out of the town I would turn it down. The town is fully under construction and we could not even find a restaurant to eat lunch at. All and all Luang Namtha is very authentic when you are coming out of Thailand. However after traveling through the rest of Laos I would say that going this far north is perhaps not necessary. This is not to say that this is not a worthwhile visit, but if you are on a strict time table the time to travel to and from may rule it out.