I stayed overnight in Luang Prabang and then departed for Luang Nam Tha early in the following morning. I kept going through the mountains along a road full of carves. The road is roughly paved, and as the pavement was coming off at several parts, there were large hollows in the ground. By skillfully avoiding those obstacles, the car was making its way toward the destination. I fully realized that the northern Laos is a mountainous district. There were villagers selling bamboo shoots on the roadside. It was slender and short kind of bamboo shoots.

Luang Nam Tha is a small town with two incredibly wide roads running vertically. I heard that after it was once destroyed 25 years ago at the time of revolution, a new town was built by the Soviet Union. As most people were coming and going by bicycle or walk, I somehow felt sorry for them coping with such a flat and unnecessary wideness. About half of the people in this area belonged to the minority hilltribes such as the Hmong, Akha, and Lanten. They were walking in the town all dressed in their own national costumes. The Akha was wearing hair ornaments unique to them. The Lanten was dressed in indigo-dyed shirts and skirts, and wearing white cloths that looked exactly like kyahan around their legs. There also were women with their eyebrows shaven. I later found out that they were married women.

In that evening, I had some rice that the Hmong has grown in a dry field for dinner. To my surprise, it was unexpectedly delicious. There was also a dish of bamboo shoots. It was very soft but unbelievably bitter. They told me that the bamboo shoots harvested in around November would not be bitter like the ones at this time of the year. It was my first time to try a bitter bamboo shoot. I heard that Chinese traders would buy these bamboo shoots by beating the price down.

While I was in Luang Nam Tha, I tried an 11km-course trekking in a forest preserve. I walked on as following a Laotian guide. But what a quick pace he was walking at. I noticed that he had rubber sandals on. "Isn't it better to have him wear sneakers at least?" I suggested so to a person in charge of training the guide, but he explained that the guide did not like the idea. I guess that a pair of rubber sandals, which he has always been wearing since his childhood, must be the best fit to his feet. He also explained that by wearing sandals, he would be able to realize instantly if he got a leech or something on his leg. Along the trekking course, there was a river we had to cross though it was a shallow and small one. But, with his sandals, he went on splashing across the river nonchalantly as if it was nothing. As for us, we had to take our shoes off, pull socks off, carry the shoes on our shoulders, cross the river, and put socks and then shoes on once againÉ it was such a troublesome work. In the forest, I found a great variety of rare plants such as wild orchids, roots of a tree to make red dyestuffs, wisterias to be used for wisteria furniture, and medicinal herbs good for the digestive organs as well as for cuts.

I took a plane from Luang Prabang on the way back. I arrived in Vientiane only in 35 minutes.

Translated by Maiko Noda