Phongsaly Overview
Farthest north in Laos is Phongsaly, which shares borders with Yunnan (China) and Dien Bien (Vietnam). Most of Phongsaly Province lies at a high altitude. Its capital, Phongsaly town, is the highest city in Laos PDR at 1.400 m above sea level. Up there the climate is pleasant and refreshing covering the endless mountains down to the canyon of the Nam Ou River, biggest tributary of the Mekong. The population is made up of officially 28 different ethnic groups, of which the majority being Khmu, Phounoy, different Akha, Tai Lue and Hor, each with their own culture, traditions, costumes, and languages. The forests contain an abundance of animal, bird, insect and plant life, and there are certainly many undiscovered species, new to science. Several trekking tours have been established by the Provincial Tourism Office Phongsaly.
Most visitors of Phongsaly Province get a feeling of “no longer being in Laos, not yet having reached China”. History tells fascinating stories, though much of it still lies in darkness. Between China and Laos the territory of north-western Phongsaly and southern Yunnan once was the independent Tai Lue kingdom of Sipsongpanna. In 1895 the French colonialists drew new boundaries along the watersheds of the Nam Ou river, claiming Sipsongpanna’s eastern part to Phongsaly incorporating it into French Indochina. Its bigger part went into Yunnan Province, China.
Unless many other cities in Laos, Phongsaly Town has not been destroyed in the American war. It features a remaining old quarter with Yunnanese wooden architecture now rare to find in Yunnan itself. Most of the people living here belong to the Hor ethnic group, speaking Chinese. Until the 1970s there has been a Chinese consulate in Phongsaly Town, now the “Phou Fa Hotel”. In the “Museum of Ethnic Groups in Phongsaly Province” you can admire the various local cloths, artifacts and handicrafts. The town itself is surrounded by rolling hills and is built into the side of Phou Fa Mountain (1,625m). The 45 minute hike up to its stupa on top offers spectacular views of the town from above and the mountains in the far distance.
Although a bit off the main tourist circuit, visitors can spend plenty of time in Phongsaly Province trekking to remote villages around the provincial, BounNeua, MuangKhua at the Nam Ou River and in Boun Tai District’s “Nam Lan Conservation Area”. In the northern most district of the country, GnotOu, visit Wat Luang, a magnificent Tai Lue style Buddhist monastery dating back to 1445 AD. In the future “Phou Den Din National Protected Area” along the border with Vietnam will be opened for boat trips. Wild animals like monkeys, elephants and tigers still claim it their territory!
The province offers a delicious variety of Lao and Yunnanese cuisine that consists of wild forest ingredients such as fragrant herbs, bamboo and rattan shoots. After dinner try a shot of the local Lao Lao, smooth, strong and tinted green! During the final stage of the distillation process this rice whisky is running over fresh picked raspberry leaves absorbing the green color.
