we did a beautiful 4 day hike in the Muang Ngoi area... we were tipped off by the owner of our guesthouse in Luang Prabang (shoot, I forgot the name!) to go there for that trekking. He also told us to take a Mr. Kay as a guide, and... to take some boules de pétanque with us, the people in the surrounding villages love it (good idea, apart from the fact that they weigh nearly one kilo a piece, great) and thus be very nice to us if we bring them ;)
But...
Upon arrival in Mouang Ngoi, we found a great guesthouse run by a very talkative and friendly Miss Penny. There we met a young local called Say, we asked him where we could find Mr. Kay. ';Oh, he%26#39;s out of town, but I%26#39;m a trekking guide as well'; is his answer. We go along with Say, and agree on a 4 day trip: 3 days hiking + 1 day kayaking back for kip100.000 per person per day. The kayaks were included, and Say assured us they would cost him kip100.000pp. We make the mistake of paying him in advance...
We start walking the next morning. Nature is beautiful there, so are the towns and the villagers are kind. But Say turns out to be the worst guide ever... In every town he takes us immediately to his friends from college, they start drinking Laolao whisky, playing jeu de boules (yeah; we dug our own grave there, it%26#39;s hard to join the game as well because they%26#39;re waaay to good at it...) and soon not being able to speak English and totally forgetting about us, not really knowing what we can do in the towns without guide/interpreter...
This wouldn%26#39;t have been so much of a problem -we àre able to look after ourselves- if the last day with the kayaking should have gone well... The kayaks were arranged to be there at 11am, Say had told us. But already at 10:30am, Say starts saying that they probably won%26#39;t turn up. How can he know? There%26#39;s still half an hour left for them to show up isn%26#39;t it? *Surprisingly* the kayaks never came indeed. Say wasn%26#39;t nervous or bothered by it, it seems, and booked us a cheap normal boat back. Blaming the kayak company, he even advises us to put the name of the company on this forum because they %26#39;framed us%26#39;. We never believed a word of what he was saying, and upon returning in Muang Ngoi, we asked our money for the last day back (which is actually just the money he should have paid for the kayaks, so there%26#39;s no loss for him is it?). This turned out to be a gigantic problem because ';he didn%26#39;t have enough money'; (we just gave it to him 4 days ago - and what would he have paid the kayaks with?), ';it%26#39;s not fair';, ';we had two guides for the last two days'; - indeed, his friend was walking with us, so they could chat on the way or so he didn%26#39;t have to talk to us...
The only power we had to try to convince him, is threaten with a bad reputation... yes, we spread the word already, and we hope that this thorntree has it%26#39;s influence. We also told him that it would be very bad for his karma if he goes on treating his %26#39;customers%26#39; like that - we thoroughly believe that he never ordered the kayaks in the first place... But the karma thing didn%26#39;t stick to him: ';so what?';. His mother was there as well and it looked as if she also didn%26#39;t totally agree with his way of doing business; we concluded from her non verbal communication while they were discussing the issue in their language... Anyway, we had to leave without the money - he offered half the money we asked for in the end, but we didn%26#39;t take it because we wanted to make clear that it was about the principle (may sound stupid afterwards, but we really didn%26#39;t care for those 6 dollars...), the lack of respect for tourists is a very annoying thing to come across in SE Asia... we hope this warning can help some people to avoid this peticular case.
Blast, this entry is probably too long for anyone to read up to the end... but anyway: this is our advise:
- Rule n°1: don%26#39;t take Say as your guide (or go to him, and tell him that we told you not to take him as a guide, rub it in!)
- Rule n°2: don%26#39;t pay any guide the full amount in advance, ever - this should be rule n°1 actually, but at this moment, I still feel like putting it this way...
- Rule n°3: go to Miss Penny%26#39;s guesthouse and try her delicious banana-chocolate pancàke!
Enjoy the trip,
Kim, Laurence and Brecht
No comments:
Post a Comment