Laos, Sunday 10th October 2004 15:30
I will have been travelling with George for two months tomorrow. It is a strange feeling as it does not feel like I have been travelling for more than a few weeks.
We left Luang Prabang by boat and after seven hours on a hard seat with some amazing views we arrived in Nong Khiaw. This is a small town straddling the river with a bridge connecting the two halves. There were five of us on the boat - an Aussie called Peter, an American girl called Nicky and a big Canadian guy called Yaron. We all went to the same accommodation as we were told it was very good. It was called the Sunset guest house and guess what - it had a good view of the sunset. They were a great bunch of people at the guest house and we had a fun night talking, playing cards and me drinking.
Nam Ou river - fisherman and rapids from our boat
Great kid on our boat ride up to Nong Khiaw:
Nam Ou riverside village:
The Gang at the Sunset guesthouse, Nong Khiaw - Peter Nikki, Karen, George and Yaron:
George and the film star wannabe:
Peter, George and I headed further north to the village of Muang Ngoi that can only be reached by boat. A nice trip in a cramped boat with planks of wood as seats and there were some rapids to go through. We met two great people on the boat - an Aussie guy called James and an English lady called Chrissie. Chrissie goes to the village for about a month every year and has been going to the village of Muang Ngoi Neua for the last eight years. When we arrived at the village Chrissie said she knew a good guest house so we went there. It is a nice place by the river, with bamboo huts costing $1 a night. The down side is that the toilet and shower are in a small hut and the shower is a tap and a small bucket of ice cold water. We spent some good times with Peter, James and Chrissie, exploring the local caves, paddy fields and going to the next village. The are very cut-off with no power and have to get everything from the village we were staying at, up a thin path sometimes thick with mud. We also went tubing again, this time a lot slower and a shorter time but still fun.
We met a guy called Tom and went to climb the mountain on the opposite side of the river. We hired a boat and went for a walk but after about an hour we could not find the path we needed so we went up the river by boat and stopped on an island made of sand. It was like being on the beach and we made faces in the sand.
One day we were at the place where the boats come in when all these people got off the boat and started to cheer. Their original boat started to take on water and sink so they got to the river bank and most of their stuff stayed dry. They had to spend the night on the river bank before a new boat was found to take them the rest of the way. They were a great bunch of people and I chatted to them and got invited to a stag night as two of the party were getting married in Laos in about a months time. It was a great night of drinking Lao beer and Lao Lao whisky, cards and bad stories. The girls were having a hen night in the bar next to ours so when I walked through they said I had to do a forfeit. I had to put makeup on the bride, so I had fun, but they said the other half of the forfeit was for her to put some on me. Some lipstick and eyeliner later, I went back to the boys bar. At 10.30pm the bar closed and at 11pm we joined the girls. We ran out of drink by midnight and we were thinking about what to do next when the police arrived and told us to go home.
The town is up at the crack of dawn, (5.30am), works until lunchtime, has a rest and goes back to work for a few hours in the late afternoon. It has power from 6.30pm until 10.30pm when the town goes to bed, unlike the tourists who go to bed when they run out of beer. We spent five nights at the village, George and I both think it is the best place in Laos we have been to.
We have now moved on and spent another two days in Luang Prabang then got a bus back to Vientiane. The bus should have taken nine hours but it broke down just after nine hours when we were 10 kilometers short of the city. The starter motor was jamming so we found a Tuk Tuk and six of us got to town that way. We had been on the road for 11 hours so we were very tired.
Tomorrow we travel back to Thailand as George is returning to the UK for a week so I will have to fend for myself, i.e. find the nearest bar and stay in it until George gets back.
Peter, James and George on our walk from Muang Ngoi to Ban Na:
Me and the view of paddy fields from Ban Na village:
Muang Ngoi Neua village huts:
Muang Ngoi Neua main street:
The boat we hired:
Sandy island we rowed upstream to:
George and Chrissie
