Sometimes I feel like I'm inside National Geographic

Hi everyone,

I've just spent the last 4 days in rural Northern Laos, in a place called Muang Ngoi Neua. I'm convinced this is the single most beautiful place on the planet. I'd been wanting to come up here since the very beginning, but it had been put off because of the burn on my leg.

After a provebial kick up the backside from Dad (and the green light from the doctor) I decided to head up there anyway instead of sitting around watching Grey's Anatomy in Luang Prabang feeling sorry for myself. Best. Decision. Ever. It was a horrendously bumpy 3-hour minivan ride up to Nong Khiaw, crammed in with 9 other tourists, but we got there in the end. A quick lunch stop then we were on the ferry up to Muang Ngoi. Now when I say ferry, I mean toothpick-shaped boat that fits 20 Lao-sized people at best, but of course they will cram on 10 falangs, 17 bags of rice, 25 locals, a whole lot of luggage and a really cool mini-4wd that would be some kid's birthday present. We then precariously navigated upriver , stopping along the way to pick up more bags of rice, and made it to Muang Ngoi an hour later.

This place is just a tiny collection of guesthouses and eateries set amongst local houses, high up on the riverbanks of the Nam Ou river. There is a place where everyone hangs out called Riverside restaurant which is basically a platform with hammocks, low tables and the ubiquitous triangle cushions (they're not comfortable, who designed these things??). After a shower and a change of clothes I trucked down there with my book and camera, determined to do absolutely nothing all afternoon. I got a few pages into my book then made friends with the other travellers there. Such a great bunch of people; 2 American couples (Laura - one of them was a big an anime freak as you, he got so jealous over my Ghibli museum memorabilia) and an awesome old Australian guy called Steve. We spent the night chatting and playing cards, had some really good sticky rice and other things for dinner, and of course a cold Beerlao. It was such a good bunch of people, a far cry from the drunken yob crowds of Vang Vieng or the hordes of tourists you get in the main centres. I think it's a certain type of traveller that will take the effort to get somewhere that's a bit off the beaten track, a bit out of the way. We had some good talks about the places we'd been, where we were going, and the topic of volunteer work and charities came up quite a few times for discussion as well. Steve the Australian (I think he's late 50's, early 60's) actualy has an 'adopted Indonesian family' that he visits for a few months at a time each year, he had some really interesting stories to tell about his life and his travels.

Anyway, the next day 7 of us went on a fishing trip. Well, it was supposed to be a fishing trip but we got a few other things thrown in as well, we took a boat up the river and stopped at a silk weaving village (seriously, how many of these are there in SE Asia??) where the prices were ridiculously low and quality ridiculously high - a bad place to be for a scarfaholic!!! Of course I bought one. Shame on you for even questioning me. Its a gorgeous soft grey/purple with gold Lao motifs woven into it. The next stop was a cave ,nothing to look at from the outside, but inside it went for miles - we walked a good 15-20 minutes into it, along fresh, cold clean water, stalactites, bats, all sorts of cool stuff. There was a huge swimming hole at the end and we ll took a refreshing - and much-needed - dip. Then we went fishing. Actually, the guides pulled up nets they had planted yesterday and collected 2 fish, then threw out those circular nets and caught a handful of little ones, while we watched. We got to have a go at throwing the nets (epic fail!)
We had a lovely fish dinner that night, fish that we (ha!) had caught that day.

The next day Steve, Julian (a Dutch guy) and I did the walk to the next village. This felt like the pages of National Geographic - we walked through Lao bush, past rivers and streams, through mountains, and came out in these picturesque rice fields. We walked along the little ridges between rice fields, saw people in cone hats planting rice, water buffalo just everywhere, and finally got to the vilalge at the end. Everything is made of bamboo - no other material handy, I guess. We walked through and saw so many cute kids :) It was stinking hot that day; it took us a good 2 hours to walk there (prob more, we dilly-dallied a bit and took lots of photos), and it was around 1pm when we headed back. Scorching sun, apparently it was around 40 degrees. I'd believe it! The water that came out of my shower was hot, it was too hot to lie down in my room, the only respite was to lie in the hammock at the Riverside restaurant. Not a bad last resort, actually :)

Said a sad goodbye to my new buddies this morning and got on the toothpick boat back to Nong Khiaw. We decided to take a sangtheaw (oversized tuk tuk) back to Luang Prabang instead of waiting 2 hours for the next minivan. It was packed to the rafters - 20 people (4 of whom were locals), 2 bags of rice, a few mini suitcases, unidentifiable boxes of things, and all our luggage on the roof. But it was a really nice ride, we all got chatting and had a very enjoyable time. It was bumpy but at least the sides were open so we got a good breeze.

I'm off to Vientiane tonight on the overnight bus, then down to Pakse for some more motorbiking.

Until next time!

May Lee x