Laos, rhymes with cow
Luang Prabang, Laos.
Our first week in Laos was spent relaxing in the two little river towns of Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoi. From Odomxai we planned on taking a bus straight to Nong Khiaw, but ended up getting up and around (after eating yummy crepes and fruit shakes for breakfast!) too late and missing the direct bus. We were told by our friendly guesthouse staff that we could take the bus to Pak Mong where all of the buses from Luang Prabang passed through as well as ones from farther north. We bought our ticket at around noon and sat on the van/bus for about three hours before we finally took off. But we’d bought some fresh baguettes from a lady walking around the bus station (which was just a line of buses and a building in the middle of nowhere) and some apples and oranges from a little stand and we had plenty of water, so we just sat and munched and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the people going about their business at the station.
Laos has proven to be full of wonderful surprises. One of the first was how beautiful it is, but that was quickly followed by the strange animals that they eat! While we were hanging out in the van a little old lady carrying a giant basket by a piece of cloth around her forehead (!) came into the station and unloaded her wares in front of the van. At first a bunch of people crowded around so we couldn’t see what she had, but then the people parted and we were both a little surprised to see a basket full of dead bats! And people were buying them for what I imagine was for food (after inspecting them carefully)!
When we finally got on the road, the little van was completed stuffed with people and giant sacks of rice and other packages. Our butts already hurt from sitting on the seats for three hours, and we had a three hour ride ahead of us! But the scenery was so beautiful, that I soon forgot the pain and just enjoyed. The bus driver played some lovely Laos music that was such a nice treat after 6 months of S. American reggae and regatone, and then the techno crap blasting all around in China. We drove through the mountains on winding roads passing little villages with wooden huts covered in palm leaf roofs and people going about their daily routines. As it started getting later, we noticed a pattern in the towns of people carrying huge loads of wood or other things and then people taking their evening baths at community water pipes along the road. The boys just stripped down to their undies and the girls pulled their long wrap skirts up over their breasts like I’d wrap a towel around myself after a shower and they washed underneath it. It was really neat to see, and sort of confusing that they would be bathing right along the road. It was hard not to look at them, but we both tried to respectfully turn our eyes. But it just looked like so much fun! It was a real community washing event with children playing and women talking and laughing.
As we drove along we also noticed more food on display… women sitting along side of the road would hold up something–a giant leg of something, a large spotted cat of some kind–as we road past to see if we were interested. I learned later on that hunting is illegal in Laos, so that seems to explain the covert nature of the process. Our driver did stop twice to buy some fresh game. Once a bunch of tiny little dead birds and another time for three squirrels secured together by their mouths and carried by a group of boys with long, skinny guns of some kind, slingshots, and fireworks! Both purchases were unceremoniously flopped on the floor by his feet and we drove along.
When we finally stopped in Pak Mong it was starting to get dark and we were both starving. We decided to go ahead and stay there for the night since there were a handful of guesthouses and restaurants at the interestion of the roads to Luang Prabang and to Muang Ngoi. We found a little guesthouse with a sort of crappy, cramped room and threw down our stuff and went to find some food. We ended up eating in a Chinese restaurant since a lot of Chinese people have made their way down into Laos to start up businesses and make their fortune. It was passably good, but at least very filling which was all we were looking for. We thought we’d wander around the town a bit before going to bed, but it was literally just a few stands around the roads and no town in sight. So we turned in early and slept pretty well.
The next morning we woke up and unfortunately couldn’t take advantage of the hot water shower we’d paid extra for because our guesthouse’s electricity was out. So we just threw on clothes and went out for a breakfast of yummy noodle soup. Just outside of the little restaurant (which was more like a square of concrete with a roof over it) there sat a little old woman roasting eggplants in a tiny fire. I snuck a couple of photos before I noticed the most ridiculous looking little chicken which we tried to coral so I could take some pictues of it, too. After breakfast we went back to pack up our stuff and check out of our room. The guesthouse lady told us that a bus to Nong Khiaw would come through around noon, so we sat at some of her outside tables and played with her little daughter who was very cute. We finally ended up getting a little minivan at around one which we paid a middleman what was probably an inflated price for it. But what do you do when someone strikes up a conversation with you and then proceeds to start flagging down vans for you? We could’ve done it ourselves, but it was already done and we didn’t want to be rude. In the end it was probably $1 extra, so who cares, right?
Our ride to Nong Khiaw wasn’t quite as scenic or as interesting as the day before since the van was full of Westerners, but we were there in an hour and started our quest for the perfect guesthouse which is difficult when they all look about the same. We found a nice little spot across the river where we had a private bamboo bungalow for about $10/night with a hot shower and a little porch with a river view. It was fantastic. We took hot showers and put on clean clothes then went out for some lunch at one of the many restaurants with porches overlooking the Nam Ou River. I had yummy fried noodles with vegetables and Steve had beef (which turned out was really water buffalo) and bean sprouts. His looked like worms, but was really tasty. And we, of course, both got giant fruit smoothies. They’ve become a staple in our lives.
Lunch!
We were originally not planning on staying in Nong Khiaw, but it was just so pleasant and relaxing that we ended up staying for two nights before moving on to Muang Ngoi–our original destination. To get to Muang Ngoi, you have to take an hour long boat ride up the river since there are no roads to the town. It used to be just a sleepy little village before it was ‘discovered’ by tourists and now it is still a charming little place with no cars or motorbikes and children playing in the streets, but it’s also a tourist destination, so there are guest houses and restaurants everywhere. The town doesn’t have electricity, but from sundown until about 10 pm the air is full of the buzz of generators and bad pop music playing from most establishments. No electricity means no ice, which means no fruit smoothies, but we managed to survive for the two nights we were there.
Originally we planned on staying in Muang Ngoi for longer than two nights, but we realized that our kip was almost completely depleted! One downfall of giant wads of money is you think it’s going to last a long time. But when a fruit smoothie is 8,000 kip you run out fast. So we were only able to stay two nights since there were no banks or ATMs in town and we didn’t want to change the American dollars we’d got in Kunming since it was for emergencies. Since we didn’t arrive until almost dark the first night, we had one full day that we took advantage of by hiking to a neat cave and through the woods and rice paddies to a little village. We were trying to go all the way to a second cave and a waterfall, but the hike was taking a long time and the sun sets fast in the mountains in Laos, so we turned back a little short of our final destination in order to make sure we got back in time. The hike there was lovely, though, through a forest that was a butterfly paradise. The way there took much longer than the way back since I stopped so often to look at the butterflies and try to take photos of them. At one point on the walk we walked through some bamboo that made such a freaky noise as they rattled in the wind that it reminded me of the scene in ‘the Wizard of Oz’ where they’re being attacked by the apple trees! I have to admit that I half-ran through the bamboo! It was just too weird!
We had a nice stay in Muang Ngoi just relaxing and eating (we had some amazing fried bananas one night!) and walking around. I was excited about moving on to Luang Prabang, but a little sad to say goodbye to our little river towns since they were so relaxing.
Tags: Laos, Muang Ngoi
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