Muang Ngoi: United Nations Chillout
Friday, August 24th, 2007When travelling around Southeast Asia, there’s a fairly well-worn path that most people take. And it is far too easy to follow that path from the comfort of a tourist-only mini-bus getting you from one destination to the next. It tends to shut you off from the country, and it’s easy to feel as though you’re on some sort of school excursion. This is something Bec and I encountered on our last visit, and was at it’s worst on the trip from Luang Prabang south to Vang Vieng and onto the Laos capital of Vientiane.
In order to avoid feeling like lambs this time, we opted to head north from Luang Prabang to the village of Muang Ngoi. We hadn’t heard of the place on our last trip to Laos, and didn’t know anyone who’d been there. Our guidebook gave it a brief mention as a village that could only be reached by boat, so it sounded as though it would be nice and relaxed after the hectic shopping in Luang Prabang. Plus it was pretty much on the way to the Vietnam border crossing closest to Hanoi, which was where we eventually wanted to go. To get to Muang Ngoi, we had to return to the village of Nong Khiaw on the Nam Ou river, from where we could get a boat an hour up river to Muang Ngoi.
Even given that this destination was not on the most common tourist trail, we still had the option of geting a tourist bus or a local bus. Eager to avoid the mini bus, we opted for the local bus. We booked a ticket in town the night before we left, and headed out to the bus station (a patch of dirt on the outskirts of town) early the next morning. Our tuk-tuk driver pulled up next to the bus going to Nong Khiaw; it was a mini bus, and half the people in there had white faces. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
Dave