After a night in the charmless transit town of Oudamxai we
headed to Muang Khua, the first sleepy village in our Nam Ou river trip. Our
guest house overlooked the river, but the barge that ferried cars across the
river was powered by a horribly loud diesel boat 12 hours a day. So we decided
to leave early for Muang Ngoi Neua and caught the 4 hour long boat down the Nam
Ou.
Muang Ngoi Neua sits on the banks of the Nam Ou and of the 3
villages we visited on the Nam Ou, it is the least advanced, with no roads
connecting it to the rest of the country and only 3-4 hours of electricity a
day. The streets are dirt and all shops are either river bungalows or food
stalls – often both, with a few house fronts selling bits and pieces from dried
river weed to cans of pringles.
On arrival we step out on to a bamboo raft/jetty and are
welcomed by locals offering “bungalows with hammock.” Most of these, including the
one we stayed in, are single unit bamboo thatch huts with concrete bathrooms on
the rear. Some offered 24 hour power with generator but we decided to go for
the view of the river from the hammocks and peace and quiet (except for the
roosters).
After the first night we met up with some people we had met
on our boat ride and headed out for the outlying caves and villages. We took a
while getting out of town as one of the locals dogs had taken a liking to our
group and decided to follow us. The owner was a bit worried and explained to us
that one of the outlying villages had warned her that if there dogs strayed
into their villages alone they would eat them. We ended up unwittingly adopting another dog
that followed us safely for the whole journey however.
One of the attractions en route was a large cave, and we headed in armed with
torches. The caves in Laos are numerous and very imported to the locals that
live around them; they often hold century old images of Buddha or statues and
figurines that were stored in the caves during the sixties and seventies while
Laos was bombarded by the US as part of the Secret War. In fact one the bungalows
in town had huge bomb casings at the entrance.
After the cave we headed to the closest village and decided
to stop and have our lunch, ending up napping in the hammocks and playing
petanque with one of the locals. The rest of our group made their way back to
Muang Ngoi Neua along the rice paddies, while myself and Hannah decided to stay
the night and hired a bungalow for a mere 10,000 kip (1.54NZD); another bamboo
hut with a mattress and a mosquito net.
I shared my Beer Lao with my petanque partner and in turn he fed me too
many shots of home made Lao Lao (rice whisky), some strong stuff, and after a
few more beers I headed to bed, with our newly adopted dog sleeping outside our
door.
The next morning the sun was out in force and being hungover
in the sun with 30c+ heat wasn’t the best. Our dog followed us back to Muang
Ngoi Neua and for the rest of our visit would turn up from time to time and
spend a few hours following us or sleeping under our hammocks. After a few
nights taking in the river views from our hammocks we headed downstream to Nong
Khiaw.
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| Views over the rice paddy fields in Ban Na village |
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