The bus to Muang Khua only took 7 hours instead of the advertised 8, lucky! In these parts of the world it’s usually the other way round.
Although the journey was better than we expected, we’ve had enough of windy roads full of potholes so to get to our next destination, Muang Ngoi, we decided to travel downriver.
Anton and I got to the narrow boat first and we were lucky to secure two of the only four comfy seats (the rest were low wooden benches along the sides). A group of people who were buying tickets a bit later kicked up a fuss, saying it wasn’t fair that they had to pay the same price as us for a less comfortable journey and demanded a discount. The ticket office staff came up with a more elegant solution to make it fair for everyone – they took the comfy seats out and we all ended up sat on wooden benches for 4 hours. Thanks guys.
Anyway, the journey went by quite quickly, there was beautiful scenery to look at on the way and then at one point we got off the boat, a truck drove us to the other side of a dam and there we hopped on another boat. Easy. Not so much for the guys who had bicycles with them but eventually they managed to load everything in as well and we carried on.
We liked Muang Ngoi as soon as we arrived. It’s a tiny village tucked away in the mountains with no road access, lots and lots of cockrells and most menus are still hand written.
We found accommodation with a nice riverview and in-between short hikes to the town’s various viewpoints we practiced our hammock swinging.
One day we ventured out on a walk to an even smaller village called Houay Bo. As there are no real roads in the area the path took us through forrests, plantations, rice fields and across rivers.
On the way back we encountered our second rain in three months, at home we would probably moan about getting soaked but here it was a welcome refreshment. There was a distant thunderstorm and later in the evening the electricity went off in the whole village, just as I was on my way back from a shop. This is clearly not a rare occurrence because all shops and restaurants had candles at the ready and carried on with their business as if nothing happened. I didn’t expect it so I didn’t have a torch or a phone on me and the way back to our accommodation was absolutely pitch black. As I stood there hoping Anton would put two and two together and come get me, a kind French lady saw me and walked me home. Good timing as well because I was bursting for the toilet. Another thing I didn’t expect, I thought as I stood in the bathroom with my hands covered in soap, was that the water would be operated by an electric pump. Oh well, the river’s not far..
Lasagne for breakfast 