Muang Ngoy

13th January

We love this place. We thought we would stay one night as we have now booked a flight to Bangkok on Saturday the 16th so need to head back to Luang Prabang on Friday and it's safer if we are in Nong Khiaw tomorrow to arrange. However, it's so nice we can no way stay just one night! We are now staying two and will just prey we manage to catch the boat on Friday morning and get straight on a minivan Friday lunch. There are so many remote Hmong villages around here you can trek to and stay on their floor for £1.50 a night you could easily spend a week here.

Muang Ngoi is only accessible by an hour boat ride from Nong Khiaw. We envisaged it being a relatively quiet boat ride. Not quite. They somehow squeezed thirty people, a load of building materials and some chickens on. I certainly had pins and needles in my feet when I got off due to being unable to move them for quite some time. Like the rest of Laos though, it was beautiful scenery en route. Heavily forested karst mountains, little beaches along the river, river life going on as normal.

Somehow my bag got wet on the boat and so I had to empty the electrical chargers and the shoes and dry them in the sun this afternoon. It probably happened when they took the bags of cement off at the village half way here.

It's meant to be an hour boat ride departing at 11. Villagers armed with huge shopping bags were still piling onto the boat at 11.45am and so we didn't leave until just before 12. We then stopped enroute and finally arrived around 1.30. Again, another reason staying only one night seems pointless. You get less than 24hours in this beautiful spot.

Our bungalow is 60,000kip/£5!! It is slightly more expensive than the one we had in Nong Khiaw but this is cleaner, has two hammocks and has hot water!!! We are also set amidst a lovely garden with views straight onto the river. It's a non flushable toilet but we're used to using a bucket of water now!

The village is essentially one street with wooden/bamboo houses all along it. The locals carry on as normal and the kids are really friendly. Three little girls stopped us and pointed to Tony's camera indicating they wanted photos. He took some whilst they posed and then examined his work. They were clearly happy with it as they then wanted more! Throughout the rest of Asia, they'd be wanting money for that!

There are no cars here and we've only seen one motorbike and one tractor. If anything disturbs us tomorrow it will be the roosters or the dogs. I'm convinced there are more of these than there are people in this village.

We could go walking tomorrow but to be honest, simply looking at the views and swinging in a hammock is pretty nice! Maybe we'll trek for a couple of hours and then retire to our swinging state!

There is talk of linking this village to others via a road and also bringing an ATM here, for now though it is tantalisingly remote and so far removed from anywhere else we've visited. It's pretty special.

It's now 7.30pm and its pitch black. We're sat swinging on the hammocks, beer Lao in hand, incense burning and Bob Dylan playing. Does that, or does it not, sound like we are a couple of stoners!?

Thursday 14th January

Sat back in the hammocks swinging away. It was wonderfully quiet a little earlier as everyone checked out this morning. We couldn't understand why yesterday she said she was fully booked and it was only when somewhen said they were leaving that she told us we could stay. We now know why. A large group of Chinese tourists turned up with their wheelie cases and their guide who proceeded to brief everyone, including us on the itinerary. There goes the peace and quiet.

This morning we walked to the next village, Ban Ha about an hour away. It was even more rural than here. I don't think there was any electricity, water was fetched via the two village wells, pigs, chickens, ducks and dogs roamed freely. Men wove baskets from bamboo to pen the chickens in and the women sat at their looms weaving blankets.

Walking back the rain started. We just managed to get back and seek shelter as the heavens really opened.

We decided to spend the afternoon chilling, unfortunately sans beer as funds are running low. We've just got enough for a cheap dinner and getting ourselves back to Luang Prabang tomorrow.

Friday 15 January

We're sat in a songteaw on our way to Luang Prabang. The next bus didn't leave until 1.30- if it's full by then which is unlikely, so it could be 2 or 3pm by the time it sets off so we opted for this. I think it's a decision we'll regret. It's already not very comfy and we've only just left. Well, that was after a detour around town, back to the boat dock to collect a bag of rice, a load of tree roots, a bag of something else and a basket of chickens, oh, and the owner of these. I don't think the chickens are strapped down so I hope they are ok as this section of road is very bumpy!

We caught the boat from Muang Ngoi and got a tuk tuk to the bus station. An Australian older dude then wanted to get off at the ATM as he didn't have enough for the bus. Neither would we had we gone to Bee Tree for dinner like he did. Instead we went for cheap curry and shared a drink. Can you believe he actually said to the owner of Bee Tree restaurant that he thought that by now they would have got their act together and introduced an ATM or some kind of visa advance system!? He said this in a rural village that survives mainly via subsistence farming and that only got electricity two years ago!!

The ATM wasn't working so he had to queue inside the bank. None of us in the tuk tuk were best pleased given it was 10.55am and the bus was due to leave at 11.

He then didn't even get the 11am songtau, preferring to wait for the air conditioned 1.30am mini van!!

En route back to Luang Prabang a truck carrying out some much needed road resurfacing squirted water as we drive past resulting in all of us getting wet! Thankfully we dried pretty quickly with the truck having open sides and the wind constantly blowing against us. My hair as a result reminded me of getting off the truck in Africa after driving through the desert for s day.

Whilst in Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoi the lack of bird activity just before sunset has been very noticeable. It seems that birds and other animals have almost been hunted to extinction up here. We saw a local man yesterday carrying a huge hunting rifle. It was a bit scary given we were in the middle of nowhere and there was only Tony and I around. I guess he was after birds and other animals after all. You would think there would be tons of monkeys too given the dense forestation but we haven't seen any.

We told a little white lie to our fellow tuk tuk passengers. We said we had a flight to catch tonight rather than tomorrow in case there were limited seats on the bus and they then may feel sorry for us and let us go. We now have to keep the pretence up. Hopefully we won't bump into them later in Luang Prabang or we will have to tell another little lie and say it was cancelled!