Muang Ngoi Neua

29th November – 1st December 2008

Back on terra firma Sam and Ally sought out the best bungalows in town. We struck gold in the Nicksa bungalows – a row of four impeccable wooden huts with verandas and hammocks set high on the riverbank, with views to die for.

Despite the early hour of 4pm we headed to the sunset bar to meet Guy and Jo (and watch the annoying early sunset), who’d arrived on the earlier boat. They entertained us with tales of how a rat, trapped in their hut had kept them awake the night before… and then went on to scare us about Muang Ngoi Neua aka “rat city”!

After dinner, we left Jo and Guy to have an early night with their rat friends and were enticed down an alley by the glowing lights of what turned out to be a newly opened bar. Although there was a fire built outside, no one could be bothered to light it and everyone was stood inside freezing. Ady rose to the task of getting the fire started, and before long there was a crowd of people surrounding the glowing embers, staring at the flames. After an hour of thawing out, it was time to head back to the fridge that was our room. After scaling a fence to get back home (curfew was 10pm!) we wondered what would be waiting to greet us!

Thankfully the Nicksa bungalow didn’t let us down. In any case our Achilles heels are mossies or cockroaches but definitely not rats! Once the couple next door had finally quietened down, we lay in the quiet still dark room. There was a noise. Was it a rat? Was it a cockroach? Was is Johnnie and Ally?! After 10 minutes, Ady had to get up to investigate and discovered that it was dew dripping off the roof onto the ground at the sides of the hut. Now with a plausible explanation for the bumps of the night, we could both sleep easy.

Kayak Adventure

To fully appreciate the amazing limestone karsts along the river, we thought that a kayak trip would be a peaceful way to drift down the river admiring the scenery. How wrong could we be…!? Jonny and Ally had the same idea, so we all signed up for the trip which included a short walking trek, visit to a local village, visit to a cave, and of course a kayak.

A 60 minute boat ride upstream with kayaks in tow ended after 30 minutes. The clunk of broken metal signalled the end of our propeller shaft. We drifted to the bank and our ‘guide’ gestured that we would paddle upstream to get to the next village – the intended start point of our trek.

30 minutes and 100 meters upstream later, we were both not speaking. Not having kayaked together before it seemed that we were incompatible in more ways than one. Sam complained that Ady couldn’t listen to orders, and Ady maintained that he spent the whole time correcting Sam’s sense of direction (although Sam is the more experienced Kayaker!) After going round in circles and doing a slalom around a course that didn’t exist, we caught up with the others who had been resting on a beach for some time. We threw our paddles onto the beach, and stomped over to where the others were waiting. The guide then told us it would be another 90 minutes upstream before we got to the village… The general consensus was that paddling upstream was no fun at all, and we would head back to where we started and try to get some of the money back as we didn’t really get the trip that we paid for!

The scenery we saw was spectacular, and the 20 meters of minor rapids were fun, but the trip would be much better had it been wet season!

Room Service

Our final evening was spent on the balcony of Jonny and Allys hut, warmed by 2 large bottles of local Lion whisky and Coke. We ordered food from owners of our huts, and after a ‘Lao’ wait, our feast was delivered to the balcony! Top service and great spring rolls! 9pm passed and the electricity went off, as is the norm in rural Laos. We continued drinking under torchlight and eventually crawled back to our own hut.

In the morning, we were bundled onto another sinking ship for the 45 minute journey downstream, back to Nong Khiaw. After some expert bargaining by Jonny, we secured ourselves first class seats on the boat to Luang Prabang. 6 hours of winding river and breathtaking scenery stood ahead.