We wound up doing the journey with a foursome, two guys from Finland, one from England, and a girl from the U.S., who turned out to be an entertaining group.
When we arrived in Muang Ngoi, we found a place to stay right on the river. Our bungalow had a balcony with two hammocks overlooking a picturesque view of the river and mountains.
The only road through the village was a long dirt path that went from one end to the other. Near the end of each day the kids would play on the road, while the adults would sit on their doorsteps just observing life in the street.
What I loved most were all the rice hats. These hats seem to be very practical for keeping the sun and rain off your face.
The village was full of farm animals: ducks, chickens, cats, dogs, cows, and water buffalo.
We were woken up every morning by the irritating sound of roosters crowing. They sounded like they had the common cold or emphysema because they seemed to cough out the last part of their trills. Other noises filled our bungalow each morning that consisted of kids playing, farmers and other workers going about their day, boats taking off down the river (their engines sounded like helicopters), animals, insects, birds, and to top it off: really loud annoying thai music blasting from the neighbor's stereo. Life in the village started quite early.
There were no vehicles or fridges and there was also no electricity in the town, just between 7pm and 10:30pm, which was run from a generator. But, somehow, the people found a way to live without it.
One day, we trekked down a muddy path to a large cave, which had a small river flowing through it. Chris managed to get a leech on his foot during our trek, which drew a stream of blood.
After checking out the cave we continued down the path and wound up walking through rice fields as far as the eye could see. It was pretty cool. We would up at another small village called Bana and ate a quick dinner there before heading back to town just as the sun was setting.
We saw a praying mantis one day when we were strolling through the village. I leaned in close to it and we made eye contact. As I moved my head from side to side, it copied me. It was as if we were dancing. Then all of a sudden, just when I figured I had charmed it like a snake, it flew at me and landed on my bag. I screamed and jumped in surprise. "We were just dancing" I said to Chris who was laughing at me. "Then it came on to me!"
We hung out in our hammocks for a couple of days and just chilled out for once. We read our books, talked about our dreams, and discussed the way of life in other countries. We sat for hours and just watched life happen on the river in front of us.
Many of the villagers spend all day on the river fishing from their boats.
It was really interesting to see the locals using the river to wash their clothing, bathe themselves, and even wash dishes. The water was brown and looked dirty, but Chris reassured me that it's just the sediment that's been churned up by the flowing river.
Travel tip of the day:
Some places don't have ATMs or banks to withdraw cash from, so find out before you go to a place if this is the case and prepare to bring enough money with you. And always over-budget for those just-in-case moments.
When we arrived in Muang Ngoi we discovered that there were no ATMs around, so we had to set enough money aside to make sure that we could get back to Luang Prabang. We also had to ration out our food consumption for the few days that we were there.
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