I’d love to be able to say that Mika and I traveled from Luang Prabang to Muang Ngoi without incident. I’d love to say that what was dubbed a 5 hour trip that should have put us in Muang Ngoi after lunch was exactly that. But this is Mika and me, and that’s not the way we roll.
Muang Ngoi is a sleepy little village on the Nam Ou River an hour north of Nong Kiew, accessible only by boat. It’s another village that is just a year or two away from being overwhelmed by tourists. At the moment it’s a gem for those that make the trip. To get there from Luang Prabang involves 2 parts: a 4 hour bus ride followed by an hour longboat ride up the river. The bus ride was uneventful except for the fact that we left an hour and a half late and at a rest stop we saw a half butchered dog sitting in a pail with a half quartered chicken. It was one of those things you knew existed but would have been better off not seeing. We then had to wait another hour and a half to catch the later boat due to our tardiness. We finally boarded our longboat at 2pm.
We knew there was something wrong from the moment we left, or tried to leave. The first thing that the captain did before pushing off was take a hammer and screwdriver to the engine (a recycled V-6 from what used to be a Toyota). A couple smacks and a tweak of something or other and he was satisfied. We pushed off and headed upstream with as much confidence as we could muster. The town quickly faded away and we were surrounded by the pristine beauty of the Lao hillside. I’ve been trying to come up with a way to describe this landscape. It’s unlike anything either of us have ever scene and it becomes more and more impressive each time we see it. Imagine towering hills, carpeted in lush jungle in every shade of green imaginable. They drop, fjord-like, into the river and stretch endlessly to the horizon. They seem to pop out of the plains as if a giant was pushing through the earth from the underside with a finger. They are not overpowering in size like the Himalayas, but their density and depth suck you in just the same. Obviously pictures speak a thousand words, but they will never do them justice.
The river too has a mystical quality that we now understand can only be found in this part of the world. It winds slowly and effortlessly through the landscape only to be broken every so often by rock outcroppings. The river’s edges are shallow from the upstream silt and when you walk in your feet sink and the soil squeezes between your toes. At night the river cools the air creating a thick fog that you can witness form in front of your eyes.
The beauty had just begun to get a hold of us when the boat’s engine came to a grinding halt. Mika and I looked at Jonah and Alicia and we all just about fell out of the boat laughing! Two boats in barely a week! Immediately we tried to figure out who was the bad luck charm. For the next hour the captain fiddled with the engine. More tweaking and fidgeting, he added some oil that helped for about 5 minutes before it sputtered out again. Another long boat pulled up alongside but the only help they could give was comic relief in the form of a Vietnamese traveler who thought this was the funniest thing he had seen. We eventually managed to get ashore at which point the captain declared the boat unfit to go any further. Déjà vu! The boat with the Vietnamese traveler pulled up alongside a couple minutes after, some money was exchanged between captains, and we all boarded our new ship. Off we went again. No more than 10 minutes from boarding the new boat we were again ordered off. It seemed that the boat, with all the extra weight, could not travel this stretch of the river because it was too shallow. We were going to have to walk and meet the boat about 500 meters upstream! So we walked and, as expected when you drop a bunch of tourists in the middle of a jungle, we got lost. You would think following the river upstream would be easy enough but wonders never cease. Luckily, as if almost scripted, a local villager appeared and guided us to the path that would return us to the boat. This is why you never worry. There will always be a villager or a bus or something to guide you back when something goes wrong!
Another hour upstream and we finally arrived. Just before sunset, 8 ½ hours in all. Pretty much par for the course!
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