15th June - Muang Khua to Nong Khiaw

In the morning I flooded my 2nd  room in two weeks. I didn't notice that the shower water was hitting the door and running out into our bedroom. Unfortunately, Matt didn't notice either until he went to pack his bag and realised it has soaked up some of the huge volume of water that was now on the floor.

Despite the boat not being due to set off until 9.30, one of us had been told to be there at 8 so we made a quick getaway and trooped down to the river but the ticket booth wasn't even open.

We joined Lucy, Vince, Nick and Sam for breakfast and had our first taste of how long it takes to get food in restaurants in Laos: Thirty-five minutes after we'd ordered, my baguette turned up and had to wait alone for a little while until my omlette arrived. When it did, I noticed that the baguette was yesterday's and too dry to eat. I took it to the waiter just as the restaurant were receiving a new delivery of bread and he was passed some fresh ones by the owner. He then walked past me, took my baguette off the plate and continued into the kitchen! Several minutes later he wandered over with one of the baguettes on a different plate. By this time I'd eaten my omlette and we needed to get down to the river.

The boat journey was ok and initially much more comfortable than a bus but after an hour or two, we all started to get very numb bums. Matt and I ended up snuggled up on the floor at the back of the boat with a minority woman who was very nice to us and really enjoyed the lollies and sweets that Sam kept handing out.

We chugged noisily down the river amongst mist veiled karsts and beautiful scenery. It was a cloudy day and it had rained for the whole night so was also much cooler than usual, which was a blessed relief when more people started to cram on further down the river.

 

We left Miriam and Sander at Muang Ngoi - a village that we had planned to stay at until we met the abondoned American yesterday - and they were replaced by a family of three. We nearly got left behind ourselves anyway because we'd had a loo break and they were just setting off as we ascended the steps to the river.

We arrived Muand Khua maybe 4 or 5 hours after we set off and crossed the bridge to look around for a place. The first one we saw had bungalows overlooking the river with little balconies with a hammock (and wifi at the restuarant nearby of course!) so we stayed there.  Sam and Nick were with us and so we negtiated a cheaper rate and got some nice next-door-neighbours to chat to over our balcony. There was also a surprise ATM there so we could get some money out at some point and wait to change our Dong until we got to a bigger town.

After food and a massive downpour we went for a walk to try to get to some caves we'd read about but the mud was sticking the bottom of our shoes so much that we got taller and taller and couldn't plant our feet properly.  We resolved to try again when the ground was dryer and headed back to wander around the village itself a little more.

We wandered both sides of the river until it got dark and we didn't want to venture out into the wilderness too far. We stood and looked for the stars we'd heard were magnificent if viewed from the big concrete bridge but it too cloudy. Instead we spent a pleasent evening on our balcony reading books before Matt went to bed early.  Sam and Nick came back shortly after so I shimmied over to their balcony and got to enjoy a beer and a chat for a while.