Glad to finally get out of Luang Prabang, we took a 4 hour bus trip to Nong Kiaw. This place like Vang Vieng was beautiful with steeply rising hills and lush vegetation.
We spent an evening playing Settlers with Phillipe and Max. The next day regrettably they headed on towards Thailand, so it was sad to see them leave.
We walked over to the local caves called Nam Tham. Allegedly these were a refuge for approximately 100,000 communist supporters from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia. The Americans bombed the area but the caves proved to be solid support. They had living quarters, hospital, admin centre, and even a bank!
On the way back we ran into a bunch of school kids, who were just fantastic company. We hung out for probably an hour, whilst they looked over our photos, communicated in pigeon english / laos. Then we headed for a swim with them at the local water hole.
Here again, we witnessed soldiers waltzing around languidly with their pet AK47's strewn around their necks. At around 9:30 pm they told everyone to go to bed because the rebels were coming down from the mountains.... whatever that means? In the middle of the night Lauren wakes me up.... I hear the following:
rustle, rustle rustle.. poke to my ribs... rustle rustle.. "Wynne (whispered), Wynne, WYNNE! (louder this time)..." (ME)... "hmmm?"... "I think I heard gun fire"...."huh?"..."I think I heard gun fire"....."Nah, I think thats the fishermen whacking the water to stun the fish"...."are you sure??"....."yeah I think so"....."are you really sure????"....."yeah I think so"....."I dont think so?!?!".... "a huh... zzzz zzzzzz zz zzz".
A couple of hours later Lauren wakes up with a start hearing "rata rata rata rata rata rata rata rata rata....." as the sound fades away into the distance, thinking she has heard machine gun fire yet again. Turns out to be a truck with a rattly engine. We figured this out as it drove by at lunch time again.
A couple of days later we headed to Muang Noi which is fairly similar except even more beautiful and much more laid back. Accommodation was a paltry 2 $ US for a night in a cute little bamboo constructed bungalo.
We journed north to several tradditional hill tribe villages on a 2 day trek through jungle, mountains, and rivers. Painstaking stuff - the hills were really steep and required a bit of guts to keep going. After 9 hours of solid trekking, we finally stopped at the village Ban Phon for a night. We were virtually over run with every kid in the village (which there seemed to be so many!). They couldnt get enough of our games, trying to learn english, and their fascination with the digital camera. Eventually we had to go to bed. However, this was hard since we were all suffocating from the internal log fire used to cook dinner - with no ventilation. Our eyes were stinging with tears. The bed roll seemed to be made of solid rock, and the pillows filled with sand. I woke several times in the night (the entire back of my head had gone to sleep because the pillow had no give). Roosters had crowing competitions every hour or so, and the 20 or so dogs would also wake to start barking and fighting. All in all a very rewarding experience!
On the trek we got to know a bunch of interesting people. Amongst them we met a hard case kiwi lady called Jannett and an Irishman called John. We continued to travel with John later on playing Settlers. I have to say that I was disappointed that he won so many times after only just learning the rules.
