Muang Ngoi

Isolated on the Nam Ou, Muang Ngoi has no road access to the outside world. In fact, aside from the crazy Kubota tractors and a few scooters, there is not much in the way of land vehicles.

This isolation had not prevented Muang Ngoi from becoming a small trekking center, complete with riverside bungalows and one dusty little main street, street being used in the loosest possible sense. There is not a paced road for many, many kilometers.

Down River

I left Muang Khua the next day, after a provisional stop at the market for sticky rice and fruit.

The boat left at a reasonable 9:30, so there was time for a big, steaming bowl of noodle soup and leafy vege for breakfast.

Now I was traveling on a new stretch of the river, heading five hours downstream to Muang Ngoi, a trekking outpost without road access or wifi.

Dinner

Muang Khua, PDR Laos

Arriving in Muang Khua, five hours down river from Hat Sa, it was all familiar and homey. I had noodles to make up for no breakfast, then hiked across the crazy suspension bridge to my crazy guest house.

No one was around, so I checked myself in, threw my shite in the same room and claimed my spot on the balcony. I was halfway through a cigar before my host showed up. He was, as ever, boisterous and gracious. "Sit, sit, drink the water, drink whiskey, dinner at 6:30 ok ok?"

This is the view of the dinner vege being picked for tonight's meal.

Sometimes slow to dead-stop is the best Travelling speed.

Hat Sa

As the boat pulls away from the hamlet of Hat Sa, I am leaving my northernmost point on the Nam Ou. Now begins the inexorable beginning of the return. Each stop along the river will have more civilization, more Farang, and will be closer to the last stop at Luang Prabang.

Traveling

As Mark Twain write in Innocent's Abroad, "This was pleasuring with a vengeance."

Fortified with Coffee-Lao, I walked through the old Chinese quarter of Phongsali, on my way to the dusty bus depot. The bus to Hat Sa was waiting, and after the usual fits and starts of Lap travel, we were off on the 20 km journey down the dusty, switch-backing snake of a road that dropped precipitously from the mountains of Phongsali to the Nam Ou river at Hat Sa.

The perils of plunging over the cliff were nothing compared to the incredibly loud and grating voice of a Lao woman, who carried on a barrage of vocal gymnastics the entire route.

I vowed her murder should she embark on our five our down-river voyage. She was spared when she de-bused prior to the boat landing.

I was back at the Nam Ou, my favorite "highway" in Lao. In this country, river travel is the best.

Finale

And a sunset.

This was my last night in Phongsali. From here on, I head south by river in stages.

I am standing on the roof of my guesthouse pirating a telecom signal and watching the sun rise.

There will be no blogging on the river. And I think the last batch of entries is all out of order, but you can sort it.

Gotta go, gotta catch a boat. Ciao.

Reward.

Of course, there is a stupa.