Jungle Journey-Nong Khiaw, Laos (Post #7)

Dear Friends and Family,

After 4 days in Luang Prabang, we took a minivan 4hrs north to Nong Khiaw, a small town on the Nam Ou river, surrounded by massive limestone karsts. The quiet village has hiking trails to look out points, boating, and kayaking. Our large riverside bungalow on stilts was so peaceful. We saw fishermen from our porch overlooking the muddy river and took photos from the bridge. How serene this place is! There were basically two streets, one on each side of the river.

The ground was saturated with rain from the day before as we began a 1 hr trail ascent to a viewing area on top of one of the karsts on the east side of the river. It was straight up through the tropical jungle. We encountered tiny signs “this way” just often enough to reassure us that we weren’t lost. The trail was quite precarious! There were some handrails made of bamboo or tree limbs, but they weren’t always sturdily attached, and they were only “here and there.” We kept thinking the path would level out a little bit, but it never did. It was just up, up, up with zero switchbacks! After an hour, we abandoned our attempt and descended with great difficulty, slipping on muddy rocks and sliding down patches of clay soil. We barely made it back without injury. Linda went into one hole chest high and had to climb out, and Bruce put his injured shoulder to the ultimate challenge, grasping jungle vines and hanging onto rocks. We saw a giant centipede that was as thick as your thumb and about eight inches long. We were glad we took water bottles, as we’ve never sweated so profusely! They should have closed this trail under such wet conditions, but instead, accepted a fee to climb the karst. This is typical in a communist country. People cannot sue here, so it’s always “buyer beware.” In other respects, Laos is a very safe country to travel. We know that we only made it down by the grace of God. Seriously. We met a young couple with two kids, going up while we were heading down. They were struggling too, but were more determined (or crazy) than us. We hope they didn’t get hurt. When we got back to the village, we rewarded ourselves with dinner at Ma Ma Alex’s restaurant. Linda had chicken and vegetable curry stew, and Bruce had sweet and sour pork over steamed rice. We washed our meal down with ice cold Beer Lao. It was delicious! We had just a short walk back to our bungalow where, sore and tired, we showered and went to bed early.

Breakfast was great, and Lao coffee is strong, so the next day we bounced right back. We agreed that the best viewpoint in Nong Khiaw is from the bridge. 😁 We stayed at the Riverside Guesthouse two nights and then joined other backpackers and a few locals on a 1 hr ferry boat ride up the Nam Ou river. We passed lots of water buffalo and even saw a couple of pink ones! We think they look like a cross between a steer and a hippo!  

Goodbye for now. We will update you from the next village upriver. 

Love, BnL

Author: bnlmos

We are a retired couple, together nearly 35 years, who love International travel. Having a "blog" is brand new to us, so have patience as we do our best to keep in touch with our friends and family. Please feel free to comment on this blog or contact us via personal email. brucemos@hotmail.com View all posts by bnlmos