Saturday 6th November, 1999

The Lao people in the room next door are loud. I think they may be the boatmen that brought the Austrians up river and celebrating their pay day. So, I was up earlier than I was expecting and bought some lovely fresh ‘French’ baguettes from a clever young boy selling around the hotels. Then strolled through town and saw some lovely barbecued rats for sale on a market stall before ending up again at the pier.

There was the boat to Nong Kiaw – yes! We left at 8:30 and had an excellent journey. It wasn’t a busy boat with just a couple of mothers with children and one fashionable monk wearing his orange costume but adding some ’street style’ with a stereo, Kojak sunglasses and smoking! Not exactly how I imagined monks to be living! Coolio.

Sat outside the ‘canopy’ roof and lying on a bag of rice, very comfy. Soaking up the sun, watching the country roll by and enjoying the short stops in the tiny little villages clinging to the waters’ edge where they lead a pretty self-sufficient subsistence life. The constant hum of the motor was a bit annoying after a while and it was so idyllic when the motor was switched off in the villages. Then they had trouble turning it back on again and I wouldn’t have minded stopping in one of these little villages for a few hours anyway to try and get closer to the locals – they’re all a bit shy on first approach. It would also have been nice to gently float downstream, really getting back to nature. We passed some amazing hillsides, so wild and steep, really quite beautiful. I had a bit of a snooze lying in the sun and then suddenly we had arrived in Nong Kiaw and said goodbye to my fellow passengers.

I found a guesthouse straight away, just next to the bridge and the supposed ‘port’ and for only 3,000 kip – the cheapest yet. I was surprised at the number of foreigners around me, I thought I had travelled somewhat off the beaten track, but it’s hard to do that these days … there were some pretty stereo-typical Israeli’s (pun) and a European girl who I didn’t have a good start with for some reason (and who would turn out to get on my nerves the next couple of days). There were also a load of Aussie’s including two travelling by bike (James and Ben who I will see again in Luang Prabang). I was surprised at the amount of tourists around who weren’t planning to travel by boat, they’ll miss out on something really special.

It was a very small village which had something nice going for it, but I had seen some much more appealing villages further north and on the boat.