We decided to take a trip to the plain of Jars in North east of Laos where some very old ...well, jars, are. We thought that it would be nice to do a circular route as I hate to backtrack. We read on other people's blogs that it was not the easiest thing to do as the buses are infrequent, but we thought that we would have an adventure and do it anyway.
First up was a bus trip north up the Nam Ou river to Nong Khiaw and then an hour's boat trip up the river from there. All was going well only an hour and a half wait for the bus because it got full up and left without us (better than being rammed in we thought, not at all like India where the bus is never full!). The view from bus/truck ride got better and better as we went higher up into the mountains or maybe we were just getting high off the exhust fumes that were being pumped into the back... we couldn't tell.
Next up was a lovely trip up the river surrounded by mountains and water buffalo, the driver very skillfully guided us up the rapids to the village of Muang Ngoi Neua. We booked into the "cleanest hotel in town with 24-hours electricity". This sounded good as most places run off a generator and shut that down at 10pm. Little did we know that this was a big mistake and one that should have been avoided as we are reading a book called "food tourist in Loas" and she wrote about this village and forewarned us but we did not take any heed of her!!!! For as the hotel was the only one with 24-hours electricity it also ran as the local hangout joint for the young 21, I can talk all night loudly about how the raves in Goa are like Sooooo cool man, crowd. We joined in on the first night and had fun but by the second we could not sleep until past 1am, not least as the walls were made of bamboo, which would not be too bad if the thousand of cocks (chickens that is) in the village did not decided to sing out at 5am and wake me up every day, suddenly jungle paradise was spoiled, we moved out to a quieter guest house the next day which was heaven.
All that said the place it self is a fantastically beautifully place to have a coffee by the river and we had a lovely trek into the jungle up a smaller river filled with butterflies, Eleanor said that she felt like snow white! past a cave where the locals hid during the war, to a massive rice paddy fields and a even more remote village where we sat in the hammocks there and admired the view.
The next day we hired the ex-school teacher and his son and next door neighbour's boy to take us on a traditional Laos fishing trip. We learnt how to throw a net into the small river and catch small fish. This was the main reason I wanted to go to this village and it was a massive highlight of the Loas trip, even if El caught more fish than me!! She must have cheated.
Strange water buffallo
We Caught these we did, they were yummy mmmm!
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