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Published: June 17th 2006
On my first day in Muang Ngoi, a quiet picturesque backpacker place (almost a contradiction in terms) I met Ernie, who was keen to go hiking the following day and was looking for someone else to join to halve the price.
I had breakfast with Ernie, Brian and Tania before setting off on the trek with them. Brian, a head ranger from Canada, and Tania, a doctor from Perth, decided during breakfast to join us. Of course, there was no chance of be getting injured or needing survival training - that would only happen when there isn't a doctor or ranger around.
We set off at 0900 with our guide, Peng, and porter, Weu, for the 40 minute walk to the caves. They were caves. And like most caves in this part of Laos they had been used by the communists during the war to shelter from the B-52s. I think these ones were the HQ for the local government. This part of Laos, like just about the whole country! was heavily bombed by the Americans just in case there were any Viet Cong sitting under the flight path. Of course, the VC turned unexploded bombs into mines for
use against the allied forces. At the first village we stopped at we saw a scatter bomb casing being used as a flower pot.
The trek took us through rice fields which were pretty unexciting as it was winter and they only grow one crop a year in these parts. After the rice fields we headed into the forest and up hill.
Up Hill. I hadn't walked up a hill since Nepal, and in these hot and humid conditions it certainly gave the sweat glands a work out. Peng, our ever resourceful guide, stopped at a stand of bamboo and cut staves for us all, which made the going a lot easier. An interesting fellow, Peng, he seemed to know everyone we ran into and had a pretty good grasp of tourist English (armed, as he was, with his English for Trekking Guides book). His knife was the work of Hmong tribesmen who had given it to him a year earlier. It wasn't anything special other than being made of a steel that kept its edge rather well while not chipping - bomb casing steel!
Weu, our porter, didn't have the same command of English - almost
none actually - and was doing this as a part time job inbetween fishing trips in his paddle boat.
After a few hours of hiking through increasingly dense forest, we arrived at a small stream in which small bamboo aquaducts provided a shower of sorts - a one meter cascade of ice cold water onto a flat rock surrounded by mud. This, Peng informed us, was the village water supply and our shower.
It was another 15 minute hike to the village where we were welcomed by the locals and far fewer curious stares than we expected. We later found that there are up to 80 falangs staying in this village per month.
To make our stay as comfortable as possible, they had built four very basic huts, complete with bedding and mosquito nets, 200m away from the village. This gave us some privacy, kept us away from the roosters (which, in Laos, don't wait until dawn, or any time after midnight really), and stopped the village from being ruined by tourists. It suited us all to the ground.
It also prevented the village from being kept awake by my snoring, by my reckoning, but Brian seemed
to think that 200m may have been a bit close for light sleepers.
Being near the school the village kids and we were entertained by each other, pointing, staring, laughing, making faces, and communicating in basic English and Lao. It’s amazing how many years you lose when you don’t speak the language!
Peng ushered us into the village in the late afternoon for our evening meal at the chief’s hut. The meal itself was very similar to the stuff I had at Kong Lo but significantly hotter, as Tania found out promptly. Even for a doctor there’s no cure for a burnt tongue, and no, three bottles of beer doesn’t help much either!
After the meal, Peng, Weu and the chief withdrew to drink Lao Lao, leaving us to demolish a few beers and provide entertainment for the kids, a dozen or so being assembled in the circle of light and sound coming from the partially open door.
After singing and entertaining the natives we swapped travelers’ tales and were stunned by Ernie’s little life story.
Ernie, 58, has one biological daughter and six adopted sons, the eldest of whom is 52. At the tender
age of 21 teaching in provincial Canada he adopted his first son, a 15 year old native, and filled his home from then on, through his marriage and divorce, with foster kids and five more adopted sons. His work with kids reflected his whole character and hearing his story alone made the trip worth while.
At the end of the stories and tales we managed to avoid too many shots of the lethal Lao Lao and made it to bed.
Morning in the mountains is wondrous; it’s fresh, sparkling clean, bright, and feels zipping great. Unless you have been drinking Lao Lao the previous evening.
Out guide of the previous day had been replaced by a dithering wreck who, it has to be said, did his best to appear cheerful.
He was doing a great job, steering us unfalteringly through bamboo forests and up steep hills until a snake put an end to appearances.
Brian had been walking point and moved aside to let a fast moving snake slither past. Peng, who was next in line, jumped about 3 metres high and sideways, scaring the snake off forever. Poor thing.
We managed only another 20m
or so before Peng had to get off his shaking legs and try to calm his snake and Lao Lao shocked nerves.
Weu took point after that, taking us through mainly forest, through rivers when the tracks ran out, and down cleared hill sides where the locals were practicing their slash and burn techniques.
Eventually we arrived at the River Ou and headed downstream by boat.
Our official tour - the one we had agreed to - finished with lunch outside a cave and a boat downstream. However, the locals weren’t letting us get away that easily.
On the way back to Muang Ngoi we pulled over on an island where Peng’s friends were busy preparing a barbeque. They had caught a dozen fish and decided that we should share their catch, along with - to our alarm - several bottles of Lao Lao.
The fish were great, as was the company, and we sent back to the village for some beer, which went down well.
We also had to pass around a bottle of Lao Lao and pour it just so, drink it, and pass it to your neighbour. For some reason I
couldn’t get the pouring right and the locals took great delight in making me repeat it until I got it.
The rest of the day and evening got a bit blurry, but I do remember having (another) dinner with everyone back in town and receiving blessings from seven or eight elders. The result was seven or eight bits of string tied around each wrist.
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