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Day 344
We got up at 6 am so that we would have light to pack in and still be able to make it to the 8am boat listed in our guidebooks. When we went to pay for our hut there was some confusion. Most families here have a few huts they rent out to tourists. The three here were run by the wife in the family. She spoke limited English, but wasn't anywhere to be seen. Instead we had to pay her husband. I handed him the money (120,000 kip) and told him that we had been there for 3 nights. He then looked at the money and told us that it was 40,000 a night. I said that I know and that's why I had given him 120,000. He then said ok, ok, fine fine. I think he thought that we were trying to bargain with him. In the end we just had to leave, we didn't' want to miss the boat.
When we got to the ticket office we found out that the boat didn't leave until 9:30. We sat down at a nearby place to have breakfast and continue writing. Three days of limited electricity was just about as much as we could handle and we were ready to go. The boat this time only took an hour. Once at the pier we found out that we had 15 minutes to run up the hill to the bus stop to make the bus that we wanted. This was a big hill, but we were determined.
The guy at the ticket office told us to come back and buy the ticket at 12:30, we would have two hours to kill. We grabbed snacks at a nearby place and kept writing to pass the time. At 12:30 I walked back to the bus station, I was now told that the bus had gone and that we would have to wait for the night bus that came between 7 and 8 pm. This was really irritating and basically killed our ability to be in Hanoi the next night.
A nearby hotel had some small rooms that they rent out to watch movies in. With no other options we went there and watched Hancock and Borat. Around 5pm we had some dinner and headed to the bus stop. There was no way we were going to miss this one.
There were a bunch of kids hanging out there and we seemed to be their evening entertainment. Nicole and I played Uno while the kids watched. They wanted to play as well and we let them, this was pretty hard though as they all just wanted to put cards in the pile and not play by any rules. Eventually we gave up and taught them the chicken dance and played rock paper scissors for an eternity. One by one the kids were called home until there was only one left. She kept asking us to give her money.
During this time we had different people tell us different times for the buses. One said 8, one 9, another 11 and one guy said that it would come tonight. Great. We passed the time chatting about anything we could come up with and with anyone who wandered by. A creepy local guy with his zipper down hovered around us for a while and asked for money. We held our bags close.
Around 10 we had begun to lose hope. The town had shut down and we were sitting in the dark. All of the guest houses had closed for the evening. We had no place to go. At 10:30 the bus arrived, we had waited for 5 hours. The bus was full and we ended up with middle seats. This meant no seat backs for 12 hours. The people here are short, most of them shorter than me, even the men. Despite this they felt the need to have their legs out in the isle, taking up what little space we had. The guy on my right hand side seemed to think that my hip bone was his arm rest. It took a huge amount of wiggling to make him stop. Eventually I gave up my desire to not be touched and just laid down.
There was a box a few inches shorter than my seat that I was able to rest my head on.
After a few hours annoying arm rest man got off and I got his seat. Not too much longer Nicole got a seat as well. My seat mate kept opening the window no matter how many times I shut it or how loudly my teeth chattered. Nicole's seat mate didn't like the way she was sitting and smacked her on the bum a few times. When the bus was emptier she told Nicole to find another seat. How rude!
Day 343
We were up early again and headed out for breakfast with our journals. Both of us were very much behind. Our plan had been to spend a day here just writing and doing nothing, however, with our crazy Vietnam itin we decided to try and get a day back by combining two things today.
After a few hours of writing we headed to the tourist office to learn about renting tubes for the day. We had wanted to get dropped off a few km's further upstream and then drift down. The only way they would do it though is if we had someone follow us in a boat. About 40 minutes later we were dropped off upstream at the next village. Right away a bunch of naked children sprinted down to the beach and tried to take our tubes, they backed off though as soon as we said no.
The current is very strong in front of Moung Ngoi and we had expected it to be the same everywhere. This simply wasn't the case. There was almost no current where we were dropped off. We ended up swimming and paddling quite a bit. Both of us thought that there would be a current if we just got around the bend. Two hours later we were still looking for the current. At one point we got out on a beach and walked for a bit, this was much faster.
The scenery was amazing. I have a dry bag that you can take pictures through, but I don't want to chance it with my camera. Nicole has a picture phone that she doesn't mind if it gets ruined, so we brought it with us and took loads of photos. I just won't be able to see them until she goes home. For the most part we had the river to ourselves. An occasional fishing boat or water buffalo passed us by. We even saw some pigs.
Eventually we grew bored of paddling and had the boat driver start the engine while we held on. This cut out about an hour of floating. It wasn't too long after this that I got way to cold to stay in the water any longer. He pulled over so that I could get in the boat. Nicole kept floating to the end.
We had spent about 4 hours floating and in the end we were glad that the boat was there. We would have never made it back by dark if he hadn't been there. Apparently every time we get in a tube something goes wrong.
After showering we brought our journals out to dinner with us and spent the evening writing. We were visited by some hungry cats, a soon to be mother and a kitten. They didn't like each other so we gave them bits of Nicole's left over fish separately.
During dinner we met a very giggly Lao guy who convinced Nicole, and therefore me, to go to the one bar in town with him. We taught them how to play Uno, but when the lights were cut we headed back to our hut. We were careful to blow out any life threatening candles before falling asleep.
Day 342
We were up early and wandered down the road for some breakfast. We also managed to order baguette sandwiches to go. Nicole ordered chicken and got some bread with bits of chicken, I ordered cheese and yam, thinking it was ham, but it was cheese and jam.
It didn't take us long to find the trail we wanted to spend some time exploring. We followed it through a small school yard. About 15 minutes later we came to the place that we had to pay an entrance fee at. We met an Israeli couple here that raved about a place to swim in the nearby cave. We went exploring but gave up when it got to the point that we would be in pitch blackness and up to our knees in water. We later found out that they had to go quite a bit further to find the swimming hole.
The trail wasn't too bad, but there were some tricky areas. My left foot isn't quite back to normal so I was very careful with it. At one point we had to take off our shoes and wade across a few inches of water. The scenery was beautiful, but as it is the dry season it was had a burnt quality to it instead of being lush green.
Everyone else on the trail seemed to have a guide. We wondered if we had made a big mistake, or if we were the smart ones. We managed to make it to our goal, the small village of Huay Bo, on our own, so I guess we were the smart ones. We ignored the first restaurant and followed signs to one at the other end of town. I don't think that people often make it here. When Nicole ordered fried rice and veggies they had to run out to either pick or buy the veggies. Lunch was really good and filling after the long walk.
At this point we could have carried on for another hour to a waterfall, but we were both a bit tired and decided to just head back. We passed some crazy French women who were both wearing heels! I wonder if they made it?
By the time we got back to Moung Ngoi we were both sweating. We picked the most difficult path to the river and Nicole jumped in. The current was too strong though so after a bit we walked the long and easy way back to our hut through the village. We did the best to wash the dust our of our clothes and ourselves.
For dinner we picked the most well lit place we could find, we had some planning to do. We are traveling with different guidebooks and we compared the places they both recommended in Vietnam. Quickly Vietnam went from a place to spend two weeks to a place that we would need visa extensions for. It was just daunting.
Around 9:30 we headed back in the darkness and tried not to scream when the dogs barked at us. We lit a couple of candles and chatted for a bit. We were both pretty exhausted and soon fell asleep. Only one candle was left at this point, and just the end of it.
A few minutes later I woke up to a strange noise and saw that flames were falling from our make shift plastic candle holder to the things we had piled below it. It took me a second to access the situation and I woke up Nicole. We both stayed in our beds and tried to blow out the small fire from there. It wasn't until I realized that this wasn't working that I got out of bed and blew out the flames.
The next morning we were able to survey the damage. Our candle holder had caught on fire and some of the wood of the beam below it was also burnt. I must have got it out just in time. I guess this is why you should never fall asleep with a candle burning.
Day 341
The alarm went off at 6:30 am and I was tempted to just turn it off and go back to sleep. This wasn't really an option though so we got up and packed our few remaining things. At the bus station we were a bit shocked to find that we would not be in a bus, but rather in the back of a pickup truck with two rows of seats. A few people had to sit on wooden children's chairs in the middle. This is not a comfortable way to travel. Luckily I ended up next to some nice people from Montreal and I chatted with them for most of the ride. Even luckier was that they actually stopped for a bathroom break in a place were there were some woods to hide in.
About 3.5 hours later we arrived to Nang Khio. I was rather sore from the trip and happy that we had a couple of hours to kill before our boat left. Nicole and I were headed to a place called Moung Ngoi, a village only accessible by boat or a long walk through the woods. The boat was very small and full. Everyone had to spend an hour and a half with their knees around their ears. Luckily we didn't get wet though.
Moung Ngoi is the most remote place I have ever been, I think. There is only one street and they only have generator powered electricity for 4 hours a day. Forget the beaten path, we had really found the road less traveled. There aren't any real guest houses here. Most families have either opened small resturants or put up a few simple bungalows in their back yards. Our bungalow had an attached bathroom, sorta. It was a squat toilet and then a faucet about 4 feet on the side of one wall. There would be no hot water. This was just what we had wanted.
After showering we went to check out the town, well, the one road. It was all homes or small resturants and the occasional shop. We picked up some candles and water before picking a place for dinner. As there is no refrigeration our options were limited. They were also cooking everything over one small fire, so it took some time for the food to arrive. We had figured this would happen and had come prepared with books.
Around 9 pm we headed back, we wanted to be able to get ready for bed before the electricity was out. We were out of luck though as they had it turned off earlier where we were staying. We lit a few candles to cut the dark and then crawled into our mossie net covered beds.
As we were basically camping and it was still really early we decided to tell ghost stories. The French couple next door yelled at us to keep it down in a very rude manor. It wasn't even 9:30pm and we weren't being that loud. It had been a really long day though and we soon fell asleep anyway.
The next day we found out that the French couple had not been prepared for there not to be 24 hour electricity and were very rude to the family who owned the bungalows. They left on the first boat the next morning. I guess some people just can't hack it.
