Hiking in Muang Ngoi Neua

Our river boat trip from Nong Khiew brought us to the town of Muang Ngoi Neua. As I mentioned previously, this was meant to be a pretty remote town, unaccessible by car. We figured we would have an interesting cultural experience. We were quickly disabused of this notion on our arrival. The town was one main street, on the right was all guest houses on the river and on the left was a hodgepodge of less expensive guesthouses, restaurants, shops and the occasional house. The setting of the town was stunning though. Similar to Nong Khiew we were surrounded by tall mountains and the river, but there was no traffic to get things dirty. The power in the town also shut off at 9pm at night so everything was blissfully quiet.

Eric (of Eric, Gabrielle and Blanche), the Quebecois fellow I mentioned in the previous post, approached us on our first night in town. He had been up to this part of Laos five years previously and done a wonderful hike and was wondering whether we would care to join him and his family for the hike on the next day. This arrangement was of mutual benefit, we got a guide who had done the hike before for free (the other option was to pay 35$ each and have a local guide tour us around), and Eric and Gabrielle had a couple people along to help if things got a little hairy. In the end, we would all agree, both groups benefited from the arrangement.

The day started off fairly early. About 6:30 we sat down for breakfast. Eric estimated the hike at about eight hours, but he wasn't entirely sure of the route we had to take, though he remembered losing the trail a few times the first time he did the hike. We were keen to get started first thing to allow for any issues that might crop up. After a relatively quick breakfast (breakfast is never that quick in Laos if you eat out) we hit the trail. The four of us and Eric with our backpacks, and Gabrielle with Blanche strapped to her front. Now might be a good time to introduce the fact that a few years ago Gabrielle was a fairly high level long distance swimmer (she was racing at the national level) and is tough and steadfast as all get out. Throughout the story I am about to tell it's worth remembering that a six month old baby is roped to Gabrielle's front and she is still outpacing everyone in our foursome.

The hike started on an easy note. We were walking along a villagers path, adjacent to a rice field, through a valley punctuated on either side by steep and heavily forested limestone mountains. Eric, the engaging fellow that he is, had spoken to a local guide and gathered a schematic view of the hike we would be taking. This was basically made up of a quadrangle with the name of four villages in the corners, a fifth, bonus village, was thrown in in case we wanted to do a little more exploring. The village names were written in both Laos and English (in case we couldn't pronounce the village name, but someone could read. Very useful actually as pronunciation is sometimes hard with these tonal languages.). Along the edges of the map were the estimated times between each village. Based on the map we had tonnes of time to hike before the sun set and we decided to see the fifth village as well. The hike went very smoothly and we soon came across a trail gate keeper who sucked a few dollars out of the group in order to continue on the hike as well as check out a set of caves near by. The trail at this point was quiet well marked and the first village we intended to visit was actually labeled with a street marker. We continued happily along.

Me, crossing a bridge.

The trail we were following eventually became a concrete irrigation trough and slowly neighboring bushes started encroaching onto our path to the point that we were fighting a bit to continue along. It is worth noting that all of the paths we are meant to be taking during this hike are paths commonly walked by the local villagers to get from one town to the next. At this point Eric decided that we should start walking along the rice paddy paths rather than the trough. This made sense as there are many well worn paths criss-crossing the fields. It also gave us a wonderful chance to take some great pictures and see some water buffalo up close. We continued in a rather half hazard way across the rice paddies in the general direction of a valley which Eric had remembered hiking through five years previously. I can only speak for myself, but I am blown away by Eric's memory. I have a hard time remembering a hike I did last summer, but he has very precise memories of this hike he did in Laos five years ago. His accuracy wasn't always spot on though. The rice paddies ended at a creek crossing which we did fairly easily via a few large stones laid in the water. A few minutes afterwords we had to cross the creek again, and this time it was a little more difficult. We had fewer stone options and maybe a fallen tree to help us keep dry feet. In the end we were all across; Eric helped Gabrielle and Blanche, and Dave carried Pam, though Meg refused to carry me (I am not particularly well balanced so carrying Meg was out of the question). Anyway, we scrambled up the opposing bank into a field of thickets (I am not sure what a thicket is actually. Anyway, it was a field of small trees tightly woven at about chest level.). It was possible to find clearly demarcated paths throughout the field, but they required that person bend fairly low at the waist. It quickly became apparent that the paths were probably for the quadrupedal oxen, and not the bipedal humans. Eric pushed on though, insisting that the trail must be just through the trees ahead of us. Eventually the four of us stopped and Gabrielle called Eric back. Northern Laos is not the place to be wandering through unknown trails. As I mentioned previously much of the area had been bombed by the Americans during the Vietnam war and many of the bombs did not explode as desired. Unexploded ordinances (UXOs) are a big problem still for Laos and many people are killed or maimed each year.

Crossing a creek, early in the trip, before wet shoes were the least of our worries.

We backtracked across the creek and were making our way back to our last known correct location when Eric was able to pick up the correct villager trail again. It turns out he was just a little off the mark, though he was 100% correct that if we had pushed on through the trees we would have eventually crossed the correct path. Anyway, we were all stoked to get back on the right path, and what a beautiful trail it was. On one side was a clean and calm creek while on the other was a large limestone karst, the trail itself cut through a natural grass so it was like walking through a backyard back home. Soon after finding the trail again we came across our first village. It turns out it was not the first village we had been aiming for (we missed the bonus fifth village) but we were okay with that as we had lost some time going along the wrong route. We had a quick bite to eat (or rather we ate quickly after the food took a fair while to make) in a funny little restaurant with a full English menu. Meanwhile Eric told us a few stories about the last time he had been to the village and wondered allowed what the twelve and thirteen year old kids he had hung out with last time were up to now.

Meg chilling out to the max, as she is wont to do.

Blanche, being the center attention.

Soon we were back on the road again making our way to the next village. The path became more difficult at this point as we started ascending a fairly steep mountain side. It was beautiful though. As we got higher we started getting wonderful views of the valleys around us and, rather than walking through cropland, we were now walking through forest which was a nice change of scenery. After a few hours of this hiking we came to the next village. It was dramatically poorer and dirtier than the first village and the men must have been out working as there were only women and children around. As with the previous village Blanche and Gabrielle were a big hit. I imagine that white babies are fairly rare in that neck of the woods and the women were keen to check Blanche out, something that Eric and Gabrielle said was a fairly common when they visited these towns. After a dust covered can of pop from the towns tiny store and a little bit of staring back and forth we decided to make our retreat. Just outside of town was the local school house, where we sat in the shade and shared the few snacks we had. The original plan had been to eat a full lunch at this town, but that wasn't an option. It was lucky we had ended up having a fairly big snack in the first place we visited.

Some beautiful scenery along the hiking route.

Meg, finding the hiking a little too easy, breaks into dance walking.

The posse hanging outside of the second village.

The journey to the next town was the last leg of our hike. From there we would catch a boat down river to arrive back at the starting village. It proved to be the most stressful leg as well. We got on a trail leaving town and within a few kilometers we had reached a creek. This was as expected. Eric had spoken with some French fellows who had done the hike the day previous and they had said that at the end there would be many creek crossings. At this point the trail basically walked adjacent to the creek and every now and then we would have to cross to the opposite bank in order to get to a passable trail. This involved much walking on rocks and logs to stay dry. As I mentioned before, I don't have very good balance so after crossing the river about a dozen times, I removed my shoes and socks, put back on my shoes and started walking through the water. Things got alot easier for me at that point. Also around that point people in our foursome were starting to get a little anxious. Now that the path was a creek we would often walk for several minutes with no indication that we were going the right way. On occasion a small path would leave the creek and join back up with it a few tens of meters downstream. These paths served to bypass areas in the creek where it was very difficult to find rocks and logs well spaced enough to allow peoples feet to remain dry. Unfortunately we started missing these side paths and so were hiking through areas that really showed no indication of a proper path. After probably an hour of this type of hiking anxious murmurs could be heard from our group. At this point it was about 4pm with an expected sunset of 6ish. I was comfortable that we would be okay as I had the sense from the geography that the creek would join up with the Nam Ou at its end point. Around this time though Dave's foot slipped into the water and a leach bit into his foot through his sock and a hole in his shoe. This did nothing to calm the growing tension in the group. It was evident that Eric was also getting a little stressed. As we had seen previously with the thickets, when faced with the unknown Eric could sometimes panic into a headlong rush. He and Gabrielle were ahead of us by a few minutes throughout the days hike. It calmed Blanche to go at a fairly consistent cadence (and it should be noted that she had not cried at all during the day), while it calmed us to be able to stop and catch our breaths every now and then. Anyway, Eric's stress must have reached a high point. As the four of us turned a corner we found him pushing on Gabrielle's bottom while she strained to climb up a slippery muddy bank. We quickly surveyed the scene and though it did look somewhat path like in that there was no vegetation on the slope, it also looked like maybe there had just been a mudslide there. While Dave and Eric helped Gabrielle descend the slope (this was the only point during the trip where Gabrielle lost her cool and we could hear "tabernacle" being shouted from the slope) I went to scope out a path a bit further down the river. Fortunately for all of us the path very clearly went in the right direction and was taking us away from the creeks edge for awhile.

One of our few shots from the creek portion of the hike. As you can tell, it is hard to tell whether we are on the trail or not.

Dave's post leech bloody foot. You would have thought we would have to amputate the way he carried on.

The rest of the leg was longer than we had expected, but still very beautiful. It was made even more wonderful by the late afternoon light and Just as we reached a high ridge overlooking our destination village and the Nam Ou the sun started to fall behind the large karsts in front of us. It was spectacular! It was also a hell of a relief after a fairly stressful day of hiking. After watching the sun set behind the karsts we quickly made our way down to the village below. After some strange negotiations with a reticent local man we were able to hire a boat back to Muang Ngoi Neua. By the time boat finally reached the village we had been motoring along in the absolute dark for fifteen minutes.

The end of our hike. Sweet!

The end of our hike. Sweet!

The end of our hike. Sweet!

Meg and I agree that it was one of our best days in SE Asia. Partly this was because of the adrenaline, but mostly it was just such beautiful scenery and the villages we had seen were some of the more remote ones we had visited.

Meg looking good in the sunset light.

As a bit of an epilogue to the story, during the rush through the thickets Eric had scraped himself up quiet badly. In particular a cut he got on his finger got badly infected and during the night the infection tracked up to his elbow. We were all pretty worried about him and were thinking he would end up back in Bangkok to get proper medical attention but after a course of antibiotics in Luang Prabang he was okay.