You want some rice whisky with your caviar sir??;) (Muang Ngoi Neua (Laos))

Member Name: Pablo_Sevilla

Product:	Muang Ngoi Neua (Laos)
Date:	16/06/09 (46 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stunning valley scenary. Remote and undeveloped. A fanastic chilled out ambience. Fishing! Caves!

Disadvantages: That you have to leave!

Muang Ngoi. Just the mere mention of the name congures up very pleasant and vivid memories of those rolling mountains covered with vibrant green jungle and the gentle mist that wraps around them every morning at sunrise.

Muang Ngoi is a riverside fishing village of a few hundred people. It's located in a deep valley miles from any large or significant town. As mentioned the scenary is truly mesmorising and half the appeal is the journey getting here that takes you through a seemingly endless mountain valleys.

Only recently has the village got electricity, but even now it's sporadic and unreliable. So despite Muang Ngoi starting to find it's way onto a few travelers itineraries, the village is still isolated and there are no roads for miles around. Infact, there isn't much in the way of 'civilisation' at all, which is exactly why it's so stunningly beautiful.

You can only get here by boat via the nearest significant settlement an hour downriver, a town called Nong Khiaw (5 hours by pick up truck or minibus from Luang Prabang, a few services leave every morning, guesthouses in Luang Prabang can arrange private tourist minibuses too). From here there are only two morning/early afternoon boats a day (depending on demand, there can be more but don't count on it). The boats can be very rickety in wet season and the spray from the river's strong swells and currents can make you very damp, so it's adviseable to wear some water proofs or ponchos!

Doing the journey in reverse, from Muang Ngoi there is usually only one boat early in the morning, so if you miss this you are stuck here for another day! This happened to me after a few too many beers and glasses of rice whiksy with local fishermen and friends the night before! Be warned, you could get stuck here longer than intended!

Accomodation is very basic, strictly budget only, and prices reflect this. In low season it's possible to get a room for 20,000kip (about £1.20).

So what is there to do here other than admire the breathtaking scenary from a hammock? Well perhaps surprisngly there is a lot to keep you occupied, even the adventerous and pro-active probably wont get bored.

There is very little in the way of organised trekking companies or adventure comapnies. One house in the village has a few kiyaks (usually 50,000 kip per day) and inflatable tubes (20,000 kip per day) and can offer guides for some treks to surrounding Hmong villages (very roughly 100,000kip a day), but other than here you pretty much have to oragnise activities by asking locals and working out a price and agreement yourself. Usually the best bet here is to ask your guesthouse to point you in the right direction.

One of the best activities here is to spend a day fishing and visiting the unnamed cave further upstream.

Once you have found fisherman willing to take you out and you have negotiated a price, usually about 120,000-150,000 kip for the whole long tail boat, plus three or four fishermen with a supporting long tail boat, then you should ask them to take you north upstream to see some very impressive caves that are comprable in quality to the big caves found in Vang Vieng. They can be tough in places so flashlights and decent footwear is highly recommended. Sometimes you can hire the flashlights from the village but don't count on it!

A huge bonus is that on the way to the caves the mountains get even steeper and form breathtaking jungle clad walls all around the river. Your jaw will most likely drop and you wont know where to look for the entire 45 minute journey! Prepare to be bedazzled! It's just like the scene from Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring when the fellowship are rowing downstream trying to get to Gondor. But it's much better, because you are in this one! I almost expected to see Elves sitting gathered around fires everytime we rounded a corner and came across a little shingle beach on the riverside!

Once you are done with the cave the fishermen will probably do some more fising. The favoured method is to position the two boats on either side of the river and then cast out the huge fishing nets, then both boats crew paddle like mad (this is incredibly fun and the fishmermen are always incredibly good humoured!) to create a ring of nets in one large section of the river. Then, they jump in (it's a shallow area of the river) and everyone slowly walks/swims into the middle. Hopefully, fish would've been surrounded and caught by the nets.
Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes not! But you will eventually catch a decent amount of fish. You may even be lucky enough to catch pregnant fish which means delicious caviar!

Of course, if this sounds like too much work you can sit back and be lazy and watch the fishermen do all the work themselves!

So once you have your catch, the fishmermen will land the boat on one of the shingle beach and some will go foraging in the jungle whilst a couple of others remain behind to get a good fire going. When the men from the jungle return with fresh herbs, the fish will be prepared and put on the fire...And then, in true Lao tradition, suddenly a bottle of Lao-Lao (very potent rice whisky moonshine, always well above 40% volume) will appear and you will be expected to drink at least one shot out of custom! These guys are really good at getting you to drink more though, be warned, you could find yourself feeling tipsy very quickly and laughing around the fire in the late afternoon sun! Personally this was one of best experiences I ever had traveling. A couple of the fishmermen spoke English so me and my friends just sat around eating fresh fish and caviar, drinking rice whisky and chatting and laughing with Lao fishermen in the middle of this beautiful valley.

You may be offered marijuana, don't worry about police here as it's miles away from anywhere and they very rarely patrol and for most villagers it seems to be acceptable and tolerated, so by all means toke away if this is your thing and enjoy the moment.

This is another one of those places in Lao I just cannot recommend highly enough.

A must-see :)

Summary: Valley paradise...:)