Nong Kiew

I went to a little town called Nong Kiew with the Swedes for a few days, it was awesome. SO beautiful, set right in the between mountains and right beside the Mekong River. It is a tiny town, no internet...I didn't even see a bank. The only thing to do at night is go see a movie at this little "cinema" (little business this guy made, just private little rooms with decent tvs, pick from hundreds of dvd's)...but the guy got too drunk two nights in a row and didn't passed out...so we had NOTHING to do at night. First day we tried to climb a mountain, but our efforts were quickly thwarted by dense impenetrable bush. So we went for lunch, then went swimming in the river. We hiked along a trail on the side of the river for a few km's, arriving at a little village. It was super cool, total village life. Some guys escorted us into a building where it seemed like just the men were partying...pretty much just getting drunk on some sort of liquor. They wanted us to try it, so we did....it was the harshest liquor I've ever tasted, it burned in my chest for about 5 minutes. They really wanted us to stay and keep drinking this stuff (I think it's called LaoLao, pretty much everything is named after their country), but we quickly got out of there as it was getting crazy. We hired a dude to give us a ride back on his boat, cool experience.

Next day we rented bikes (yes, with baskets and bells) and biked down to some caves that the Lao people lived in during the war in the 70's. We biked a bit farther just to see more landscape, then swam in the river again. It was SO hot, even at like 7pm I would still sweat profusely. Cool place.

Today we took a local "bus" (more like a tuk-tuk type pickup thing with two benches running the length of the truck bed and a roof) which was much cheaper. It got so packed on this thing, they even set up small plastic chairs in the middle, I had to (damn Canadian courtesy) give up my seat and stand on the step up part at the bottom of the tail-gate....for hours! We got SO SOAKED on that trip, it's the Laos New Year and they celebrate for what seems like weeks by splashing everyone with water. I just ziplocked my camera and mp3 player and I was good. I'm not even sure how many buckets of water hit me today, I lost count...I was wet all day. I love this country and the people here, always smiling and waving and saying hi. Super friendly people, super beautiful Country.



Boat ride home from village.


Local "bus"...BEFORE it got packed.