Life On the River...

Muang Ngoi Neua, Laos

July 17, 2007
N 20°42.573
E 102°40.446

The stunning views from the Vita Guesthouse made up for the sparse accommodations. We didn’t come to Muang Ngoi Neua looking for luxury, but instead we came to see the untouched countryside and enjoy life without scooters and cars—at least for a few days. Of course we also came here because we made a promise to our friend Roger.

Our room, or bungalow, sat right on the river’s edge with views of the mountains from every direction. In the afternoon we took advantage of the hammocks on the patio, enjoying the serene setting, with only a few sounds—the thup-thup-thup-thup of a boat’s motor and a rooster’s crow in the distance.

Our simple, bamboo thatched, bungalow was about 8’x10’ with a light bulb hanging from the ceiling by two wires; it worked between 7:30 PM and 9:30 PM (as does electricty for the rest of the village), a double futon-like pad, a small table and a mosquito net—what else do we really need? The shared facilities had a simple squat toilet. The shower was a large trough full of water and a plastic scooper for dumping the water over your body. It didn’t get off all of the dirt, but it did cool us down a little bit at the end of the day, and if you scrubbed hard you came out cleaner than when you went in.

At night, mangoes from the tree over our bungalow jolted us out of our deep sleep as they fell on our tin roof with a thundering crash. The first one bolted me straight up in bed as it sounded like an explosion, but after the first two or three blasts I become used to them only waking briefly.

The silence all around us was so beautiful that we didn’t mind an occasional mango trying to disrupt our sleep. The sleepy village is definitely worth the visit to get out of the chaos of the larger cities in South East Asia.