An Englishmen, a Belgian, a Korean and some French walk into a village...

Day 65 - Muang Ngoy

I have breakfast with another German, Moritz, they get everywhere these Teutons. I'm in a small town called Nong Kieuw in northern Laos. I'd intended to pass straight through it but met Moritz on the bus and he mentioned a viewpoint here that was worth the climb. We'd done it the previous day in stifling heat and the sweat I produced could have filled a swimming pool. If there had been a swimming pool at the top I would have jumped in it. Unless it was filled with sweat. Still, the view over the town at sunset was beautiful. After eating breakfast we say farewell and I catch the boat upriver to an even smaller town called Muang Ngoy. There's even less to do here than in Nong Kieuw but that suits me fine after all my recent socialising and activity. Swinging in my hammock in a wooden bungalow looking down onto the Nam Ou river is a tonic.

Until war breaks out on the opposite bank. A pack of feral dogs begin loudly barking at one another, or some trees, or one of the myriad things that dogs bark inanely at, and continue for over an hour. Now I love dogs but I would gladly have sent every last one of them to live on a farm. Preferably inside the threshing machine. Even one of the locals, and these are not noise-sensitive people in general, gets tired of it and takes his boat over the river. I can make out the sounds of yelping and see scattering dogs and, to my relief, cockerels are once again the only disturbers of the peace. Bloody cockerels I wish someone would... In the evening I stroll down the dirt road that is the high street past pleasantly lit restaurants. I end up in a bar in a kind of resort though that is stretching the definition in a no-horse place like this. Rows of loungers line the high veranda looking down onto the black river. There is a gently put-put sound in the darkness from people going back and forth in their boats. The bar is utterly, almost frighteningly empty and the large size of the space accentuates the emptiness. A woman rises slowly and unexpectedly from behind what appears to be the bar and points to her ear. Is she deaf? Hard of hearing? Maybe neither as she takes my beer order without difficulty. She might be a good lip-reader though. I would have preferred to return to the main street and some semblance of civilisation but I always feel compelled to order something when I go into a place. Even when it's empty. Especially when it's empty. Beer drunk, decorum maintained, I go to Gecko Bar for dinner. I have garlic spaghetti and an unusual attempt at bruschetta. Back at the bungalow a 3AM toilet trip reveals a spider in the bathroom that is the size of a really big and terrifying spider. My attempts to catch it are thwarted by the grotesque speed it moves at. Some hand sanitiser spray slows it down enough to get a cup over it and return to bed a little traumatised.
The following morning having found the spider both still alive and still the stuff of my nightmares I put on my brave boy pants (gently soiled) and return it to the wild. And by 'the wild' I mean far from my bungalow but close to other people's bungalows in case he needs the facilities again in the night. Figuring that an entire day in a hammock tanning the still pasty parts of my body (c80%) might be a little too dull I decide to walk to a nearby village and stop at some caves on the way. I've never had a burning desire to be in caves but it's there and it's, y'know, touristing. The cave narrows swiftly from a large entrance to a pitch-black undulating passage in no time. My head torch is like a dying match in the infinitive blackness and undefined space. There are no handrails to stop you losing your footing on the clammy rock and there is no-one, literally no-one, else in here. My fears, primordial, practical, provoked by movies, swirl menacingly in the void. Their immaterial form, their immaterial threat coalesces into a hard and entirely material foreboding. A few more steps into the hysterical bowels of the earth and a bat flying past my ear is enough to break my flagging will. I turn around having been defeated by the stoked fire of my imagination. Sometimes bravery can only be performed to an audience. I'll stick to waterfalls I think.

The village appears to offer nothing in the way of refreshments despite numerous signs suggesting otherwise. I bump into a pair of girls, French and Belgian, that i'd been on the boat with the previous day. We are collectively beckoned into the ground floor space of a traditional Laotian house by a man whose English is limited but irrepressibly enthusiastic. He clears the table on which he was having lunch and brings beer. He also places a bottle on the table that I initially took to be a rudimentary ashtray. On closer inspection what I thought were cigarette butts are actually pieces of bamboo and sticky rice in alcohol. He pours me a glass and what I initially took to be foul and unfit for human consumption is, well, foul and unfit for human consumption. I smile at him like I've just supped the nectar of the gods. Thankfully he doesn't offer more.

The conversation is mostly charades which keeps things entertaining though no-one scores particularly highly. Two Korean guys arrive to further enhance the linguistic brew and then a couple of french guys cycling round the country. Such encounters are improbable and inevitable and wonderful. The girls and I walk back to Muang Ngoy through parched rice paddies under rumbling skies. The next day passes in a hazy bliss of hammock swinging and industrious writing. Some ground is made up on my very retrospective travelogue. I do find myself wishing a was writing a book though. It would feel purposeful and in telling people what I was doing it would satisfy some silly vanity of mine. I'm probably overstating how much they'd care though, reading anything of length or substance seems out of fashion these days. A group of three English guys arrives at my accommodation. They're on old motorbikes bought in Hanoi. It sparks in my the idea of doing the same. I had considered renting one to ride down through Vietnam but crashing an owned bike is better than crashing a renting one. My insurance would look dimly on both scenarios though so not crashing at all is preferred. They invite me to walk up to a local viewpoint, I want to establish my social credentials so I accept.

Afterwards an invite to dinner is not forthcoming so I hit the high street alone. This is not a problem in itself but the solo traveller finds themselves in a slightly difficult position in these small villages. There are few restaurants and bars and you will almost certainly know someone in each place after a couple of days. One of Richard's cardinal rules in 'The Beach' is "don't outstay your welcome". This rule is in my mind as I walk from place to place trying to avoid a situation where I have to forcibly insert myself into a group compelled by politeness or else sit alone in awkward proximity. Both possibilities are avoided though when I pass the owner of my accommodation sitting in a shopfront with friends. He beckons me over and pours me a beer. The conversation is 90% Laotian so I have little to do except clink their glasses and drink their profuse offerings of beer, but at least I am not an interloper. We snack on fried frogs and get decreasingly drunk. It turns out that his wife is away and returns tomorrow so this is probably a final tear with some mates. A serendipitous end to the day.