Nam Ou (Ou River), Laos

The plan to travel up the river only a bit before going east was quickly abandoned. The little villages on the river are where all the punks in Vang Vieng should be spending their time. Actually, no, they should not come to these villages because then they would not be what they are now. I met an American woman, originally from Chicago, that has been traveling for eight years and conviced me not to head east and continue up the river. It was not too difficult to do once I got to the first village and learned that the trekking I wanted to do in the east I can do at the north end of the river except that it is better, less-touched, and cheaper. I was sold.

I do not know the names of the villages I stayed in. I spent about a week working my way north from Luang Prabang to Phongsali staying at four (I think) different villages each for one or two nights. In each village I would go for a day-hike in the area or rent a bike or relax and hang out. Nothing much to write about as the villages do not really have tourist sights or anything like that. That said, one story does come to mind.

Me, the American woman, and a Canadian decided to walk to a village we heard about. The village is nice and it is a pleasant walk along the river, we were told. We started off and after about 30-40 minutes the Canadian said he was turning back as his ankle was bothering him. The two Americans pressed on. The walk was indeed pleasant and the village OK but just OK. The story lies in our trip back. We left the village and quickly realized that we were not on the same path as we were on our way in. Good, we thought, we get to enjoy some different scenary during the walk back. After not long the path deadended leaving us with two options. One, head back the way we came, returning to the village and then taking our inbound path. Or, two, making our path. We were near a small mountain so I suggested we climb to the top and, from there, we should be able to see another path to follow back. Seemed like a good enough idea at the time but ended up being one of the worst ideas I have ever had. The bamboo trees on the mountain had been chopped down but not removed leaving not only the trees horizontal on the face of the mountain making walking exceedingly difficult. Plus the trees were slashed at a sharp angle leaving a sharp spear sticking out of the ground 4-18 inches long. If one of us fell on any of these hundreds of spikes we would be seriously injured or dead. Because the trees remained on the ground rarely did our feet actually touch the ground. Rather, each step was a
balancing act on a whatever was in front of us; which only enhanced the threat of the daggers jutting up from the ground. Of course, once we got to the top we could see no path, did not recognize any of the scenary, and discovered that neither of us had any sense of direction and did not even know which cardinal direction we needed to head. Luckily I heard water far off in the distance and we decided to just go there since we could follow the river back. Once we decided this, however, we had to descend the mountain under the same conditions as our ascent just on the other side. Luckily neither of us got seriously injured though we both were bleeding and had dozens of scatches on our legs. It was fun.

Please do not misinterpret my relative lack of writing in this post of my time on the Nam Ou. This week was one of the highlights of my time in Laos and I would recommend it to anybody that does not get sea sick or mind very limited electricity.