Phonevilai Guesthouse, Muang Ngoi, Day 2

It's Valentine's day, and I have decided to let my romantic side free, and give Amy the gift of another mountain trek. We scoped a viewpoint out after a short walk yesterday, and after a lovely omelette coated with laughing cow cheese for breakfast with Medi, we head off to the bottom of the mountain.
A friendly local takes some money from us for some tickets, and we are on our way. The early morning chill soon disappears, letting the sweltering sun break through, and the hoodies soon come off as we sweat our way up the steep, challenging climb. It only takes around half an hour to reach the top, but it is half an hour of pretty intense climbing, mostly consisting of rocks that you step up using the rickety handrail next to you.
We reach to the top sweaty and already feeling pretty tired, but the view soon makes you forget all that. I noticed when we signed in at the entrance that we were the first people today, and this is confirmed by the empty platform we walk onto. We take in the view and the shade, sitting down and relaxing as the mist slowly drifts off the mountaintops in front of us. It is a great place, and we could spend hours here.
Around half an hour passes before we are joined by an older guy, who immediately whips off his top. We take this as our cue to leave, and begin the much easier way down. The way up and the way down are two different routes, and this one is more of a path then the climb up. It takes half the effort but about the same length of time to reach the safety of the bottom. At least we thought it was safe. Mountain hikes are always tense because of the poisonous animals that occupy the jungles around us, and yet it is as soon as we step away from the trees and bushes, that we are confronted by some weird giant turkey. The noise that emanates from its beak as it saunters towards us resembles an hangry (a new scientific term for when Amy is hungry, and thus very angry) dinosaur.
The topless man reaches the bottom around the same time as us and steps in between us to get a photo of this monster, which gives us the chance to run around the side, and out of its deadly clutches. That was a close call. Next time we won't be so lucky. On hindsight it was just a really big bird, but at the time it was pretty scary.
As it is Valentine's day we decide to treat ourselves to some afternoon drinks. We find a lovely riverside bar where we have a beer and watch the Mekong lazily flowing past us. It is the same views that we have been blessed with the last week or so, but they never seem to get old. We drink up and go for a small walk down a road we find leading out of town. It ends up taking us past a school in which a class of girls are learning a dance in the playground, and many fields laden with crops and cows and of course the compulsory mountains looming in the distance. It is a boiling hot day, and we head back after a short while and make the most of the hammock on the balcony.
We head out again later and go back to the bar we drank at this afternoon just in time for the sunset. We have a few more beers and watch as the orange glow descends into darkness and the mountains one by one start to disappear. It is an amazing place and the beer Lao tastes great as well.
We head to another bar after that and have another drink and some chips, before grabbing a curry from the restaurant opposite. Fed up of rice, we order chips instead, which doesn't go down so well with the potato curry.
We finally return to the room after a lovely day, and as we get into bed the viewpoint certainly seems a very long time ago. The final Valentine's gift we give each other is the promise of a lie in in the morning, and that is something we are both very much looking forward to!Read more