Adventure day with visit to Muang Ngoi

We woke up shortly after 5 to a beautiful setting Moon. The village was awake and the roosters were crowing. We walked out in search of breakfast and found nothing open. We walked right into Q Bar Cafe as the cafes here have this rickety open half wall and no doors. Grace did her usual "Hello, Hello, HELLO!" as she walked towards the kitchen, taking great liberties because we booked today's tour with them.

We were joined on the tour by the same young French couple who climbed into the minivan yesterday. Our tour started by boat to an authentic rural village where Hmong and Lao people lived called Hoay Hoay. Houses are distinguished by Lao homes built with bricks on double level and Hmong built with bamboo on a single level.
Next stop by boat was to another village Sopkeng which was the start of the trek to the nice waterfall (Tad Mook). We trekked through rice fields, and saw pigs living under the houses, cows and buffalos, and of course, poultry. Chickens, roosters, chicks and ducks were abundant.
The trek to the waterfall was gruelling because it was so hot but it was a wonderful rewarding end when we were able to swim in the pool by the falls. We swam fully clothed and by the end of the trek out of the falls, clothes were nearly dry.
Finally the boat took us to Muang Ngoi where we had to climb up a vertical ascent of 350m hill to see the Phanoy caves where the soldiers use to hide in in the Viet Cong war. The cave was so dark and so humid, I had a river of sweat pouring out of me like never before. The Cave was beautiful with limestone pillars and limestone formations. After the cave Ruby made it all the way to the top of that hill to the viewpoint. I stayed by the mouth of the cave feeling a little weary.
We were so disappointed when we arrived back at Nong Khaiw Riverside at 5pm to find that there was no electricity or running water due to an outage. Exhausted, smelly and as I wasn't feeling too well, this was the last thing I needed. There wasa back up generator at the restaurant so we stayed there by the fan with pineapple shake, Coke and wifi.
Power did come back on at 6pm.Read more