Muang Khua is a tiny village along side the river surrounded by beautiful mountains.  After we had settled in at Chaleunsuk Guesthouse, and I was finally not in a comatose state from Dramamine, we decided to explore the town a bit.  We ended up at the boat launch where two local men appeared to be having a scuffle, apparently the larger man was upset that the other guy had “cut the line” for taking people down river and he wanted the business.  After talking to some locals about him it sounds like he was kind of a bully and a drunk, he even started to throw rocks at the other guys boat.  We watched this unfold for a bit and talked to some people about catching a boat in the morning to head south in the morning and then went on our way to see what else this village had to offer.

Probably the biggest local we saw our entire time in Laos. Also the biggest bully.

We were both pretty hungry, I didn’t eat much at our “lunch stop” so we wandered the streets a bit until we came across a friendly woman selling noodle soup on the street.  There was no ordering, just one option- and it was delicious.  My love for noodle soup was growing and growing.  When it was time to pay we were pleased to see that we were charged the same amount, 10,000 kip or about the equivalent of $1.25, as the locals sitting across from us.  It was a nice change after having to bargain all the time in Vietnam.

Thats a duck. A weird looking duck.

With our bellies full we continued to explore and decided to cross the huge suspension bridge that crossed the river and connected the part of the village that had a road through it to the side where many of the locals lived.  We stood on the bridge and looked up and down river as sun was starting to disappear behind the mountains in the narrow valley and it looked so incredibly beautiful every which way, I knew that I loved Laos.

Laundry time, looking down from the suspension bridge.

We decided to explore the other side of the bridge and we came across a bunch of locals playing volleyball.  It was fun to watch them all play and they were actually really good.  We walked to through the simple shacks of the villagers- thatched roofs and floors- usually just one big room where they would all live, eat and sleep.

These kids have hops. Most of them are well under 6 feet tall.

Haven’t graduated from the soccer field yet. They were good, really good.

It started to get dark, so we decided to head to dinner.  On our way to the restaurant we saw some locals playing a Bocce Ball type game and they had made it into a drinking game.  They told us to come back after dinner, and we did.  There was a different group playing at this point, some Laos government officials, but they welcomed us and before we knew it we had beers and our hands and were drinking shots of Lao-Lao.  Lao-Lao is their form of rice wine, and it definitely was not my favorite, but we read that it was rude not to accept it when it was offered to you, so we both continued to drink it late into the night with our new friends.

The sun sets on our time in Muang Khua.

The next morning we woke up a little foggy and hungover.  As we headed down to the boat launch so we could start our journey to Nong Kihaw, we couldn’t help but smile thinking about the night we had before and how we knew this leg of our trip may be the best part yet.