21st April
Our kind hotel owner gave us a lift to the centre of town to catch our 'minibus' to Nong Khiaw. We left town at 8.30am but only got as far as the bus station where it took them an hour to organise people in to 3 buses each with 9 people. They were hopelessly disorganised and took people's luggage on and off the roof racks more than 2 times! The journey is about 200kms but the sealed road was narrow and potholed. We had a break in a village after 2 hours and had a few choices of nibbles - crickets, frogs, black tough looking chickens - needless to say we went for the oranges and a packet of Pringles. We were all visitors on our bus but we did pick up one local on the way. Total journey not too bad at 3.5hrs but with no air con it was long enough for us.
Nong Khiaw is a sleepy little place next to the Nam Ou River which has huge 'karst' (limestone) formations rising up all around. It is very picturesque though no clear skies again as the farmers burn the hillsides for rice crops. We look forward to doing a bit of exploring tomorrow.
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