🇱🇦 Nong Khiaw

A minivan will take us from LP to Nong Khiaw on December 9, 2023. The journey took somewhere between 2-3 hours and was quite bumpy due to the partly bad, uneven roads with potholes. Chris and I sat at the back of the bus and felt every shock 😵‍💫😵‍💫 it wasn't pleasant and we were happy when we reached our destination. It was over at the minivan pick-up parking lot, just before Nong Khiaw. With the other fellow travelers we took a tuk tuk to the center or over the bridge. (Which really wasn't that far). Our accommodation was then just a stone's throw away. I was looking forward to a room with hopefully a beautiful view of the surrounding region and mountains and we got…….. a room on the ground floor with a terrace and a view of a house wall! 🥹 WTF! Somehow there is never what I 🙋🏼‍♀️ had booked or imagined. I was crestfallen. The room was relatively large, we had comfortable single beds and a nice bathroom. Anyway.

In the evening we took a walk through the village. I was still a bit upset... we bought cheap shakes on a street beach (dragonfruit and mango) and examined the area, which is really picturesque. There are great views from the bridge over the river and there are two viewpoints worth hiking to. In the village you can easily observe daily life. We also experienced Nong Khiaw as quite touristy; in one day we felt like we saw more tourists than locals 😊

❗️We delved into history and got information from a YouTube video. What shocked us is the fact that large parts of the country were massively bombed at that time. During the Vietnam War, American planes dropped countless bombs on the country because otherwise they would not have been able to land. (The planes didn't get rid of all the bombs over Vietnam, but because they couldn't land that way, they dropped the bombs over Laos). More bombs were dropped on Laos than on Germany and Japan combined in World War II.😢 This fact left us speechless. Northern Laos was hit particularly hard; so many people died. ❗️

There are caves in the region that can still be visited today. People and soldiers sought shelter in the caves as bombs were dropped on them every 8 minutes. And we looked at one of these caves. We put on our hiking boots and took our headlamps with us. The New Nong Khiaw Cave can be reached by taking the main road over the bridge or towards the Nong Khiaw Viewpoint Trail. It is NOT the first viewpoint at the bridge, but the second. At some point on the road a sign will appear on the right where the “Phar Noi History Cave” is signposted. For the men at the bamboo bridge you pay 20,000 kip entry per person. From there it's maybe 10-15 minutes to the first cave. It has to be scrambled. The cave entrances are extremely narrow. It took a lot of effort for me to climb in there. But it's worth it!

These caves are incredibly impressive from the inside and apart from the two of us, there was no one else there in the late afternoon.

We also hiked to the Viewpoint Trail just described at sunrise. Absolute recommendation 🌄 even if we were far from the only ones. At 4:30 the alarm clock rang. Don't underestimate it, we hiked up the mountain for well over an hour. It's constantly going uphill and you sweat a lot and again you should wear hiking boots and we had our headlamps with us. What was funny: two of the dogs in our accommodation followed us and wouldn't leave our side. 😄 We met two more girls on the way and so the six of us climbed up the mountain. As I said, it was quite tiring and it's important to take enough water with you. Our water ran out relatively quickly because we gave the dogs water along the way 😜 one of them was still a puppy and I think he was struggling quite a bit. But not that it would have been any different for us 😄 the girls left us behind at some point and a local also overtook us at lightning speed... and then the dogs hung on his heels and left us 😆😆 ungrateful bunch!

But the effort is worth it once you get to the top.

You simply stand above the cloud cover before sunrise. An incredible sight. You have a 360 degree view of the clouds and mountains. Although there were a few people present, it was relatively quiet. There were also tents on the viewing platform and one or two people sleeping in hammocks. You can also book tours up to the viewpoint by the way. Coffee was being made on a fire pit and at some point someone flew their drone. At the popular photo spot where the flag stands, people took turns filming and taking photos. We enjoyed the view and the here and now.

At some point it became restless. A young girl was looking for her wallet with cash and credit cards. But she couldn't find it anywhere. The people around helped with the search, everyone looked again in the tent, the backpacks and all the bits and bobs that were lying around. Suddenly the tears flowed. The girl was desperate, but nothing helped, the wallet remained missing. At some point we packed our things and headed back. Before we went to the accommodation, we first needed breakfast 🍳 By the way, when we got back downstairs, we were charged an entry fee: 40,000 kip.

We stayed until December 12'23.