..35.. muong ngoi

as a 3-day trip out of luang prabang, we took a 4-hr busride to Nong Khiaw, a very small town north of luang prabang, sitting on the Nam Ou river. from there, we took a 3-hr boatride upstream to reach a village called Muang Ngoi, which is only accessible by longboat, which is essentially a motorized canoe. the river is too small to take even a small speedboat up (if there were speedboats in laos, which there definitely are not!), and it is completely inaccessible by road. there aren't even bicycles in the village - just dirt paths! it's amazing how isolated laos is from the rest of the world. much moreso than any other place i've been. we stayed at riverside bungalows and got electricity from 6-9pm - luxury! paths from muang ngoi took us walking for hours, leading to other villages along smaller tributaries of the nam ou. the kids in the villages didn't even notice us coming through, they were so intent on their games - how fulfilling to watch joyful kids play. for the most part, the people all seemed healthy and happy, though surely at the subsistence level. it's hard to find a fair balance between having curiousity about them and their way of life, and staring at them like we're in a zoo - is it bad that i take pictures of them? of course i ask permission, but it still feels weird. there are albino-looking water buffalo here that look so unlikely to be anything but cartoons! they are huge and goofy and thick, just like a regular water buffalo (mix a pig & cow & hippo), but they have pink skin and very light translucent hair. seeing one forces your sense of humor to surface.















on the busride from nong khiaw to luang prabang, passed over a bridge and looked down in the wide shallow stream it breached to see it speckled with silhouettes of women washing laundry against the brilliant shimmer of sunlight dancing on the surface. the pang of realization that my camera was buried was instantaneously overpowered by awe and elation at having seen such a glorious moment in time.