Nong Khiaw

We said goodbye to another one of our group, leaving me, Maura and Angela (a couple from the UK) to head north. Our minivan was over an hour late leaving and then we had a pretty horrible three-hour journey. The road quality was awful with massive potholes everywhere, made worse by the erratic fast driving and to top it all off, we sat in the back seats which magnified every bump. It felt like one of those safari jeeps going over sand dunes.

The journey was soon forgotten when we arrived to the gorgeous riverside town of Nong Khiaw, known for being a quiet haven for travellers wanting some downtime. We had a relaxing afternoon and then went for a nice Indian Thali at the most popular restaurant in town. It's such a tiny area and not many tourists, so we kept bumping in to the same people. We ended up having drinks with a group of Canadian musicians and a generous (but very wealthy) Laos man who told us about the country and the imminent development in the local area.