TUN Day 9: 05/02/09 - Muang Ngoi

So the day before, we signed up to go for this trekking trip after much consideration coz it wasn't very cheap. 21USD. But we thought it was a better idea to go with a tour rather than explore on our own coz we wanted to see the hill tribe villages. And anyway, Lao Youth Travel, which was the tour agency that we went to, was the only place that was really open for business the day before. So, here we are on this boat going downriver, where we will start trekking. There was this Dutch guy, who can't catch our names and whose name i couldn't catch either, who was on the same tour as us. 

Terraced farming. I'm pretty determined to catch this over here in China. LP calls those in Guangxi an agricultural engineering feat and i've seen pics of those that are really nice.
Hill tribe villages but i can't remember whether the village below is a Khamu or Hmong village.
Water buffaloes cooling themselves off in the mud. An interesting sight seen on our trek to the waterfall after our lunch that consists of sandwiches. Our guide and boat driver were having local food that we would rather be having.
Pigs were squealing as they were unloaded by the villagers from this boat that brought along supplies as well as tourists (going further upriver to Muang Ngoi) from Nong Khiaw. 
Me and Junyuan in the cold waters of the waterfall. The Dutch guy didn't dare to go down...
The waterfall was rather disappointing. Trekked near an hour only to reach a waterfall of this height. Anyway, i got attacked by not one but two leeches on this trek. Lucky me...
Aloune Mai Guesthouse, where we stayed for 2 nights. Could finally do some washing, the last washing was done days earlier at my sister's place in Bangkok.
A black cat that kept coming to us, even entering our room. My guess is that it was looking for food. We offered it some pringles in the end and i hope that wasn't too salty for it.
Sunset.
Sunset at a later time.
Muang Ngoi is a place where there is only electricity from 6-10pm. That's the official timing but the electricity always goes off at 9plus. I was still washing my clothes at the time when the lights went off the first day. But because there wasn't any electricity at night, it was the first time in my life that i've experience pure moonlight. There was also a bar near our guesthouse and i had a pleasant surprise when the songs they played changed from 90s hits to Jay Chou songs. Really didn't expect that...