Running Errands with Locals, Muang Ngoi, Laos

After a couple of days exploring my surroundings in Muang Ngoi, I asked a guide about climbing the nearest karst mountain. He says it's too steep and dangerous, but I'm welcome to join him the following day on an errand upriver to buy wood. I figure this will be a good opportunity to be on the water and see what the locals get up to. Little did I know what running errands really entails. I find Houng the next morning at the designated time, 9:30, and it appears that he and his buddies are busy polishing off 6 bottles of Beer Lao. You should know that Beer Lao is not a 16 oz Budweiser, but is the size of a 40. Naturally, I'm not surprised that we don't leave until 11. It's one hour upriver to the village, Houng says. Six of us, all Lao men who look about 18-30 and me, pile in two boats. The boats have what looks like a lawn mower engine in the back and are about 3' wide and 25' long and shallow, but they don't feel unstable.
After 15 minutes of buzzing upriver we stop to go fishing. This unannounced stop doesn't include the typical American style fishing, namely throw-a-worm-on-a-hook and lounge about until the fish nibbles the end of your pole. Fishing Lao style means putting up a net to trap the fish, thumping the water with a bamboo pole as hard as possible to scare the fish into action, and finally taking a spear/slingshot contraption and shooting the fish. The Lao are remarkably successful with this technique, though I'm sure we would go hungry if I had to do the fishing.
We travel another 20 minutes upriver to the mouth of a cave where it turns out we are going to BBQ the fish. I'm a little confused at this point because I thought we were getting wood, but it's lunchtime, so what the heck. Given the beer guzzling of the morning, I shouldn't have been surprised that before the fish was ready they were doing shots of Lao Lao. I should probably say we were doing shots. Lao Lao is a questionable-tasting homemade rice whisky that does not go down smooth. Before long we were playing a drinking game, Lao style spin-the-bottle. We placed the head of the dead fish in a sticky rice container and whoever the fish head pointed to after given it a good shake did a shot. I managed to be in charge of the fish head until they caught me cheating.
At 5:00 p.m. we finally made it to the village to buy wood. Instead, however, we went into someone's hut and the guys took out a guitar and started singing Lao songs while, of course, we needed to drink Beer Lao. Drinking in Laos does not mean that everyone grabs a beer and drinks it. One person is in charge of the beer and pours a glassful, handing it off to someone. When he/she is done, the glass is emptied of any remaining beer, it is re-poured and handed to the next person. So they sing and sing with what feels like the whole village looking on. Partially they're looking at the whole commotion that just showed up in their village and partially they're looking at me; I sense not many western tourists make it here as this place isn't even on the map. After it starts to get dark Huong signals that it's time to go. We spend 1 hour sailing back to Muang Ngoi. The Nam Ou in this area, and during this season, is very low and while I'm thankful we don't crash, I really enjoy seeing the peaks barely outlined in the darkness and I can feel the stillness and calm of the river that is only briefly interrupted as we glide past.

For photos of this adventure click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/39463330@N00/sets/72057594092583401/