Gopher anyone? Nong Khiaw to Luang Prabang

After returning from a relaxing night spent in bungalows that overlooked the beautiful river Nam Ou, and mountain surroundings of Muang Ngoi Neua, we returned to NongKhiaw, with the hope of catching an open air truckxi (truck-taxi) to Luang Prabang. As we hiked up from the river, we saw two truckxi's awaiting passengers. One was stuffed full with people lining both bench seats, and people sitting in the middle. The top was laden with backpacking bags, and it looked set to go. The other, stood empty, save 3 Israeli's who were sitting near the opening. Guess which one we decided to join. We threw our bags up top, and jumped into the bed settling ourselves into our bench seats. Slowly more people came, okay.. filling up. Oh wait, now they are pushing large sacks of........seed? gumbo? penuts? into the back of the truck bed–we slide them under the bench seats. Okay...more people? G_ERROR_13">Hmmmm i don't know where they're going to sit, Oh.. okay .. right there, in that 1.5" of space that was peaking it's little head out between two sets of legs. In the extended cab, 4 locals had already folded themselves up and packed themselves in, the two French girls had the front seats, and we had 3 more locals who were scooting their way in to sit in the meager aisle space that ran down the center. Finally, we were all loaded and ready to depart: people were sardined in, packs were loaded–and even tied down!, and we had more people that I had ever seen fit in one of these trucks–24! The truck's engine roars to life... we slowly take off up the dirt hill. Slowly, we pull our way to the top, turn the corner, and...park! It is currently 10:30 a.m. We are told that the other truckxi (which looks just as sardined as ours) needs 5 more people to be full, and that our truckxi will not be leaving until 3 p.m. Well lets just say that there was lots of unloading and loading, bargaining, yelling, bargaining, unloading, loading, and finally our truckxi was on it's way, with occupancy numbers reduced to around 18, sometime around 11:40.

So here we are, cruising down this windy road at quite a pace, with a Laotian boy who looks to be about 13 behind the wheel. We pass through Dai communities where all their houses are up on stilts, beautiful scenic overlooks of rolling green hills covered in a tropical array of foliage, wave hello to the children as we drive by, and suddenly come to a very complete stop and begin to back up. We roll back to a group of boys (who look to be between 7 and 12) who are standing on the side of the road, and one is holding a gopher up in his hand. There is a quick exchange of 40,000 kip, and we are on our way, now with a gaping gopher staring through the back window of the truck at us. He didn't look all too happy to be the newest member of our Southward trek, and he was non to shy about showing us his mouth full of little, white, shiny, teeth. Through a bit of clever charades, we discover that the gopher will be a tasty treat later in the day. For 40,000 kip, that little guy must have been one tasty morsel!