A Guide to Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoy

Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoy were part of my two-week holiday in Laos, which I started in Luang Prabang. This post is about these two villages on the Nam Ou river. They were some of the most beautiful places I have visited in Southeast Asia. If you have the possibility, include at least one of these villages in your Laos itinerary. Read more to see why.

1. Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoy: must see villages on your Nam Ou river itinerary

There are several popular itineraries in Laos that most tourists follow. One of these includes Luang Prabang, and then the villages to the north of LP, including the boat ride between them.

The Nam Ou is one of the largest rivers in Laos, and it flows into the Mekong at Pak Ou, a town not far from Luang Prabang. Along the Nam Ou, you will find small villages, and some of them have become so popular with tourist that the locals are already prepared for visitors with guesthouses, restaurants, shops and other services. The two most famous of these are Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoy.

Besides offering a breathtaking beautiful view of high mountains, nice little houses and friendly locals, these destinations are also good for hiking and climbing high mountains, for visiting various tiny villages, or simply for enjoying your time in a hammock and enjoying the local food and beer.

2. Nong Khiaw

2.1 Bus from Luang Prabang to Nong Khiaw

Getting to Nong Khiaw from Luang Prabang used to be possible by boat, but due to a dam construction, the boat is no longer an option. The easiest and most popular option is to take a bus from LP to Nong Khiaw.

Booking/buying a bus ticket is very easy. You can just walk into any of the zillion tour agencies in the center of Luang Prabang, and ask them about prices. The bus ticket itself is 40.000 kip, but expect to pay the agency at least 10k more. The price is the only difference, because they will all sell you a ticket for the same buses with the same companies. Shopping around may save you a little, but not an awful lot. Anyway, it is easy to compare prices, because there are dozens of agencies next to each other along the main street (the night market street).

Regardless of which agency you use, they will collect you from your hotel in Luang Prabang, and take you to the main bus station, which is a little further away from the centre. You could actually buy the ticket yourself there, but then you would have to arrange transport to the bus terminal yourself, so you wouldn’t save a lot if at all.

2.2 Nong Khiaw: a real gem with breathtaking views

I knew very little about Nong Khiaw before I went there. I had read that it was a nice place on the Nam Ou river, but that was all really. So when I arrived, and saw the village nested among those majestic high mountains, which are covered in clouds every morning, I was speechless. It is an incredibly beautiful sight, and I just couldn’t get enough of the views that you get from most spots in the village.

2.3 Things to do in Nong Khiaw

Nong Khiaw for me was a place to relax. I spent most of my time sitting in one of the cafés overlooking the river (actually built over the river), trying the food the various restaurants had to offer, sometimes reading a little on my tablet, sometimes doing nothing but enjoy the view. I can recommend all of these to anyone visiting Nong Khiaw (or visiting any place for a holiday, for that matter).

I also walked a lot around the village and to some other villages nearby. One popular option is to walk to a village called Ban Had Sao, which is just half an hour’s walk along a wonderful path. Although Nong Khiaw itself is not very large – but it is already prepared for foreign tourists (some may even call it a small town). So if you really want to see how people in a small village live, you must walk to some of the neighbouring settlements. They have at most a school and a shop, but that’s all. You can ask local people there if they provide accomodation, if you want to stay there for a night – I am sure it would be a memorable experience, although I myself didn’t try that.

Many people climb a high mountain in Nong Khiaw, the top of which is simply called The Viewpoint. It is said to provide great views over the small town, so I was seriously considering climbing it myself. But when I consulted one of the tour agencies (the one opposite the post office, with an Australian guy as either the owner or a staff member), they convinced me that it would be too difficult for someone in his fifties without a strong mountaineering background (that’s me). So I changed my mind, and looked at the viewpoint from below 😁. But if you are more fit and younger, it could definitely be an interesting experience. Be careful though: as you can see in the photo below, there are still unexploded bombs in the area from the war, so strictly follow the trails and do not wander off too much. This is generally true for Laos!

There are also boats and kayaks that you can rent, or pay for a tour along part of the Nam Ou river, and see some interesting places like a waterfall or some caves.

2.4 Accommodation in Nong Khiaw

I checked a few options before I arrived in Nong Khiaw on several booking websites, but unfortunately, I didn’t see a lot of ratings for them. Because it was the low season, I was sure that I would find accommodation when I arrive. I had already selected a few possible options, and I was planning to look at them before I pay. I read somewhere that the area over the bridge is much better than the larger part of Nong Khiaw. Now that I have spent some time there, I can confirm this – although there are no “not nice” parts in the entire village, I think.

If you take the bus like almost everyone does, it will drop you a little further out from the centre of the village. This is, by the way, a very usual setup, and I can’t help thinking that this has purposefully been arranged so that tourists should be forced to use some transport options, and tuk tuk drivers may be able to make some money. Anyway, there was a kind of a van which had enough space for quite a few of us. It was very cheap, and it drove along the main street, stopping wherever some of us wanted to get off. I decided to get off right after the bridge and walk around to find some of the hotels that I preselected.

I was not alone: some other people were also doing the same, and one guy especially turned out to be looking for the same hotel that I wanted to find: the Meexai Guesthouse, which had some good reviews on Google Maps, but then, I had no idea what it would look like in real life. The place seemed very nice, and it was also very cheap. The receptionist showed me the room, which had its own table and chairs on the terrace in front of it, with a view that was just incredibly beautiful. Bathroom, of course, and a comfortable double bed. It even had good internet connection, and they provided breakfast, lunch and dinner in the café (not included in the price). I had lunch and dinner there – good food and good coffee, too. The prices were similar to other restaurants, which means very reasonable.

I can recommend Meexai Guesthouse to everyone, but if it is fully booked, you should try one of the other hotels nearby. Don’t worry if it is on the other side of the river, but I think you’ll have better views if you stay near the river on either side. Should you want to book somewhere else or something more luxurious, use this map below, where you can find excellent deals on Booking.com:

Booking.com

3. Muang Ngoy

3.1 Boat ride from Nong Khiaw to Muang Ngoy

Most people who visit Nong Khiaw will travel further up the river to Muang Ngoy. The river between the two villages is navigable, so you can take the boat. (Actually, the river used to be the only way to get to Muang Ngoy not very long ago, but now there is a road, too.)

You will be told by all guesthouses that there are two ferries to Muang Ngoy daily, one at 10:30am, and the other at 2.30pm. However, one local person said to me that there are actually boats almost every hour – now which one is true, I don’t know. Maybe these two are for tourists and the others for locals? Should you miss your boat, you can just ask them or simply wait and see. You need to buy the ticket on the spot, a few minutes before the boat leaves. It costs 25.000 kip per person, one way. The office is a small bungalow, with a few chairs in front of it. It is just below the bridge, on the western bank of the river.

I was really looking forward to this short trip, because I just love boat rides. But when I actually tried it out, I was a little disappointed, to be honest. The boats are tiny, and it is crammed with people. There is no way you can avoid very close physical contact with at least two of your fellow passengers (on you right and on your left). But should you be taller than a dwarf, you will also be in body to body contact with the people sitting opposite you.

Luckily, it doesn’t take too long to get from Nong Khiaw to Muang Ngoy, but at the end, I was already suffering a little, to be honest, asking myself continuously are-we-there-yet. When we arrived at long last, we had to walk through another boat to get on dry land – no-one fell into the water though.

3.2 Things to do in Muang Ngoy

Muang Ngoy also offers quite a few options both for people who want an active type of holiday and for those who enjoy just relaxing in a hammock and looking at the wonderful views. I am somewhere in the middle, so I tried some of both (OK, maybe more of the hammock altogether 😀).

Muang Ngoy itself is little more than one not very long street. At one end of it, there is a buddhist temple, and at the other end, you will find a nice garden café – worth visiting for the garden atmosphere, and food is not bad either.

You’ll find a number of other small restaurants along the street (there are a few sidestreets too, check them out).

One popular activity for people visiting Muang Ngoy is to walk to one of the neighbouring small villages, which are perhaps even smaller than Muang Ngoy itself. One of them, Ban Na, is only half an hour away on foot, or possibly much more if you stop on the way to see a rather boring cave.

You will be stopped at one point and made to pay a small entrance fee – yes, entrance to the neighbouring village – or something like that anyway. I went to see the cave, which was really interesting, then I continued to find Ban Na. The only problem was that there is no road leading to Ban Na. Not even a dirt road. I marked the village on Google Maps, but without data connection, Google Maps just behaves abnormally, and either displays your marked places or not, depending on its mood or the constellation of the stars or heaven knows what. This time, it didn’t feel like showing my starred places. So there I was, with no roads, no signs and no usable map.

Luckily, there was a small group, a foreign couple and a local guy, certainly a guide, who I thought were definitely going to Ban Na. I decided to follow them. After a time, I started to wonder whether it was a good idea or not, because they were leading me to some impossible places, to the forest, to the river and places without any paths. After we crossed the river, I felt something itchy on my feet, and when I checked, I got really frightened because I had to peel off several leeches from my legs and feet. And when I saw that there was still no sign of any village in the distance, I decided enough was enough, and that I Ban Na would have to live without my visit for some more time.

3.3 Accommodation in Muang Ngoy

Muang Ngoy is really a tiny village. It has one longer street, and there are a few side streets which are only a few metres long. Tiny it may be, but it is already prepared to receive international tourists. There are quite a few options for accommodation. Again, I didn’t book anything, and I was expecting to find something on the spot. But this time, my approach was really “whatever will be will be”, because I didn’t even check the options online.

I got out of the boat, with my backpack and one shoulder bag in my hand, and I swear I didn’t even take more than three steps, trying to climb up the stairs from the water level, when a middle aged gentleman stopped me and asked me if I had accommodation. I wasn’t really comfortable with it, because well, you know, it is the very first person asking me, rather than me asking local people if they can recommend me something. Stupid, I know. And another thing was that he stopped at the top of the stairs, right there, on the bank of the river, and said “this is my guesthouse”, and showed me the bungalows which were right there over the river. So then I said OK, let me have a look. Meanwhile, he said it would cost 50.000, which seemed so low, that I was afraid the room would be terrible. Oh, how wrong I was! It was the perfect place, really! A nice bungalow with a bathroom (no hot water of course) and a little patio with a hammock. For the next few days, my favourite activity was lying in the hammock, drinking beer and watching the breathtakingly beautiful views over the river and the hills. The name of the guest house is Say Lom, which is also the name of the mentioned gentleman, the owner, Mr Say Lom.

But if you want to book before you arrive (it may be a good idea during high season), then have a look at this page with accommodation options in Munang Ngoy.

4. Food and drinks in Nong Khiaw and Muang Ngoy

I don’t have specific recommendations for restaurants in either Nong Khiaw or Muang Ngoy. I tried several in both villages, and I really didn’t find any of them either too bad or especially good. So I think you can just walk around and try the one that you think looks attractive to you. The prices are not very different from place to place, and the food is always prepared by the given family, so you really can’t go wrong. There are a few Indian restaurants in both villages, which seem to be a little more expensive. I didn’t try them though, because I was much more interested in Lao food, which I think is very good.

You must however prepare for one thing in almost any of the restaurants that you choose, especially in Muang Ngoy, the smaller village. Since there are quite a lot of restaurants in these otherwise small settlements, and there are not so many tourists, they don’t have ready made food. They will start to prepare the food after you have ordered, and this may take a long time, sometimes well over an hour.

A lot of the restaurants are actually normal family homes, with a terrace or a larger room for the guests. But this obviously doesn’t bother any of the family members very much. The young mothers will put the baby on a blanket spread on the floor next to your table, the little children will run around playing among the dining tables, a few of them even like interacting with the guests a little. The family’s dogs will also be around, and they will have already got used to strangers very well, so all of them are very friendly. This one in the next photo was simply lying at my feet, because that’s where he (she?) thought was most comfortable.

So it is quite like you went into someone’s home, greeted them with a sabaidee, sat down at a table, and waited for mum to serve some food and drinks.

5. From Muang Ngoi to Luang Prabang

First, you need to get to Nong Khiaw. Most people will take the same ferry back, which leaves at about 9am or a bit later. You can either spend another night in Nong Khiaw, or take the the bus to Luang Prabang. You will have enough time to grab a bite before the bus leaves, which actually waits for the boat from Muang Ngoy to arrive before it leaves Nong Khiaw.

Muang Ngoy didn’t use to have road access, but this has changed, so it is also possible to take a bus from Muang Ngoi to Luang Prabang, but the boat seems to be much faster. You can also choose kayaking, if you don’t want to rush to Luang Prabang.