Nong Khiaw

The village grew where the Nam Ou narrows between limestone walls, at a natural crossing and mooring point on a river that carried trade between the upper Lao valleys, the Mekong and the towns of the south. Lao and Tai households settled the flat ground on the bends, while Khmu villages held the slopes and Hmong communities the higher ridges; rice, fish, forest products and, later, opium moved along the water. For most of its history the settlement was reached only by boat or footpath.

The 20th century brought the war. Northern Laos lay on the supply routes fought over during the conflict in neighbouring Vietnam, and the Nam Ou valley was bombed heavily between 1964 and 1973 in the campaign known as the Secret War. Villagers along the river lived for long periods in caves in the cliffs, farming at night; the caves at Tham Pha Thok, a short walk from the bridge, were among the shelters used. Bomb casings still turn up as fence posts and planters in villages across the province.

After 1975 the valley remained remote and poor. A road was pushed through and the bridge built, ending the river's monopoly on travel, and from the 1990s backpackers began arriving from Luang Prabang, drawn by the cliffs and the boats to Muang Ngoi Neua. A cascade of seven Chinese-built hydropower dams was raised along the Nam Ou, with the later stages from 2017, changing water levels and ending the boat journey that used to link the village with Luang Prabang. Guesthouses, cafés and trekking agencies have since multiplied along the single road.

Nong Khiaw sits at a meeting point of lowland and upland Laos. The village itself is largely Lao and Buddhist, with a monastery, early alms rounds and the festival calendar that goes with it, while the hamlets in the hills around are mostly Khmu and Hmong, each with its own language, dress and spirit practices. Market mornings and school buses bring the groups together, and homestay trekking has made the differences part of what visitors come to see — something guides handle with varying care.

Daily manners are those of rural Laos: soft voices, the nop in greeting, shoulders covered near the monastery, shoes left at the door. Weaving and basketwork are done in several villages upriver, and Hmong households make embroidered cloth and silver ornaments for New Year. Rice spirit, lao-lao, circulates at weddings, house blessings and the baci ceremony, in which white cotton threads are tied around the wrists to call the spirits home.

The war is part of local memory rather than a museum subject. Older residents remember the caves, and clearance teams still work in the district. Visitors who ask are generally answered plainly, but the conversation belongs to those who start it, and photographing damaged land or ordnance is taken badly.

A few thousand people live in the village and the hamlets along the road and river, a number that swells at market time and falls when young people leave for Luang Prabang, Vientiane or Thailand to work. Most households still farm: rice on the terraces and the flats, maize and cassava on the slopes, vegetables by the water, with buffalo and pigs kept beside the houses. Fishing on the Nam Ou supplements it, though catches have fallen since the dams changed the river.

Tourism is the other economy, seasonal and concentrated on one road — guesthouse rooms, boat trips, trekking guides, minibus tickets and a scattering of cafés and bars. It brought electricity, better roads and mobile signal faster than they reached comparable villages, and it makes the wet months lean. Chinese and Lao investment in dams and roads has also brought construction work and, for some families, resettlement compensation.

The day is early: markets before dawn, farming and school in the morning, a quiet hot afternoon, and boats returning as the light goes. Electricity supply and mobile coverage are reliable but not guaranteed, medical care means a small clinic, and anything serious involves the road to Luang Prabang. Rising visitor numbers, the state of the river and the price of rice are the everyday subjects.

Cooking here is rural northern Lao and revolves around sticky rice, khao niaw, steamed in bamboo baskets and eaten with the fingers at every meal. The river supplies most of the protein: small fish grilled whole over charcoal, stuffed with lemongrass and rubbed with salt, or steamed in banana leaf as mok pa. Laap, minced meat or fish with herbs, lime, chilli and toasted rice powder, is the dish for guests, and jaew — a pounded chilli dip, often with tomato or aubergine — is on nearly every table.

The forest and the fields fill the rest of the plate. Bamboo shoots are boiled into soup with dill and yanang leaf, river weed is dried and fried, and wild greens, mushrooms and herbs come in from the hills according to season. Sai oua, coarse pork sausage with lemongrass and galangal, and skewers of pork and chicken are grilled by the bridge in the late afternoon. Khao soi, flat noodles under a spicy pork and tomato sauce, and khao piak sen, soft rice noodles in broth, are the usual breakfasts.

Drinks are simple: strong Lao coffee with condensed milk, fruit shakes, Beerlao and lao-lao, the clear rice spirit distilled in the villages and poured at any celebration. Khmu and Hmong households also make lao hai, a fermented rice beer drunk through reeds from a shared jar.