After exploring the mountains and sights around Nong Khiew, we decided to head upstream to the small village of Meung Ngoy via a river taxi.

Although the river taxi was pretty packed, everyone still seemed to have a good time on the trip upriver.

You can see the famous Nong Khiew bridge in the background behind Steve and Yaneka.

As we moved upstream, we passed small villages lining the riverbanks. Many of them probably haven't changed much over the last century.

Even though the boat was a little cramped everyone seemed to be enjoying the voyage upriver.

I think this might have been the first time I saw a monk smoking a cigarette.

Situated on the banks of the Nam Ou River valley, we probably would have passed right by Meung Ngoy if it hadn't been for the boat driver.

Meung Ngoy is a small village with thatched huts clustered closely together lining the packed earth streets.

I didn't notice this chicken scurrying behind me, but Steve obviously did. Photo by Steve Iams.

I'm not sure how this little girl caught the bird, but hopefully she eventually let it fly away.

Mmmm, free sausages.

Maybe the sausages were for this fellow?

The Meung Ngoy monkey was a whole lot less cute than the one from Luang Prabang. He sort of resembles Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street to me.

I didn't want to get within snatching range of this monkey's agile fingers.

This tributary feeds into the Nam Ou River (click here for a close up view of this photo).

When we were hiking around the countryside near Meung Ngoy, we came across this creature that looked like a cross between a cow and a pig.

Old fashioned bamboo plumbing.

We hiked over to the Phatoke Cave near Meung Ngoy, this crystal clear stream runs out of it.

We didn't actually go inside the cave, but we did stand in front of it for this photo.

As we were hiking back to Meung Ngoy, we passed this little hut situated in the valley between the steep limestone mountains.

After an afternoon of visiting Meung Ngoy, we had to return to Nong Khiew. The trip downstream was about 45 minutes faster than the trip upstream. Photo by Steve Iams.

Femka was pretty tired from all the activity in Meung Ngoy.

I think we were both trying to figure out what to order for dinner at the Sunset Guesthouse since we never ate lunch.