Unspoiled beauty

Simon had told us about a town called Muang Ngoi, so we decided to check it out for ourselves.
To get there, we first had to take a mini van to Nong Khiaw and then from there a boat to Munang Ngoi. The mini van took about 5 hours and the boat about 2, but I loved them both so much! The roads were windy and bumpy, but breathtakingly beautiful and all around the river were small villages with little children splashing around and warmly greeting us wearing nothing but giant smiles on their faces.
Muang Ngoi is a tiny town with one dirt road, no cars and only 3 hours of electricity per day.
There were only a few places to eat in the town, so all the tourists were all in one place at the same time. We met a couple from Belgium who told us about their recent traveled to Burma. Although my plan was to go to Malaysia and then over to the Philippines, after hearing what they had to say about Burma, I'm thinking of possibly spending my last few weeks in Burma rather than spending too much time in Malaysia and the Philippines. 
The next day we wanted to do a hike to some of the villages, so we asked our German neighbor, Mark, if he wanted to join us. The hike was absolutely superb! We didn't leave till early afternoon, so the lighting was perfect! 
It's unbelievable how strong the people here are. Sometimes we would be struggling to climb us a hill and behind us would come a little old lady with about 50kg of stuff attached to a string in her head walking up like there was nothing to it. 
It took about 3 hours to walk to the nearest village which was more of just a cluster of about 5 houses and a restaurant. We were all starving, so we decided to get something to eat. Mark and Vanessa ordered fried rice and I got a vegetable curry. When the food came, there was 2 plates of rice and 1 plate of vegetables, but no curry. Vanessa and Mark started to eat, and we finally figured out, after it was 1/2 gone, that what they thought went on the top of their rice was actually my curry! 
Since it gets dark quite early here, we had to hurry back. We didn't make it back before dark, but lucky for us, the moon was nearly full so we were able to get back with only a few slight complications.