Everything there is to do in Nong Khiaw is within ten minutes’ walk of everything else, and you still will not get it all done in two days. Almost everything here takes half a day or a whole one, because you are either going up a mountain or out onto the water. That means choosing, and that is no bad thing: one good morning here beats three you rushed through.
A few things really do belong on your visit. Standing at the top once while the mist is still lying in the valley, and heading up the river once in a longtail. Other plans mostly ask a lot of your legs, and after the second steep climb you have earned an afternoon in a hammock. When you come here also matters more than exactly what you do.
So where do your two or three days in Nong Khiaw go, and what do you save for next time?
Want the practical side first, like how to get there, where to sleep and how many days to give it? That is all on our Nong Khiaw page.
Pha Daeng Peak before sunrise
This is the climb almost everyone comes for, and the reason photos of Nong Khiaw look unreal. You are standing at over 1,100 metres with the whole bend of the Nam Ou below you, and the bridge is the only sign there is a village down there. If the morning mist sits low enough, only the peaks poke out above it.
Count on an hour and a half of hard going up a steep, loose path. It starts from the village itself, on the east bank where most of the guesthouses are. Shoes with grip are not overcautious advice here: they are the difference between a fun descent and a miserable one.
Go up in the dark with a head torch and set off well before sunrise. Climb later in the morning and it is hot, the mist has gone and you have missed exactly the view you came for.
Our verdict: an hour and a half of hard climbing in the dark, and you reach the top right on time
By longtail to Muang Ngoi
An hour upstream on the Nam Ou is Muang Ngoi, a village that until recently you could only reach by water. The ride there is at least as good as where you end up: you slide between the limestone peaks while people wash and fish along the bank.
You get on at the pier in the village and pay about €5 each way. On the way you pass caves where whole villages hid from the bombing during the war. It changes the way you look at those mountains.
If you have three days, stay a night in Muang Ngoi. Once the last boat back has left, it gets even quieter there than in Nong Khiaw itself.
Our verdict: worth making room for, even if you only have two days
The 100 Waterfalls trek
The name is fairly literal: you spend half a day climbing up through the water, from pool to pool, over wet rocks and past little cascades. It is not a walk but a scramble, and for a lot of travellers it is the best thing they do in northern Laos.
You book it at one of the small tour offices around the bridge, together with whoever else turns up that morning. Wear clothes that can get wet and shoes you do not mind ruining, because staying dry is not an option.
Do not plan it on the same day as a viewpoint. You will be wrecked afterwards, and that is exactly the idea.
Our verdict: absolutely, if you have a third day
A night in the mountains
If you want more than a day trip, head into the mountains with a guide. You either sleep up at a camp where you wake up quite literally above the clouds, or you stay overnight in a Hmong village where no other travellers go. Some two-day treks combine that homestay with a stretch of kayaking on the way back.
This is the kind of trip you need a guide for, and not just to find the way. There is still unexploded ordnance in the back country of northern Laos, so working out your own route here is not something to do. Stick to the paths your guide takes.
Book it in advance or on your very first day. The groups are small and in high season a trek fills up faster than you would think.
Our verdict: if you have four days, this is the best thing you can do here
Kayaking on the Nam Ou
You have seen the river from a longtail, but in a kayak you are right in it. Half a day paddling between the limestone mountains, no engine noise, just the water and the peaks around you.
It is the calmest of everything on offer here, which makes it a good pick for the day after a hard climb. You sort it out at the same little offices in the village.
Our verdict: lovely if you have a day spare
Sunset by the river, with fish off the grill
The evenings here prove you do not have to do anything to have a good time. You sit on a terrace above the water, the sun drops behind the limestone and within fifteen minutes the mountains turn from green to black. There is no nightlife, so this is your evening.
Order fresh fish from the Nam Ou, or laap with a basket of sticky rice. A meal costs about €2 and a beer about €1. During the day, grab a baguette from the cart by the bridge, which turns out to be very handy on the way to a viewpoint.
Bring enough cash from Luang Prabang. There is no supermarket here, and the one ATM in the village is not something to make your dinner depend on.
Our verdict: fish from the Nam Ou for €2 with the river in front of you: nothing else needed
Got time to spare in Nong Khiaw?
The best season for the view
Come between October and March, when the air is clear and you can see the river winding through the valley from the top. The burning season can start in March and often lasts into May, and then the smoke from the crop fires sits in the valley and what you see from the top is mostly grey. If you can shuffle your route around, this is the most important choice you make here.
Another viewpoint
There are three viewpoints above the village, and all three look out over the same river and the same mountains, each from a different angle. Do one properly, because each one takes a morning and a hard climb. If you have strong legs and a day to spare, add a second, and make sure Pha Daeng Peak is one of the two, because it is the most beautiful of the three.
Into the back country with a guide
The mountain villages around Nong Khiaw are the best of this part of Laos, and you go there with a guide. It costs little here, your guide knows which paths are safe and takes you to places you would never find yourself. Outside the village there is hardly any phone signal, and off the marked routes in this part of Laos there is still unexploded ordnance.
Getting around the village
In other parts of Laos a scooter is the best money you spend all week. Nong Khiaw is one street with a bridge that you walk end to end in ten minutes, and everything worth doing is on foot or on the water. Whatever you save on that goes on a boat trip and your dinner.
Our top five in Nong Khiaw
Only got a few days? These are the five we would do no matter what:
- Pha Daeng Peak before sunrise, up with a head torch
- By longtail to Muang Ngoi, past the war caves
- The 100 Waterfalls trek, half a day scrambling through the water
- A night in the mountains, in a Hmong village or at the camp above the clouds
- Sunset on a terrace above the river, with fish from the Nam Ou
Still got half a day after that? Kayaking on the Nam Ou is the loveliest way to spend it. Or just go up again, because on the second morning the mist hangs just a little differently.
So what do you really have to do in Nong Khiaw?
Honestly, this is the last place where a list makes much sense. Nong Khiaw is exactly where travellers drop their schedule: they come for two days, stay for four and afterwards cannot explain what they did with the extra days. That is not wasted time. That is what you come here for.
If we had to pick just one thing: get up in the dark one morning and climb to the top. It is an hour and a half of slogging up a path where you keep asking yourself why you are doing this, and then you are standing at the top while the mist drifts out of the valley below you. You will hold on to that picture longer than any tour.
And keep your last afternoon empty. Sit on a terrace above the Nam Ou with a beer, watch the longtails come in and do absolutely nothing else. In a village with no supermarket, no bars and no rush, that is not being lazy. It is the whole point.
