Nam Kaeng Village

We made it to the village.

Took a cramped minivan from Ubon city early morning. The driver didn’t say a word the entire two hours, just chain-smoked and blasted Thai pop songs. Rain came and went like someone flipping a switch.

The village — Ban Nam Kaeng Noi — is small, maybe a few dozen wooden houses, chickens everywhere. Red dirt roads, banana trees, kids staring at us like we were aliens. There’s a single shop that sells instant noodles, soda, gas, and SIM cards. I bought water; Tom bought beer; Pete asked for directions to the falls.

That’s when things got weird.

The shop owner — old lady, maybe 70 — smiled until she heard “Nam Kaeng Noi.”

Then her face changed. Not angry, not scared — more like blank, distant.

She shook her head. “No go there,” she said in English.

Pete laughed. “Why not?”

She just said again, “No go,” then turned away.

We asked around a bit more. Most villagers just pretended not to understand. Finally, a younger guy, maybe mid-30s, said in broken English that he knew where it was. Said we’d need a local guide, someone named Sakda. “He go forest,” he said. “Come night.”

So we waited.

The village doesn’t have much — a small temple, a half-dried pond, and a rickety bridge over a creek. John kept taking photos. He showed me one on his camera later that made my stomach drop a little.

It was a picture of that bridge, simple shot, nothing fancy — except at the far end, in the shadow, there was this shape.

Looked like a person, maybe. But wrong proportions. Too long, like arms down to the knees.

I told John it was probably a shadow. He didn’t answer, just zoomed in and frowned.

Sakda showed up just before sunset. Skinny, mid-40s, wearing a plastic poncho and carrying a machete. He spoke decent English, smiled a lot. Said the waterfall was about a half-day hike into the forest.

“Many people go?” Pete asked.

Sakda laughed. “No. Not now. Rain season. Trail bad.”

He said we could stay the night in his house before heading out tomorrow. It was small but dry. His wife cooked us rice and curry, spicy as hell. I thought about the old woman at the shop, the way her face went blank. I asked Sakda if people here believed the place was haunted.

He looked surprised, then smiled again. “No ghost,” he said. “Only water.”

Before bed, I heard something. Not rain — more like humming. It came from outside, near the forest edge. When I looked out the window, nothing was there, but the air smelled damp and earthy, like wet stone.