Laos-Trekking

The next day, we slept in and headed off to one of the LP-recommended restaurants for breakfast. As I said, the downtown area of Luang Nam Tha was only about 6 square blocks. It’s a very small town, becoming famous for being the jumping-off point to go eco-trekking through the Nam Ha Special Protected Area. And there’s really almost nothing else to do in the area; so we quickly booked a 3-day trek leaving the next morning with Green Discovery Tours, which is said to be one of the most responsible and well-organized companies in the area. After that, we rented a couple of mountain bikes and headed out of town in search of the waterfall, which was pretty much the only other thing suggested to do.

The waterfall itself was a little disappointing, but the route there was really interesting! We cycled along a dirt track road that wound its way through a few small villages and alongside rivers and rice paddies. Throughout the villages, there were many different types of animals, so we were able to get pictures of Yoshi with cows and calves, goats and kids, dogs and puppies, cats, chickens, and ducks. We even spotted one long, green snake crossing the road between our bikes.

OK, not so long.

On our way back into town, we saw a group of kids from around 10-16 years old, playing a form of volleyball/soccer that is popular in Thailand and Laos. They use a 20-cm woven rattan ball, and can only touch it with their feet and heads. What’s similar to volleyball, they have to serve the ball over a 5-foot high net, then the other team has to return it in 3 hits or less. Some of their moves were very impressive, especially when they made “kill” shots, spiking the ball over the net using an overhead kick. They invited us to join their game, but it looked a little too difficult for me. But we did join a second group off to the side just practicing, like a hacky-sack circle, just to get a feel for it. It wasn’t as difficult as it looked, but the ball did hurt the feet a bit, wearing sandals as we were.

Yoshi practicing with the boys.

The next day, we joined our trekking group and climbed into the tuk-tuk for the 20-minute drive to the village where we started our trip. We had a full group of 8 people. Green Discovery limits their treks to 8 people in order to minimize the effects on the environment that we hike through, and to maximize the experience for the people in the group. In our group, we had a great mix of people from all over the world, with a variety of languages. Everyone could speak English with varying degrees of fluency. Then we had a young couple from the USA; his parents were from Spain, so he could also speak fluent Spanish. Then there was a French-speaking Swiss couple; she could speak English quite well, and he spoke fluent Spanish. Then our last couple; she was from Argentina and he was from Poland. So the Swiss and American guys spoke Spanish with the Argentine girl, I spoke French sometimes with the Swiss girl, and everyone spoke English in different accents. Very international!

Not so much to say about the trek. We walked…a lot. Up and down hills, then back up, and back down, and took a break, and then kept walking. Along the way, Pet, our guide, showed up interesting things that we passed, including a rattan tree (of the furniture fame) and the tree that they get Tiger Balm from. The first day we started our trek in a local village, and two women from that village prepared our lunch, all local stir-fries and stews, with a large hunk of sticky rice for each of us. All the food was poured out onto banana leaves that were laid over whatever surface we happened to be eating from, which was often just the ground, and everyone would just dig in, sometimes with fingers, or with improvised chopsticks that our second guide made out of some sturdy reeds.

The first night we stayed sort of in the middle of nowhere in a rough wooden building on 3-foot stilts, complete with mosquito nets. Our guides and the women from the first village made an amazing dinner and then we drank shots of Lao whiskey that Pet passed around the table until we couldn’t stand the taste anymore.

Hiking through rice paddies.

The next afternoon, we passed into the territory of the Akha people, one of the many ethnic groups in the Laos countryside. A few years ago, at the request, or perhaps under pressure from the Lao government, they moved their whole village to be closer to the road access. So all that’s left of the old village was one large building, and lots of foundations of other buildings. We could hear the voices in the new building from time to time, but never saw any sign of them. The next day, we were given the option of hiking for 5 hours through the forest or 3 hours across rice paddies with little shade. We opted for the forest, but eventually made it to the same place, the location of the new village. There we were given a tour, bought some handicrafts and met the village chief. One interesting feature of the village was the love houses, where teenagers of the village could go to spend special time with the object of their affection out of reach of the prying eyes of the other villagers. They were just several small huts all in the same area of the village, and they were each about the size of, ahem, a double bed.

Once we got back to Luang Nam Tha, which now seemed like a bustling little town compared to the jungle, we immediately sent off our laundry and had hot showers. We’d been lucky enough to have river bathing each day, and sometimes at break times during the day as well. Anytime we had a chance to strip off and jump in, I took it. The rivers were beautiful, cool and clean. Reminded me of Canada…

Before dinner, we went with some of the other trekkers to a traditional Lao steam house and massage. It was just an elevated wooden building, like all the others, but this one had some sort of herbal concoction boiling underneath it that filled 2 small rooms, for men and women. I opted for the full-body massage instead, which got a bit rough at times, but felt great afterwards. A nice way to say goodbye to Laos.