We headed out early on a Tuesday morning for a three day guided trek. The group turns out to be nine including us (Maisey and Miles form England, Damian from England, Ben from Portland USA, Leeor and Lirite from Israel). Due to the size of the group, we get two guides – Somphone and Itsom.
After a brief visit to the local market and a 30 minute van ride, we reach our jumping off point (or splashing off point as the case may be). Our trek begins with a river crossing on a bamboo raft. Everyone makes it across with a minimal amount of wetness. On the other side, we embark on our hiking odyssey. The trail leads up the large hillside and is a steep climb. When I say trail, I mean it in the loosest of terms. Someone has hacked a path straight up the hillside. In areas they have dug out places to put your feet as steps, but they are not steps. Once the trail levels out, we are cutting across the hillside. We are no longer climbing, but the path isn’t level (it is very much at an angle) and is difficult to walk on. It takes a toll on us old people’s knees. We are hiking through a bamboo jungle. Some of the stands of bamboo are massive. Pieces that are five months old are as big around as my wrist and 20 feet tall. It is incredible how quickly it grows. After hiking for several hours, we stop for lunch. The guides cut a bunch of banana leaves and make a picnic area and they also make some bowls out of other leaves. Lunch is sticky rice, a tomato sauce, cooked water buffalo meat, and Chinese Broccoli. Excellent food. After lunch, we hike to a big tree and Tim shows the group he is part monkey climbing up in it. More hiking up and down ending up at the river across from a village. This is where we will spend the night.
Tim is doing a fantastic job on the hike and leads the pack every day. Everyone comments about how he makes this look easy, and we thought he might never hike again after the Inca trail. He really is enjoying the hiking as well.
The village is primarily bamboo huts, with a few with wood walls. Technically, it is a hill tribe, but for the most part there is not any hill tribes left that do hunting and gathering. It has turned into a farming village. They clear the surrounding jungle and then farm the land. When we arrive, there are a ton of kids down by the river. We take a quick bath in the river to clean up (in our bathing suits and a sarong for Karen). Meanwhile, the kids are playing all around us. The girls are hanging out together and the boys are roughhousing. Many a wrestling match and jumping off each other’s shoulders into the water. It’s great fun. After our bath, it is up to the village and the house we are going to stay in. We sleep in one of the villager’s house. Before dinner, we wander around and check out the village. Tim especially likes all the little pigs. There are loads of pot belly pigs running around and getting in tussles. They especially like to come hang out by the fire. Dinner is served and Lao Lao (Local Whiskey is passed round). A nice finish to the evening is sitting around a campfire. A lot like a summer evening back home.
Day two starts off with a one hour hike up a creek bed in our flip flops. Not the easiest of hikes, but there is a nice little waterfall at the end. Next it is back up hill through more jungle and more “big” trees. A lot of the trees are impressively big. The hiking is not easy and by time we reach a clearing with a bamboo hut in it, we are ready for a break. We take lunch in the hut and a little nap afterwards (including Fluffy). The last half of the day is mostly downhill (a few ups thrown in for good measure). This takes a toll on Karen’s knee and by the end of the second day; she can barely bend her knee. Quite the trooper, she carries on and doesn’t slow the group.
The second night we stayed in a family’s hut that is about ten minutes from the next village. They have a really nice little farm on the river. We were watching all the chickens, ducks, pigs, dogs and cats wander about the place. Karen and I made comments about the ducks and about 10 minutes later, the farmer’s wife came out with one of the ducks minus his head. This became dinner and lunch the next day. It’s good to know where your food came from.
The next morning it is off to the village, this is a Lanten village, a tribe of people from China. We got to see examples of weaving and making paper out of bamboo. Interesting village, but we don’t stay long. The one thing that stuck out in my mind was how small a world it has become. Here we are in a “remote” village in Northern Laos, where they live in bamboo huts, but at least 25% of the houses have satellite dishes for TV. It is back onto the trail and up a major hill. Hard work, but much better than going down hill, which is next. What goes up, must come down. Another day of tough hiking (some down an old creek bed that is very muddy and slippery) and we finish at the river where we get to swim a while before piling into the van to head back to town.
Great trek. We saw very pretty countryside, got a taste of village life, swam in nice rivers and hiked with a wonderful group of people that we have seen a number of times since. Tim hit it off quite well with the group and has a number of long term friends out of the trip.
~Jeff~
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