Trekking in Northern Laos

Despite the events (or non-events) of new year’s eve, Shelley, rough and tough as ever, bravely boarded the bus up north on new years day. This was to be the first of our encounters with the infamous Laos bus system. We turned up at 10.45am for the midday bus – luckily as it turns out because it actually left at 11am. We were the last two passengers (they were waiting for two more even though there were already 12 people in the 10 seater minivan when we got there). The 5 hour ride only took 4 hours, which was good once you stopped holding your breath and closing your eyes at every corner. The day after we took another 4 hour bus ride and eventually turned up in Luang Nam Tha.

The North part of Laos is really nice – a lot less tourists around, and gorgeous scenery of mountains, jungle and rice paddies everywhere. However the people are a bit of a mixed bag – there is a lot of Chinese influence because it’s very close to the Chinese border, and some of the people seem to be less friendly than the Laos people everywhere else. Anyway, we didn’t stay too long in the town, we quickly organised a 3 day trek for the next day, in a group with a swiss couple and a german guy.

It was so nice to get out of the towns and go trekking. We did about 6 hours of walking each day, mostly through the jungle – and often along precariously narrow paths on the edge of mountains! It was great fun, and we remembered how much we love trekking around all day. Our guide told us a lot about the plants in the jungle that are used by the local people for food or medicine, and a lot of the products they collect to export to China! It seemed like pretty much everything they could find or make, they exported to China. The food on the trek was traditional Laos food of the villages we stayed in, so it was...er...interesting to say the least (strange green sticks, banana flower paste, mushy white vegetables, chicken hearts) and some of it was really nice, but after three days we were sooooooo sick of sticky rice! Cold sticky rice and banana flower paste is not the most appetising breakfast ever.

Other than the food, it was great to stay in the little villages in the middle of the jungle. The first night we stayed in an Akha village where we made friends with a bunch of the kids – Scott taught them some English and tried to teach them how to do his hand-whistling trick (no one could, including Shelley and the other tourists), and they taught Shelley one of their Akha songs. The village was quite picturesque – lots of bamboo huts in the middle of the jungle, with kids and piglets and chickens and puppies running around everywhere.

After dinner the village chief kept feeding us lao lao (rice whiskey) and made us all sing songs. The Laos people are great singers, we think it might be because their language is tonal, and also because they are brought up with singing as their main communal entertainment. Even the kids have great voices and know lots of songs! We couldn’t think of many so we sang “In the jungle” with Scott doing the wimoweh part, and then “I still call Australia home” and “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” which they really liked. The chief was also very impressed with Shelley’s singing of the Akha song the kids had taught her! It was a great evening and then when we left the next day the chief gave us all bracelets as a souvenir.

On the second day we had more trekking, more sticky rice, and we also played a fun Akha game which involved two seed pods that you threw, flicked and then hopped along with one seed pod balanced on your foot to kick it at the other seed pod. It was fun for a while but then we got a bit over it – but we had to keep playing because our guide was really enjoying it and wouldn’t let us stop! The second night the village we stayed at was similar to the first but we think they get more tourists staying there as they weren’t as interested in us. We still had some singing and playing with the kids (and more lao lao – our guide loved lao lao!) but it was a quieter night. Scott also had a tummy bug so he had an early night. Finally we arrived back in civilisation on day three, happy and tired and very eager to get some non-rice food in town!