I finally found a tour group to hook up with for a 2 days/ one night trekking including two French, two Polish and two Israeli. The first day was really easy, only 3,5 hours of walking including breaks. It was all uphill but not very demanding from my perspective. We had our first lunch in the jungle, served on banana leaves on the ground, really authentic. We didn’t even have chop sticks, so we had to eat with our hands. As a joke I asked if everyone had washed hands before eating (I mean who would waste drinking water to wash hands?). When the Israeli responded seriously that of course they did, I didn’t know how to react and changed the topic!
We arrived at the village in the early afternoon. Let’s say that the village was the most authentic thing I have ever seen in my life. The people were really living like hundreds of years ago! They were not yet corrupted by tourism. They were just staring at us all the time, especially the children. When we tried to get closer to them they sometimes ran away, they were really shy. The village itself was situated at the top of a mountain (the views were fantastic!) and had like a dozen of bamboo houses. They told us that the total population was 135. Animals were just moving everywhere without fences – buffalos, cattle, pigs, chicken, dogs, cats, all the animals you know from a farm. There was no electricity (only some small solar panels to recharge torches for the night) and no water. Around 5 minutes downhill there was a small trickle which served as water supply for the whole village.
The night was a lot warmer than down in the valley. Really strange because you would expect the temperature to be lower in higher altitudes. I guess it’s because humidity concentrates down in the valley. We slept in a bamboo house all together with the guides. When they prepared the mattresses they gave a lot of space to the three couples and offered me to sleep next to them. I had no problem with that and prepared everything for the night. When everybody was already about to sleep, a fourth guy came and wanted to sleep also in our corner. I was really pissed off because they knew how many people we were and could have at least distributed the space equally. I don’t care sleeping without comfort but I need a little bit of privacy without a strange guy snoring next to my head! The night was horrible, I maybe slept 2 hours. Fortunately I brought my iPod and was able to drown the snoring sound. I started with German music, then Queen, then R.E.M. but without effect. I mean R.E.M. has some slow ballads and not even that makes me sleep? I then decided to switch to classical music, but Beethoven is maybe too animating. In the early morning hours I tried electronic tango but this was already for “wake-up”. The roosters started crowing too early (as always in Southeast Asia), more than two hours before sunrise. Little bastards! Finally I noticed the dawn – I have never been happier to see a sunrise! Watching sunrise in this village made me forget the horrible night. I went down to the trickle to wash me and brush my teeth. I had to queue 20 minutes because the women were refilling the water deposits they carried on their backs. They were looking at me as if I was an alien when I brushed my teeth (they obviously don’t do that) but they also smiled after they got used to my presence.
After having noodle soup for breakfast (even French colonisation didn’t help to explain them the difference between breakfast, lunch and dinner), we continued our way. It was six hours of walking, but without any big highlights. In dry season you cannot see much wildlife and the guide didn’t explain very much neither about what you could theoretically see in wet season. There were originally 2 guides and 2 helpers but one guide went back to the starting point with the Israeli couple. The girl had problems with her feet and couldn’t continue the second day. The remaining guide who went with us was getting on my nerves because he stopped every 15 minutes in order to give us a break. I then told him that stopping so often is contra productive because you lose your rhythm and that we can tell him if someone needs a break. In the late afternoon we finally arrived at the road and went back to Luang Nam Tha. The trekking itself was really worth it because of the village stay. The “jungle” trek in change was not so exciting.
In the evening we met with the trekking group to have some beers (after having a shower!). Yesterday I went from Luang Nam Tha to Luang Prabang together with the Polish couple. It was an 8 hours ride in a minivan and the road was sometimes in really bad conditions. In Laos there are two types of roads, the good Chinese roads and the bad Lao roads. Yesterday we had both of them and the difference couldn’t be greater! I arrived at Luang Prabang late in the afternoon. I later went to the night market to get some food, read the latest news from Germany in the Internet (finally Wulff has resigned!) and went to bed early. I think I have caught a cold on the bus ride but I still feel ok for exploring the city, which some say is the most beautiful in Southeast Asia. I will tell you!
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