trekking in laos

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Monday 15th February, 2010
Vieng Phouka Trek

Our trek organiser Mr Boung Louang ( I think) assured us in very good very smiley english that water and all food would be supplied and after our Chiang Mai trek where the food was good and plentiful I made the decision not to take personal rations...............mmmmmmmmh....not a good move it turns out. I also left our puritabs and a few other essentials that I later missed.
Anyway, all started reasonably well with quite a punctual and sort of organised entry to the jungle via pick up truck. Starting in a Khmu village which was home to some 400 people living in stilt houses this seemed a stark contrast to the Thai Hill tribe villages we saw which seemed very contrived and almost placed and designed for tourism. This was definitely for real. Our guide, Mr Secam ( or webcam as he became known) did his utmost to explain things but kind of wobbled at an early hurdle when asked to explain a public notice displayed in the village centre.
“Boy meets girl, not in village but maybe in big town, they sleep and maybe have problems” - roughly translated using finger inserted into hole in other fist, this appeared to be a warning about casual encounters with outsiders and STD's....no, not Standard Trunk Dialling!!!
The trekking itself, I found was a little unchallenging (We both accept that we have been spoiled to death by the scenery in India and south america and that jungle trekking will by definition give you views of …....well....jungle!!) but we scaled bamboo ladders, crossed rivers and had a great time getting to know our group and our guides. Mr Secam turned out to be a very informative and amusing guy.
Lunch came all too early for me and as Gail, our “chef” laid out a large palm leaf on the trail and produced 10 globby piles of sticky rice from a sweaty plastic bag, I realised my error in not bringing rations. He added piles of green beans and sloppy pork fat with Chilli sauce and my fate was sealed: slow starvation over 3 days!! (Anna:I love rice and also vegetables however sticky rice is a different concept, it is rice that sticks together in a ball, you break a bit off, roll it and then dip it in something and its quite chewy. It is a lot less messy than trying to eat with your hands in India, however it is very boring. The large lumps of pork fat did nothing for my appetite!)

A climb after “lunch” was followed by a pleasant ramble through pretty dense jungle, hacked clear by the guides with machete's. (This trail is relatively new to tourists and was originally used by the french to establish communication lines) A pretty steep descent took us to our first camp: a clearing with a bamboo dorm thing and a table, a kind of toilet thingy and worst of all: a small almost stagnant water hole!! When Mr Webcam told us we could wash in this water hole, my hunger strike started in earnest: I'd just seen the chef collecting cooking water and toilet water in the same buckets from the same source. (If you do this trail, please wash at the outlet from the pool or preferably not in it at all) Now, it doesnt take Ray Mears to point out the potential problem here: the water was murky and hardly flowing, other trekkers had washed in it including presumably feet and nether regions, there were cattle nearby and although some degree of boiling would be involved in the cooking process, the whole scenario screamed of water borne bacterial infections!! I had sufficient rehydration salts to last us both a couple of days so elected to live on water, bananas and biscuits. So we had sweated all day but there was to be no shower whatsoever, and by the morning the actual toilet door ( a bamboo contraption disguising the squat toilet) had collapsed completely!

Before “dinner” was served we climbed to 1400m to watch the sunset over the misty mountain which was the highlight of the day. Took some good pics of ourselves and our comrades. The view was quite stunning: kind of moody and misty and the air cool and fresh. We climbed down after sunset which was a bit precarious but all good fun.
After this I watched Gail hack up 2 leg portions of what was either chicken or turkey (Turkeys are very common in the villages here) and watched in horror as this was chucked in the washing water and later served with more of the dreaded sticky rice. By the time it hit the table, all signs of meat had vanished and what remained can only be described as gristle and bones. Despite my advice to the contrary our comrades dug in while I consoled myself with my only rations: half a bottle of thai whiskey and some red bull. We have always been lucky with organised trips and this proved to be no exception, our fellow trekkers were great fun and our conversations across the languages, marvellously interesting. It must be mentioned that most of the group seemed to enjoy the food so maybe it was just me over reacting!! (Anna: Nobody i truly believe actually enjoyed the food, but it was all part of it and these people live on very little so nobody would dream of complaining. I just though it odd that the table was laid with a banana leaf to act as tablecloth and plate and then we were given bowlfuls of cabbage in soupy waterwhich we were to spoon onto the leaf in front of us, it was running everywhere!! 10 of us including our 2 guides all slept in a large bamboo hut and needless to say i didnt feel that refreshed in the morning!)

Tuesday 15th Feb
After a reasonable rest, dawn eventually broke and yet more rice was served. It was at this point I asked for more water and was horror struck once more to see only 10 half litre bottles remaining. Of these, at least half were not sealed and turned out to contain boiled water from the hell hole. I explained to Webcam that drinking water must be boiled for “very very long time” to make it safe to which he replied “yes boiled” Survival instincts kicked in, I grabbed 2 sealed bottles, added salts and told Anna to make it last all day.

The second day's trekking started slightly disappointingly for me, I grew tired of the scenery and actually contemplated leaving the trek if we came across a road. Though I've never been a quitter I really believed at this point that unless we got fresh water, we could have major problems. I shared my concerns with others in our group and learned that Pullo, our fantastically funny french comrade, had brought puri-tabs with him which may have saved us if things got worse.
Anyway, my compass told me that we had basically done a large circle and from what I knew, I deduced that a road crossing was imminent. Sweet joy, we hit a road in the early afternoon but Vieng Poukha is 38 km east and with only 4 hours of day light and less than a litre of water each, it was easy to work out that escape was not an option at this point. We stick with it and after a good climb up a dusty track things get better and we enter a large Khmu village with “shops” and a “Bar”. This is a seriously good turn in events, the village has 300 occupants who are fascinated with us, we share drinks with the local men, chase the children around as they giggle and call us Phalang (French). We wash in the village centre under a standpipe and Anna had a marvellous time concealing her atrributes while the locals looked on and laughed. (Its quite difficult to shower while holding up a sarong)
You really have to admire these amazingly happy people who carve out their lives from such basic resources. The village itself is a quite well spread out and situated by a river, pathways and tracks between the bamboo houses are alive with children playing amongst the chickens and pigs. It's all very picturesque to us but I imagine life here is very hard in the rainy season.
The food didn't change much although my comrades still seemed to enjoy it, (Anna was also “riced” out by this point but managed to get interested in the rather pawltry and chewy “chicken”.)
George from Bristol was heard declaring, “This is amazing!” as he waded through the watery soup dragging out stringy stewed dock leaves to add to his growing mountain of sticky rice. I truly wondered what George ate back in Bristol !! I resorted to biscuits and tinned fish from the local “super market”. Evening was a booze up with the village chief (as always, the smallest guy in the village) and his cohorts in our bedroom. George fascinated us all with his remarkable Jew's Harp playing and soon the locals and Mr Secam were getting in on the act creating a right old hoully. We shared rice wine drunk thru reeds and lao lao whiskey for 50p a bottle. This brought about somewhat fretful but much needed sleep.(Anna:The Lao Lao whisky i just could not force down my neck, its like rocket fuel!!!Tastes and smells discusting)

Wednesday 16th February
With fresh water everything seemed somewhat brighter today! We all got up early, mooched around the village, took pictures, chased the kids, pigs and chickens while Gayle and Webcam served rice, pumpkin and elephant eggs.
I ate tinned fish and am ashamed to say couldn't even bring myself to sit with my comrades for fear of vomitting all over the sticky rice mountain. Anna flew the flag and dived in up to her chin!! (Such an exageration, i ate the pumpkin, the rice which had been agthered up after each meal over the last 2 days ahd After the rice eating ritual we spent a bit of time with the kids and took over the school. Daniel from Germany gave a particularly good lesson and had the kids counting in English and German while I rolled flags and cheered him on heroically whilst negotiating the price of a plump pig with one of my new drinking buddies. (About 60 quid for a cracking fat bellied porker that would have lasted me days!!)
The last days trekking was the best without doubt in terms of scenery and for me mental attitude. We turned down an early lunch (less than an hour into the trek) and left Gayle to carry his gopping, sweaty plastic bag of “the dreaded” until we reached another Khmu village just after 1pm. Anna and I accepted hard boiled eggs and bananas but politely turned down Gail's “final supper”.

I really don't mean to sound unfair here; the guides were great guys and did their best to keep us alive no I mean happy. We signed up for a real experience and we got one! Sometimes its just the little things that get under my skin, like for example the minging, sweaty plastic bag that contained the dreaded sticky rice, beans and pork fat.......from the time it was first prepared ie morning, the previous evening or the previous day until it was eventually consumed.....perhaps if it had been in something more …...what's the word??.err suitable, yes that's it; suitable like for example a dustbin, no I mean a cool bag, then perhaps I wouldn't have developed such an aversion for Gayle's cooking.

After spending a while with the locals including the village elder, a lovely lady of 85 years, we
drained the village shop of anything remotely edible and set of for the last leg. A good road hike for about 90 minutes lead us onto the home straight and we got to the final village and our transport by just after 1530. Team pics were taken and then we were suddenly back in the bus stop bar in Vieng Poukha drinking the last 5 beers in town!
Daniel, Verana and their countrymen were going north to Luang Namtha on the “maybe soon” bus
Pullo and Sondra were going south to Luang Prabang on the “maybe tonight” bus,
George and Emily were staying put to buy Jews harps (another story).................and Anna and I didn't really have a clue!! The thought of backtracking to Namtha seemed silly as did the idea of hanging around in a village with no beer in the hope of catching the “maybe tonight” bus south.......................all was hanging in the balance as I fought through my billious sticky rice memoirs trying to focus .........Anna seemed to be at a loss............................I felt nauseous ….................everyone looked and sounded suddenly jaded.............................I got halfway down my beer...........felt billious again.........things went a bit quiet.....................................a minibus heading north screeched to a halt a few yards away and the German contingent bade us farewell................ “What ARE we doing?” said Anna looking a bit bemused......................”Dunno” says I contemplating a minubus ride in my present, post sticky rice predicament, “You got room for 2 more?” I yelled to Daniel as the last back pack was thrown aboard, “Yep, loads of room”
“Sod it, let's go!!”
A hasty session of goodbyes then ensued and 1 hour later we were back in the Kham King Guesthouse in Luang Namtha with tickets for a “definitely” bus south to Luang Prabang the following morning.
A hot shower brightened us both up a bit but a miserable steak,a miserable curry and an even more miserable waiter saw us off to our very comfortable bed by nine oclock.
Overall, I would highly recommend Mr Boung's treks; the guides and trails are good and the whole experience with the villagers and their homes is an eye opening, “must do” experience. We had a fantastic group of people to trek with and I've seen most of them since, so they're all alive, its good value for money, just don't forget some rations and puritabs if you have a stomach like mine!

Anna: I really really enjoyed this trek and although the food was .....not to our taste, and there wasnt a little shop at the end of each day like there was in Thailand, trekking in Laos is very much the real deal when compared with Chang Mai. And also me and Dave are quite hardcore trekkers, after South America, everything seems quite easy physically and organised treks tend to stop every hour for 15 minute breaks which we dont feel we really neeed. Culturally the experience was really fantastic but the trekking again was more of a rambling walk. Would really recommend though. We will post more photos at a lter stage.

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Photos

Khmu Villagers
The first village,we began our trek from here. Westerners are still very much a novelty

Lunch!
mmmmmmmmmmh

Khmu village
our guide playing the jews harp with a rather large audience

local "bar"
the "phalang" take over the local khmu pub and cause quite a stir with the locals

rice wine session
party time khmu style

a bit arty but........
couldn't ignore the symbollic beauty of the village standpipe

Family around standpipe
This standpipe was a hive of activity and situated in the school playground

Dave showing the kids
...how to play hopscotch

A warm welcome
All the villagers came out to greet us as we finished our trek