2 days trekking with homestay in Laos

after our enjoyable morning with the elephants we began our 2 day trek into the moutains of laos with vicky and patrice..

The sun was belting down towards noon but luckily, much of the time we were shrouded by the jungle canopy from the leaves of the trees and foilage. As we walked through the jungle, thoughts popped into my mind as we trundled up muddy banks, tight roping (well it seemed like it as the paths were so narrow) not too mention on a slight slant, facing down with a sheer drop im not joking here and we were gonna be trekking this for 4.5 hours.. i thought what if one of us falls down the mountain because at some stages it seemed as if one could.. vicky was a pro at this as she had completed the 3 peaks challenge in scotland just before she left... i thought to myself theres no way im gonna make this as we were walking on slanted pieces of land which felt like we were walking up stairs in some spots.. At one stage david had to stop as his heart was racing and then at another point i felt the same... I kept thinking to myself theres no way im climbing mount kinabulu or anywhere in Nepal.... the first 20 mins was awful but as stamina kicks in you begin to push yourself and dont even think about it.... Our guide Suk was the best ever, anytime we felt like stopping for water he never hesitated, at one stage he broke a bamboo pole from a tree and handed it to me as an aid for climbing... it seemed like forever to get to our village which was gonna be our homestay for the night.. we trekked through little streams which at some stages would be almost 3 feet high and i thought david would freak but he trekked along without hesitation.. i was freaking as i heard the word leech being mentioned at one stage... my legs moved so fast in those streams that no leech was gonna cling on to me !!!!

it was just amazing trekking through rice fields, the views were amazing across the mountains.. i was becoming hooked to this trekking lark !!!

it didnt seem as if we were trekking for 4.5hrs but soon arrived at the village where we were going to stay for the nite.. Our guide took us to the King of the Village's house and we were informed this was our shack for the nite... im not joking this shack was like a step into the last century.. Our beds consisted of a wooden plank wiht a very thin mattress on top ... very very old looking mattress !!!!!! if you knw what i mean but there was no way we would turn our noses up, at the end of the day we were allowed to stay at the king of the villages house for the night .... and it was an honour to be given this chance...

i asked about a shower and Suk advised that one of the girls from the village would call up to take us to the shower and guess what !!!! the shower was the local river so we just said we would wash from a bucket and didnt like to be rude to Suk.. he fetched some water in a bucket for us and we washed outside giggling to one another.. i never thoguht in a million years i would be doing this but there ws no way i was getting into a river starkers naked.. ha ha

The king and his wife werent in the house, they were staying at their chicken farm about 12kms away, so it was just us and his children in the shack for the night..

this village was populated by one of the local native tribes that did not speak Lao, wore traditional clothing and lived off rice farming supplemented by a few pigs, chickens and buffalo. There were no restaurants here only about 10 shacks spread out across the village...

There was no electricity whatsoever, no road and only the river for water. i think they boiled the water for drinking !!!

Suk lit a fire in the middle of our shack and cooked some veg and rice for Vicky and I as we are both vegetarians and cooked David and Patrice a feast of Pork, Veg and Rice.. we sat around a circle in the middle of the floor eating our delicious feast with a little oil lamp in the centre for light as the shack has no windows and it was really dark inside.. this was just surreal...i never thought i would see the day !!!!

after dinner we walked around the village and met some of the locals... it seemed to be populated primarily by children as the parents were busy working in the rice fields or chicken farms.. The older children that were too young to work in the fields stayed behind to care for the younger ones. the kids were running around the village playing with the other children and were giggling when they came across us as its very rare that white people visit this village... we sang twinkle twinkle litle star to them as night began to fall and they all sat and listened to us.. they thought this wsa great...

some parents had come home at this stage and all waved and said hello to us in their own language but knew how to say SABADEE which is hello in Laos....we also visited another shack and were offered Lao Lao whiskey by one of the family members but declined this offer as he seemed to only have a small drop left and we didnt like to take his last drop even though we all wished we were pi**** at this stage as the sun goes down here at 7pm, and there were no lights except my torch and no candles by the way, it was an early night on all accounts.. we were all giggling as david said the only time he ever went to bed at 8pm was if he was sick !!! everyone just burst out laughing.. feck it .. whats one night out of your life !!!!! we were also afraid of those little millipieds crawling into our beds because apparantly these are dangerous and can be fatal if you are bitten by one... we had already found 2 in the shack before night fell !!!! they were soon beaten brused out the door !!! wait until you hear this !!! david slept with his rain jacket on .. all zipped up with the hood tightly tied around his ears..i was in hysterics as was vicky and patrice.. he said nothing was gonna crawl into his ears..... the spiderwebs above our beds were amazing.. they seemed to cover the whole roof..... i just didnt want to look !!! turned my head around and slept the whole night... we were wrecked from the trek so there was no problems sleeping for us... altough sometimes i felt as if i was gonna suffociate from the smoke off the fire in the centre of the floor.. our clothes were stinking from smoke !!! at around 3am it decided to rain outside, i could feel raindrops on my head and began to laugh.. this was something else .. the rain didnt last too long .. i just moved down towards the end of the bed !!!!

The next morning we were awoken by the family at 6am pottering aroudn the house lighting the fire and making rice etc... suk gave us our breakfast which consisted of coffee, lao tea and baguettes which he had carried in his bagpack from the day before... it was lovely.. so different from our normal daily lives.. they also had a kettle full of boiling water !!! i was surprised to see a kettle !!! everything was just perfect for me.. i wanted to experience how the lao people live and i was right in the middle of it... we thanked the family for allowing us to stay in their house and gave some sweets, biscuits and peanuts to the kids... it was heart warming to watch their little faces taking the sweets !!!! we said our goodbyes and set off on our trek to Tad Se Waterfall..

this trek wasnt so bad as it was all downhill and only took us approx 2hrs to get too... this waterfall was great and consisted of a limstone pool in the centre which was perfect for swimming and cooled us down after our trek... we spent about 2 hours here chilling out and headed bk to luang prabang

this was a memorable experience and the only way to experience any culture is to do a homestay.. we would highly recommend it but its not for anyone looking for luxury !!!!

Heading for Chaing Mai tomorrow !! hopefully the troubles in bangkok wont have any affect on our travels here !!!

take care

D & L xx

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