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Published: February 19th 2006
Khmu Child
earings, makeup, and addorable LET's GO TREkKIN!!!
I decided that I had seen enough of the cities in Laos and that it was time to actually see the minority people of this beautiufl country. I signed up for a trek through "White Elephant" tour company. Derrick one of the owners is Canadian and a really nice guy. He has this great schpeale that he delivers to anyone considering doing one of the treks. It feels as if he has given this same speech a thousand times, as he speeds through it stopping to point at the photos on the wall and explaining how each of the three tribes we were going to see were different. My favorite part of the whole speech is when Derrik describes what to bring on the trip. He suggest a hat and sun block because "The Sun is NOT your Friend." Brilliant. I asked all the people on the trek if they heard the same speech, we all distinctly remember the sun block line. Thanks Derrick
We set of early to hike through the hills all the way up to 1600meters where we spent the night. We passed through three different villages on the way to the Mung
Trekking
Hot-as-Hell, but well worth it. I mean look at our view village. The chief of the second village had 14 children. No wonder he never stopped smiling.(check out the picture).
We arrived in the Mung village around 4pm. i was so exhausted and hot by this time that I couldn't even muster up the energy to wash up in the stream. While the 4 other people on the trek went and washed up I instantly passed out as my head hit the bed. I awoke around 5:30 just as the sun was setting. This town in pretty remote and the kids all came down to stare at the silly tourists. They waited staring at us in anticipation that we would whip out our cameras and take pictures of them. As soon as the shot was taken they would run over to us and want to look at the photos. I must have taken about 50 pictures of them. The Laos children are so so beautiful, and as you can see by the many photos I took of them. We had an amazing dinner of sticky rice and vegetables. Because there is no electricity in these villages there is really nothing to do after around 8pm. Exhausted from our days hiking
My Mung Bed
It looks more comfortable that it actually was. Roosters at 4am didn't help either... we all went to bed around 8:30.
At around 4:00am I was startled by the sound of the constant crowing of roosters. Somehow I managed to fall back asleep and I remained fading in and out of consciousness until around 8am. After breakfast we headed down the mountain. We stopped and rested in a Khmu village at the bottom of the hill. As we were leaving I grabbed onto one of the fences to steady my self and completely knocked the whole thing over. We tried to hoist it back up but the bamboo stick that Keylee (our guide) chose was the house to about 100 angry wasps. All I remember is the sound of my high pitched voice screaming "BEES! BEES! BEES!" Luckily the wasps were rarher small, but I was stung five times in different parts of my body. At least the villagers had a good laugh at my expense.
But the good news is I'm still alive. All in all the trekking was a great experience. I loved seeing the different tribes and how they lived off "fat of the land."
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anonymous
non-member comment
I dont know about that bed being less comfortable than it looks. It looks pretty f'ing hard to me. -Ads