Luang Nam Tha

---

After a few non eventful stops on the way to the border we have now left Thailand and entered into Laos. Our first night in Laos was spent in a small border town by the Mekong river where we immediately felt an overwhelming desire to leave. Eventually we reached our destination of Luang Nam Tha.

We had heard that Luang Nam Tha offered a lot of good trekking and kayaking tours so we were keen to give it a go. We at first investigated kayaking tours but found out that they were booked out by a private group for the next few days and that the tour was not what we had imagined anyway.

We also found that the treks were not quite what we had expected. So we decided just to go on a one day trek to see some of the local area and to leave it at that. The trek was nice apart from the 10 or so leaches that Triona managed to accumulate whilst Peter laughed and claimed that his thick body hair acts as in impenetrable force field that the leaches can not get through.

A morning was also spent watching the final results for the US Presidency. That afternoon we decided to go for a walk and see some of the local wats. On the way we passed by a car mechanic workshop and near the fence was a small cage with 2 bear cubs in it. What a tragic sight it was. I have written some emails to bear protection agencies that operate within Laos with the bears location but I am not to sure what can be done for them. Some local people use the bears bile as traditional medicine. They keep the bears in small cages where they live a very traumatic existence.

---