Eco-Trek in Laos

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After Cambodia, Matt and I headed to Pakse (pronounced paksay), a small city in the south of Laos to meet with Green Discovery, the tour operator that Matt organized our eco-trek through. We stayed in the very nice, very affordable Pakse Hotel and grabbed our last bit of Western type food at a local pizza place as we were going to be spending the next few days eating Lao cuisine in the village we would be staying in.

Saturday morning we met Bhun Peng our guide who we later renamed Freddie because it just seemed to work better for his personality (he also immediately started answering to Freddie, no questions asked). A great guy but a little creepy (one night in the village after a few too many Beer Laos he wanted to make rounds through the dirt paths in the village looking for females. We joined. Awkward). Freddie took us on a tuk tuk to the Mekong river where our boat was waiting to take us to the village about two hours outside of Pakse. When we arrived we learned that there happened to be a Buddhist festival going on that weekend. We met the chief of the village and watched an INTENSE game of soccer between some of the villagers. He invited us to play but Matt and I decided to forgo this opportunity to look like complete clowns (we were not so smart other times... I'll get to that later). After being treated to our first delicious Lao cuisine for lunch at the chief's house we were then introduced to "Lao time" with a snooze-filled nap before our afternoon trek. On our trek, we were joined by Popeye, a hilarious looking character that stood about four feet tall. Although he didn't speak a word of English he had Matt and I giggling throughout the afternoon with his goofy presence. As with everything else through Freddie's choppy english, Matt and I had no idea what was going on. We were being led to ruins of an old temple in the middle of the forest. The only thing left standing here were these two statues of guard soldiers with odd, dream-like faces and swords to protect the temple. Matt said it looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. I was a little disappointed with our trekking as most of the walking was through pretty standard landscape and I was unclear as to what we had actually seen. A typical conversation with Freddie went something like this:

Me: So what is this doing out here?
Confused look on Freddie's face
Me: Why is this here?
Freddie: Is here?
Me (frustratingly louder): What is this?
Freddie: This is tempuh
Me: Yes temple but why here?
Freddie: Is tempah fut bak en de forest fo da seem bot
Me: Uhh
Freddie: Is tempah gond dee for da monks from long time ago
Me: Yea but why here?
Freddie: Here cause de monk fun all the paces got big sheat
Matt and I: ???
Freddie: Cause de monks for da prayer seem leebat gon. Is for de prayer in gamba wan
Matt and I: Ohhhhh (and then look at each other quizzically)
Matt: Dude just let it go

That afternoon when we got back we strolled through the village market. Green Discovery told us to bring money to purchase goods that the villagers make but we were disappointed to find that most of the stuff was unoriginal, mass manufactured Chinese goods the likes of which we'd seen thousands of times before. Thailand is across the Mekong from Laos and we learned that a lot of Thai tourists would just cross over to buy things. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing hacky sack with some village kids and making them giggle by taking their pictures and then showing them the photo on the screen after. One of the highlights of the trip was watching the sun set over the Mekong at dusk.

That night we moved our things to our host family's home to have dinner and then head to the center of the village for the offerings to the Buddhist monks. We gave money and they blessed us, tying strands around our wrists to bless us with safe travels and good fortune throughout life. Knowing the routine, we bowed three times and thanked them in Lao (I know more Lao than I do Canotnese, pretty pathetic). Very cool experience. When we headed back home we were surprised to find even more food waiting for us and many Beer Laos. As in the Phillippines, drinking in Laos was done communally with one cup where each person drinks and passes back to the bottle holder to fill it up for the next person. Much easier to pace yourself with this style and much more social.

The next morning we headed out for our trek to Phou Khong Mountain. Before leaving the village we bough soy milk and pepsi to give to a nun we were going to see later that day in a cave. Freddie had told us about her at dinner the night before. Apparently she's lived in the cave for the past 6 years and hasn't spoken a word, communicating with pen and paper. We were very doubtful and thought it was just a miscommunication with Freddie's broken English. We were wrong. After doing some extensive trekking to the top of the mountain overlooking the Mekong we finally made it to the nun's lair. We were alarmed at our arrival not by Freddie but by tattered soy milk cartons littering the ground amongst reeds cut out to make small tunnels through the greenery. There were some other kids there visiting the nun as well and we were shocked to see that she looked like she was in surprisingly good shape. Looking very well fed for someone on a STEADY diet of bananas, soy milk, water, coffee, and of all things Pepsi. After going through the prayer routine with her and being blessed with even more good fortunes we were treated to lunch. And not just bananas and soy milk but rather sticky rice, beef jerky, leaves, and some suspect, bitter green balls that we grudgingly forced down. It was all such a surreal experience. Matt and I made our best effort to ask profound questions most of which were completely lost to Freddie. "What have you learned from nature and the animals here in your new chosen home?". Most of what she said was pretty standard. Accept all human beings as friends and never close yourself off from anyone and you will live a good life. It was just very interesting seeing her write everything down and hold up for us to see and for Freddy to translate. She invited us to sleep in the cave with her if we needed a place and then excused herself to go pray. A fantastically interesting person.

When we made it back to our village after a long day of trekking we gathered our things, bid farewell to our house mom leaving her a gift of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap and made our way back to Pakse. We were quite surprised when we got to our dropoff point from the Mekong to find that our tuk tuk driver was not waiting for us so we just walked for about twenty minutes in the middle of nowhere until Freddy convinced a guy on a motorcycle to take us one by one to the main highway. I was first. Such a crazy experience. I held on skeptically as this stranger zipped down the loose gravel road at a high speed. When we got to the highway Freddy paid a loud-mouthed guy to take all of us back in his truck.

That night back in Pakse, we only had time to drop off our things and have a quick shower before Freddie was back at our hotel. He had been kind enough to invite us to his friend's wedding that night. This was probably the highlight of the trip as we stood out like sore thumbs. The bride and groom were so kind, giving us food, Beer Lao, and tequila shots. Freddie introduced us to so many different people, none of which spoke English except a man who spoke very broken English. Later we found out he was an English teacher in town. We felt like the guests of honor getting a front row seat near the dance floor. The Lao people have a very interesting type of dance making circular motions with their hands and rocking back and forth rythmically. Such a chill dance. I was lucky enough to dance with the bride and her mother. So crazy. The most fun wedding I've ever been to.

The next day we headed to KingFisher Ecolodge outside the city, a place we'd read about while we researched the trip. KingFisher did treks too but for some reason Matt, trip planner, decided their treks weren't for us. KingFisher was beautiful and reminded me of Jao Camp, the place we'd stayed in the Okavango Delta in Africa this past summer. We made it there just in time for sunset at the lodge's viewing deck overlooking the wetlands and sucking down Beer Lao's. The next morning, bright and early, we squeezed in an elephant ride up to the top of a nearby mountain before making the trek back to Pakse for our 10:30 AM flight.

All in all, a really good trip highlighted by the cave nun and the wedding with Freddie. Unfortunately we had some problems with Green Discovery, the people who booked our trek. We originally planned a three day trek but shortened it to two as Freddie said it would be "no problem". Green Discovery said it would not give us our money back for that extra day (100 bucks a person) and that Freddie didn't know because he's not one of their employees! Ridiculous. I would not reccommend Green Discovery as they did a poor job instructing us on what the trek would involve but we met other people, seeing as we spent so much time at their office arguing with them, who were quite satisfied with their experience. We also had a long layover, sleeping in Ho Chi Minh City airport Tuesday night on our way back. When we finally made it back to HKUST it had been over 32 hours since we'd left Kingfisher for the airport. Laos, like Cambodia, is a very poor country with not as much tourism as Thailand so booking flights in and out of there was a nightmare!

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