A serious hike

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Yesterday we decided that we were both in need of some serious physical activity so we went to mainstreet and looking for the most demanding hike we could find. After taking the "trekking" tour in Chiang Mai where 2 hours of hiking really only amounted to 20 minutes, we were warey of these tours as well. We finally settled on one that advertised 6 hours of hiking to minotiry villages in the mountains and ending at Kuang Si waterfall.

Klaus was feeling a bit under the weather last night so he decided to forgo the hike that we were planning for today. However, we were woken up at 7:30 in the morning, not by the usual chickens making noise in the house next to our hotel but by the lack of sound from the airconditioning and the fan. Our power had been turned off. This had happened briefly two days ago to only our block and it had come back on soon afterwards. However, after inquiring at the front desk, we were told that the entire town was out, probably for the entire day.

With the prospect of spending the whole day in bed without a TV looming, Klaus decided to suck it up at the last minute and come on the hike. After seeing that it was only going to be the two of us and our two guides, I was very happy that he had decided to come along. We should have known what we were in for then. Our guide (who spoke english very well and was very knowledgable) informed us that very few people request this hike because it is so hard. He had only done it twice in the two years that he was working for that touring company. Again, I wasn't really put off because these people say that but usually its mostly sitting around at the villages or eating and not really that difficult.....boy was I wrong.

The first leg of our journey was relatively flat, but hot and long. It took about an hour and a half to get to the first village. Once we were there I was pleasantly surprised that it was an actual village and not some human zoo, like the villages in Thailand. These were Cammu people (I don't think that I spelt the name right...). They farmed rice, corn and other produce to sell to neighboring towns and in Luang Prabang. Our guide told us that during the rainy season, they enjoyed a pretty varied diet of vegitables, but only ate meat or tofu at very special occuasions because they could not afford it. During the dry season however, they only had whatever dried veggies had been saved from the rainy season and corn or rice. I couldn't imagine that.

After that, we took a steep (!) climb up a mountain with one of the villages serving as our tour guides guide (bc our guide hadn't done this hike for 8 months...). At this point I knew why no one else did this hike. It was straight up for about 45 minutes to an hour with maybe one or two quick water breaks. Klaus and I were sweating like crazy and panting but our village guide seemed to be untouched by the heat and the near verticalness of our climb. He walked quickly upwards in long jeans, flip flops and was non chalantely smoking a cigarette! I would have died!

As we were climbing, he pointed out the various different fields around us. Every day these people needed to make this climb from their village to tend the fields. No wonder he seemed so nonplussed! He pointed to one field that looked like it had been recently cleared and proudly exclaimed that they had not used any axes to cut down the vegitation, only pesticies. Usually I would be horrified by this enviormentally unsound way of clearing a forest, but it was hard to fault these people. I mean, they eat nothing but corn for three months out of the year, how can they possibly be expected to do anything but find the most efficent way to grow the greatest amount of food in the shortest period of time? It's a difficult situation.

Finally we reached the top of the mountain and got a great view of the mountains surrounding us. Laos really is a gorgous country. A majority of the north is lush mountains and valleys with the Mekong snaking its way through. From the top, we could see people tilling the fields.

Our guide told us that the next village we were going to visit was the Hmong people. He had grown up in a small Hmong village about two hours outside of Luang Prabang. It was amazing to me that he was able to leave the village and go to college when a vast majority of boys only finish primary school and girls don't even go to school! He must be very intelligent. Klaus and I were wondering what kind of job he would get if he had been given the oppurtinuty to get a US education. Would he be working at Goldman Sachs? or be a medical researcher? Or work for the UN? I guess its not fair to speculate about these things. Who knows if a life in the US or Europe would really make him more happy then in Laos. I mean is one really better than the other?

Anyway, we sat down to lunch around 1. We ate a huge portion of different kinds of meats which made me a bit unconfortable, especially since we were surrounded by villages were meat is only researved for very special occasions. Klaus and I both made sure we ate our portion so that we didn't seem wasteful.

After another 4 hours of hiking, we ended at the beautiful Kuang Si waterfall. It really was worth the hike. Again, when I have time to put up pictures, I promise I'll add some of those. The waterfall itself is huge and spills into many different pools. We went swimming in one of them where we could jump off of a small cliff (about 15 ft) into the pool. At the entrance to the waterfall area, there is an enclosure with a beautiful fully grown tiger. The animal had been rescued as a cub and brought up there. There were also a bunch of bears hanging out in their inclosure.

We rode back to town and happily ate dinner, went to the night market and then got some much needed sleep!

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