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Published: September 11th 2008
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Katie Jumps!
A quick leap into one of the many pools around this waterfall outside Luang Prabang Team,
We're in Thailand, and it feels great.
We soaked up Luang Prabang like a sponge, visiting royal palace museums and Buddhist temples galore. The nightly Hmong market in Luang Prabang is a good one, and we purchased many gifts there. While indulging ourselves in a handicrafts shopping spree we happened to run into an old college friend from my lacrosse days at UCLA. What are the odds?? Notable in Luang Prabang was sitting on decks over the Mekong (not nearly as mighty this far north) and enjoying fruit shakes and Beer Lao's as tropical rain pounded the streets, the view from atop the hill in the center of town, and erotic (not very) scenes from a Hindu epic on a temple towards the end of the peninsula which Luang Prabang sits on.
We left Luang Prabang on a local bus headed up to the far north of Laos where the trekking is supposedly the best and most rewarding for you and the locals. After a seemingly endless bus ride replete with now familiar stops for mudslide navigation and pig boarding, we arrived in Luang Namtha, a town just outside a nationally protected area filled with minority villages.
Our first day in town we shopped around and realized that trekking in the Nam Ha NPA would be expensive as there were few tourists in town to defray costs. Various tour agencies asked us if we really wanted to go trekking, seeing as the trails were going to be muddy and slick, and the leeches myriad. Katie and I, veterans of trailwork in the Rockies and a few Southeast Asian jungle treks that we are, were undeterred, feeling like nothing Nam Ha could throw at us could faze us. Teaming up with an Irish couple from Dublin we signed up for a two day, one night trek.
Hubris. Excessive Pride. The morning of the trek it was pouring, as it had been in Luang Namtha for weeks. The trail was often six inches deep mud and cow/buffalo poo. Our guides, incredible guys, cut us bamboo rods to try and prevent spills, all to no avail as I slipped and fell just about every ten feet on the slippery clay downhill sections. Aideen's shoes began disintegrating a few miles in, Katie's sandals finished breaking towards the end of the first day (she had spare sneakers) skinny leaches got in
Wat Xieng Thong
This temple in Luang Prabang also had carvings of erotic episodes from the Ramayana on another building. We're keeping it P.C. with these glass murals instead. between my toes after most stream crossings. It rained on us for most of the two days, ensuring that the trail would nearly always be a gooey mess. Perhaps there was a reason there were next to no tourists interested in the eco-trekking in the heart of the rainy season, eh?
That said, it was still a blast. We have almost no pictures from the two days because we were covered in mud. Trust us when we say that it was incredibly thick jungle, extremely pristine, with enormous mango trees and miles of trail passing through patches of wild cardamom. Every meal was eaten with sticky rice, which you used as a utensil, on top of enormous banana leaf "table cloths." When we arrived at the village where we would spend the night the guides took Kevin and I fishing in the river. Katie and Aideen would have had to wear a sarong to bathe in, Kevin and I could wear board shorts. Not exactly fair. The guides let us have a go tossing the net into the river, and it was hard. On one of the guide's last throws he caught a golf ball sized puffer fish. They
The view from Phu Si
Looking out on the Mekong as it flows by Luang Prabang from the central hill, Phu Si. brought it back to show everyone, then played hacky sack with it. The following day we hiked back to the road, everyone nearly silent as they slogged up and down through the incredible jungle.
When we returned to civilization we realized that civilization was screwing us. The ATM we had used successfully two days prior was now trying to charge us for botched transactions where no money left the machine. We have gotten in touch with our bank and are hoping they'll sort it all out by the time we're home. Luckily it didn't try and take all of our money, and we will make it back to the states just fine.
These days we are in Thailand, enjoying the luxury of a developed country. Currently we are back in Chiang Mai, having enjoyed Chiang Rai for a few days before returning to our favorite city in Thailand. Tonight it's Muay Thai kickboxing, then tomorrow back to Bangkok for a day before we get on our plane for San Francisco. Many thanks to all of you who have been reading the blog and posting messages and comments. We'll try and write a post summarizing it all when we
The hills
The view on our way to Luang Nam Tha get back to the states.
See you all real soon,
Tucker
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