Peter Evans suggested this to me. It wasn’t until after it had started that I thought. mmm… should I have trusted his recommendation ? Sure should have !
Day one has been great. We wandered through farming land along trails, over creeks and up and down some slippery slopes.
It started to rain about 30 minutes before we got to the waterfall which was our planned swimming spot. Unfortunately, the water turned muddy just before we got there and there was no swimming to be had. We were all wet anyway, so it didn’t matter 😁
Again, that poncho did its job ! During the walk, we ate freshly picked bananas, cucumbers and pineapple which were as good as you could get. We saw teak trees, walked through a bamboo forest, were greeted by friendly dogs who wanted to follow us (clearly, I didn’t bring the bike), had lunch in a hut overlooking the valley, and listened to the guides talk about the vegetation and animals in the area.
We continued on and at around 3:30pm (exactly when the rain stopped) we made it to the village for the night. Well, it’s certainly rustic accommodation and cold showers but nice people and the guides are fantastic. So are the locals.
Very funny after it got dark, we started eating and the lady of the house simply lay down on a timber seating / shelf area and started snoring away. Everything is so simple, and it made me reflect again on how we complicate our lives for no either reason or no real benefit. These people are happy and smiling.
The funniest part was the lady deftly putting a slatted plastic container over the six baby geese. She put the food on the ground and waited, poised with the container, and when they were all within range, she simply dropped it. She’s not the delicate type 😁
The dogs of the house, all four of them, were so friendly and attention seeking that at one stage I was patting two on the ground and another jumped on the table demanding some time, then one jumped on the bench seat for the same. I got my happy dog fix today, but I know that as soon as I’m back on the bike, things will be different again. Sidenote – Andrew Haycraft tells me that dogs are rarely a problem in Laos and most don’t survive mealtime in Vietnam – so I’m almost done with growling dogs 😁
The tribe whose village we are in, originate from Tibet and came here via Laos and Myanmar. Apparently, they’ve been moved around over the years. Previously, they lived in an area that the Thai government wanted to turn into a national park. So they moved them here and set them up. That was 30 years ago.
Much of our trek was through their lands and we saw (and picked and ate) the amazing variety of fruit and vegetables that they cultivate. At dinner, the guides prepared some chicken and veggies with rice and soup. The exciting part was the bamboo worms with chilli which were nice. Fried and crunchy would have been better.
The other two people on the trek were two Israeli newlyweds, Matan and Avital who were an absolutely awesome couple. They couldn’t eat the worms as they weren’t kosher. The guides absolutely loved the worms.