We had another exciting encounter with nature and rural villagers up in Luang Nam Tha. We arrived there not really knowing what to do, and quickly realized trekking was the hot shizazz in town. After some deliberation, we signed up for the 3 day/2night experience with Phone (pronounced Pun), a mischievous and fun Lao tour guide.
After a breakfast of fried noodles & tofu we began our journey. As companions we had our Lao guide Phone (who spoke fine English), our porters Toe-Lee and Ning-Yan, who were from a Hmong village, Adeeja, a Dutch girl, and Kusa, a quiet but interesting Japanese man. Walking on hills is not really my forte, so after a few hours of uphill hiking, I was happy to stop for a lunch of sticky rice and salads. Traditional Lao table manners dictate that one shall eat by scooping the salad up with the rice with the hands, and placing it in the mouth. Not sure what exactly we were eating, but it sure was tasty.
We moved on into the jungle. It was thick old growth forest and sometimes we were crawling through tunnels in the vines. A few times we passed over a shallow stream where we splashed ourselves to cool off. The last part of the first day was sliding/walking down an incredibly steep grade thick with towering bamboo. It was a little scary but also very exciting!
We arrived at the hunter camp and took a refreshing swim in the stream nearby, mostly to clean off the thick layer of sweat and dirt that had accumulated throughout the day. We had dinner and stayed up talking and looking at the stars, with good company and Lao lao, or rice whisky, the cost of which was included in our tour. The sounds of the jungle reverberated through our dreams.
We arrived late in the afternoon to one of the most incredible places I have ever been. Our first sight of the Hmong village was through the branches of some lovely trees covered in pink flowers. Puppies, piglets and naked babies all played together in the fading light. Some children were building a tiny fire so we sat down with them and took photos. After we had taken a photo of them we would turn the camera around and let them see their image on the display screen. It was just about the funniest thing they had ever seen, and they laughed and laughed.
After dinner they sent the village chief to talk to us. We were able to ask him questions about tribal life, and he could ask us. He told us about the marital system of the Hmong. Around 1/2 of the people marry within the village, and 1/2 to other Hmong villages. A dowry was essential, usually in the form of Lao currency, kip. Arranged marriages were not uncommon. He also told us that fighting in the village is nearly nonexistent. We gave him a children's book, some coloring supplies, and some candy as a gift for the village children.
This trek we went on was hard sometimes, but really made me feel accomplished to have finished it. The next day we spent doing nothing much in Luang Nam Tha. Such an incredible place. Laos is an incredible country. The people are so friendly and the landscape is gorgeous.
Today we are in Vang Vieng, recovering from a crazy afternoon of tubing yesterday. You rent a tube and float down the river, and along the way there are all of these little bars, giving away whisky shots and snacks and selling little pails full of mixed drinks. There are also some pretty extreme rope swings and waterslides to go off of! It's a crazy party, and a very popular place with the young wild ones of Southeast Asia.
"For many years Gautama studied the doctrines until, having felt the need to learn more elsewhere, he traveled and fasted. His two teachers had showed him how to reach very deep states of meditation (samadhi). This did not, however, lead to a sense of true knowledge or peace, and the practice of deep meditation was abandoned in favour of a life of extreme asceticism which he shared with five companions. But again, after five or six years of self-mortification, Siddhartha felt he had failed to achieve true insight and rejected such practices as dangerous and useless."
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