C & C globetrotting around the world…

After a week in Luang Prabang, we finally got going. To get to Thailand from here you can take a 2 day boat ride, or do a loop to the North by bus. We decided to do the loop and stop along the way to hike. The bus finally came, but we left 2.5 hours late. It was almost the time we were supposed to arrive in Nong Khiaw, as the bus ride was 3 hours. We were in a mini-van and the bus driver was driving a little fast. The bus was rattling on the winding road, so Cecilia wasn’t feeling that good. The scenery was very nice though, with hills and the Nam Ou river on our left. After finding a guesthouse in Nong Khiaw, we set out to walk around. We headed to Tham Pha Tok cave, which was used as a hiding place for the local people during the US bombings of the Indochina war. There are a few of these here in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, but it’s the first one we visit. We had to climb up some very steep stairs and then went through the cave. It’s big and the stations were pointed out where the different groups were working from (police, governor, art).

The next morning we took a songtau from Nong Khiaw to Pakmong. Luckily the road wasn’t too bad and we met a German couple with whom we chatted, so the time passed pretty quickly on the short distance. Then from Pakmong to Oudomxai we had a mini-van, but it was the worst road ever! The mini-van was rattling on the bumpy road and the curves were just awful. If you could take your eyes off the road, there was beautiful mountainous scenery around us. Then we caught a local mini-bus for the last stretch between Oudomxai and Luang Nam Tha. Here the road was really good (recently built by the Chinese), but the seats were uncomfortable. The important thing is we made it.

Luang Nam Tha is known as “trekkers’ Mecca” in Laos because there are lots of opportunities to hike in the area, so we also took a trekking tour for a day. We were driven to a village, not very far from the town of Luang Nam Tha, inhabited by the Lanten people, who wear indigo-coloured clothes. The trek was to take us through the jungle and to hill tribes, but to go to the National Protected Area (NPA) you need at least 2 or 3 days in order to get deep enough into the jungle. At first we were walking through rubber tree plantations and were sad to notice garbage lying around. Our guide said that the village people are paid to clean the path once every 3 months, which is a good thing. But it is them to litter in the first place. The worst part is that the litter didn’t only include candy wrappers and chips bags, but also empty plastic packages of chemicals. When we asked what that was, the guide said it was herbicides the village people put on the grass because “they are too lazy to cut the grass between the rubber trees”. It is a pretty depressing story. The Chinese come and offer the hill tribes money to plant rubber trees on the hills. When they do that, they also do the villagers “a favour” by taking the cut lumber with them back to China. The villagers then have to wait 7 years before the rubber trees start producing any rubber. During this time, they don’t have any income, no more forest to collect food from, no more space to grow rice, but they buy herbicides (from the Chinese, of course) for the grass. What they don’t know is that all these harmful chemicals end up in the water they drink downstream. The guide was pretty upset about the Lao government not banning this, but we guess the Chinese pay some good money to the “right” people. Not to mention the dangers of monoculture.

When we reached the jungle, it was beautiful. The rustling of dead leaves on the forest floor and the dappled light falling through the canopy made us forget the disaster we had just seen. The air was nice and cool and the shade made the hike very enjoyable. We had lunch in the forest under a small shelter which was really nice. Our guide quickly made some bamboo chopsticks and the table was set. The tablecloth were huge banana leaves our guide had collected en route and we were served our food in banana leaf packages. It was very nice, delicious and eco-friendly too. On the way down, our guide picked some fruits and flowers to bring home for his family dinner. He was from a hill tribe (the Black Tai) himself and had grown up gathering the forest fruits. He also showed us elephant ear leaf and told us how to make tea if we ever get malaria and are stuck in the woods. Good to know, but hopefully we won’t need to put it into practice.

After a while we reached a village inhabited by the Sita people (there are only 2 villages of Sita in Laos), a people with an animistic religion and their own customs and culture. The village had about 200 people and looked very orderly. There were lots of children running about, but we didn’t see many adults. We think they might have been at the market. While we talked to our guide, he complained about the poor pay, but he gets $15 per day of work, which we think is pretty decent for a developing country. We don’t know if he was complaining because he was hoping for tips, but we tried to point out to him that he had a good job getting exercise, being in the fresh air and not really working, only hiking in the jungle. He usually works 2 or 3 days a week, but his wife and children apparently complain that he works too much, so he has to buy them candy when he gets home. No comment.