The Trek!

Once we had decided that we weren't going to try and get to Vang Viene and Vientiane, we realized we finally had a block of time to do the kind of thing we'd really been wanting to do: get out into the untouched parts of the country and meet some locals and see how they live. Because South East Asia is so well travelled, its really easy to find yourself on a path thats been laid out by other people. Its the easiest, its often the safest and you have to really branch out to see untouched areas. So up until this point we had been spending a lot of time with other travellers, and not enough time with local people.



So instead of heading through tourist towns, we decided to do a two day jungle trek through Northern Laos. There are a lot of companies that do this kind of thing from Luang Prabang, and luckily most of them pride themselves on being safe, environmentally friendly, and charitable (they donate proceeds to help villages around the country). We decided to go on a two day 'sport' trek. The first day was slotted for mountain biking, and the second day was kayaking! It was EXACTLY what we needed, considering we'd been spending quite a bit of time on our butts, eating (see pictures and stories from previous blog posts). So this way, we'd get out into the country, and get some physical activity at the same time! I decided to buy Kev the trek for his birthday, because it was the type of present I love buying- something that we can both enjoy together, and remember forever!


So we left Monday morning at 8 am. We got served a delicious breakfast, and drove out to the start of our bike. The beginning of the drive was pretty pleasant, nothing too bad.. Then we got about halfway through and found ourselves on the bumpiest most uncomfortable road. We were sitting in the back of an old pickup truck with bikes beside us and kayaks on top, and we were bouncing around non stop. When we finally reached the drop off point I couldn't have been happier to get off the bus. 


We got set up on really solid bikes, and the second we started biking we noticed that our tour guide (his name was Mee- it made for some very confusing dialogue) looked pretty shaky on the bike. He sort of sheepishly looked at us and said "I really hate biking". Not to mention he was wearing dockers and flip flops and couldnt have weighed more than 80 pounds. Didn't exactly instill confidence in us. It was a 40 km bike ride, most of which Mee was trailing behind, or walking his bike up a hill. From the beginning, Kev told me that trying to engage my brakes on a downhill actually just made things harder, so I spent half the trek speeding down hills scared for my life that I was gonna flip over my handlebars. It really got the adrenaline going though, and luckily- I lived to blog about it. The only thing that was bothering me on the bike was that my hands were getting blisters, so Kev and I came up with an ingenious remedy. I looked so hardcore.

Along the bike ride, we rode through hillside villages, where we stopped to eat lunch, and hang out with some locals and kids. We realized immediately that as much as we might want to communicate, it was going to be really tricky considering we only knew how to say 'hello' and 'thank you' (which were nice to know, but weren't really conducive to good conversation). So we ended up doing a lot of smiling and nodding. One of our favourite sights was a little boy, 3 years old who was washing a motorbike by the hose. He was half washing the bike, half washing himself, and it was so cute to watch. Its always interesting to watch the kids here, a lot of whom have so much responsibility at a young age.




The bike ride was amazing, with some awesome views and exciting downhills.

The coolest part of the trek was the night we spent at a homestay in the village. The family that put us up was actually the bride of our tour guide, and her mother. They were increidbly hospitable, making sure we were comfortable and had everything we needed. Unfortunately, neither of them spoke a single word of English, which made it difficult to communicate, but it was obvious that they were happy to have us and share a bit of their life with us. As soon as we arrived in the village we sat down to have a glass of water and we were immediately swarmed by kids. The kids were shy, and didn't speak English, so they spent a lot of the time just sitting there staring at us. We were like aliens to them! The home itself was just one room, with between 4 and 7 people sleeping in it every night. It was all mud floors, with chickens running around the kitchen and bathroom, and no furniture. When it started raining, the "living room" sort of became a mud pit. It was a real shock to see how different our lives are from theirs.

Trying to figure out the appropriate customs in the village was certainly a funny challenge. The 'shower' was just a faucet outside, and it was pretty hilarious watching Kevin and I try figure out how to do it. Kevin was about 3 feet too tall to be comfortable, and I was so uncomfortable in the sarong I was in, I was terrified it was going to fall. When Kev came out to take this picture he noticed a pack of drunk guys next door laughing their heads off watching me try to shower while staying covered. Using the ever-terrifying squat toilet was also quite an interesting experience. We'll spare you the details, but needless to say its very tricky.

After we had showered and cleaned up we were ready to go for a nice walk. Luckily, there was a young girl who took a liking to me, and she decided to show us around the village. She didn't speak English, but she communicated surprisingly well, just pointing at things and making hand motions. Its so interesting to see how willing and able young children are to help strangers that come to visit.

As I guess we should have expected, the entire village went to bed at 8:30 pm and woke up at about 5am with the roosters. I was smart enough to have earplugs, but Kev's sleep didn't go too well. We had breakfast, and headed out to meet the truck with the kayaks. The kayaking was super relaxing, with great views along the way. I started the day in a 3 man kayak with Mee (our guide) and Kev was alone. We both ended up flipping over in the rapids, but nothing we couldn't handle. Eventually we switched and Kev and I cruised down the river in the 2 man, with him doing most of the paddling :) Unfortunately no pictures since every time we saw a good one, we had to unroll the dry-bag and by the time the camera switched on, we had floated by the sight.  We rode back into town and had a nice night back in Luang Prabang, where I managed to snap my FAVOURITE picture of the trip , of this girl and her asian squat eating bag food.