Oops I did it (not) again....a new Trek into the mountains!

As the landscape of Northern Laos was so great, we organized a two day trek. Due to the experiences of Myanmar Shelly was so smart not to join, so only me, Andreas, Loic and Melina signed for it, while Shelly was doing the cave tour. We started early in the morning and hopped all in a boat upstream to the next village. Shelly also got a ride and accompanied us, and returned later. As usual in this region it was freezing cold in the morning and misty, so we all were crotched down in the boat:

Remark: yes it is Nothern Laos, not Scotland!

Slowly the mist was disappearing and we could see the wonderful landscape, which reminded me on this scene in “Apocalypse Now”, where the US Boat is slowly going through the jungle on the Mekong, seeking for Marlon Brando. Loic and me studied the sophisticated ruder and gas control of the boat. As the captain sits always in the front, he controls the ruder (which is in the back) with a bamboo stick (going from the front to the back) and the accelerator cable to the engine with a little string. Loic tried it to speed up and it really works! I think in Laos you should not waste your time to think what happens, if this little bamboo stick breaks in the middle of some strong rapids here....

After arriving in a little fishermen town we started our trek, while Shelly was staying at the village (which is another story...). We went up and down the hills and crossed streams in the jungle…

… and finally approached a tiny village, where only one family was living under very poor conditions. Strangely enough we saw with several local men with really odd self-made rifles (similar to Pirates of the Caribbean) . Our guide told us, that they were hunters and they mainly hunt for squirrels and birds (!). As a matter of fact we indeed could not see any bird in the jungle (!), nor did we see any animal, except one poisonous snake.

Again we hiked down the hill and at an altitude of 350m we started our climb to the summit of 1000m, where our final destination – the Hmong village – laid. It was more or less a hike straight up through the jungle and I really started sweating with each meter of altitude, we gained. Only Andreas seemed to be fine, but he is member of the Alpenverein… Boy, we were so happy, when we saw the summit and the little village. My T-Shirt was completely wet and I was very exhausted.

Later we walked around this little village and found harsh conditions: no water (“half an hour walk to the stream”), no restrooms (“Just go into the bushes.”), no electricity, except two houses (so everybody makes a fire) and very basic bamboo house on the dirt. No paths, no flowers, no trees, just around 20-25 houses plus the attached pig and chicken cages. WOW! This is like the middle age or even worse…

As it was winter nobody was working in the fields. Instead they were building new bamboo walls for their houses, beetle nut from the bark of a tree (?), cutting bamboo and building brushes from plants:

PIC

We had the pleasure staying in their private homes. I and Andreas stayed in the hut of our local guide with his family, while Luic and Melina were hosted by the local grocery, where they also prepared our dinner. You can’t say it was not fresh:

They just killed a chicken and threw it into boiling water:

Except Andreas we did not eat much, as a matter of fact Melina got really sick and she did not eat anything and went to bed early. So what do you do in town, where you really cannot do anything, except watching pigs walking around and roosters chasing hens, while the rest of villagers sit either inside their hut or in front of little fire? Well, we bought some beer (At the “Grocery” they had 4 bottles of beer, 2 cans of Coke and 2 bottles of water) and started a bone fire and talked about the meanings of life. While Luic was feeding the fire from an old bamboo wall, the stars came hesitant to see. Surprisingly it was not so cold and we had a good time!

Our fire was the last one and it was already very quiet in the village. Understandable, it was very late (21:00) and we decided to go to bed. When Andreas and me went up the ladder to our host hut, opened the bamboo door and saw a little candle burning for the late-arrivers, as already everybody else was in bed. So we got in our sleeping beds, got under the mosquito nets (not required, as it was too cold, but they all use it, probably to separate the mattresses and give little bit of privacy), and got in line with the other family members and the dog, while the chicken and the pigs were sleeping outside. It was surprisingly not freezing cold night, so we could sleep well, until the roosters started their duties between 5-6am. Unfortunately I felt also a little bit shaky like Melina and my stomach started make some trouble. Fortunately we had a nice view and could see again the village’s life, before we started our ascend to the rice plains:

In the afternoon we arrived finally in Muang Ngoi Neua, where I enjoyed a cold drink with Loic in front of the river! We were really shocked that we have seen such poor conditions in the villages. The people even do not have access to water, so they also have not WCs. The overall living conditions were extreme and I did not expect to see something like this. On the other side it was good to see “real” Laos, as Vientane is the capital, Vang Ving a popular place for young tourists and Luang Prabang seems to be the Laotion Disney World version, far from any Laos reality (despite the fact, that it is charming beautiful). So we were glad to have made this experience, otherwise our Laos picture would be incomplete.

Remark: some of the shown picture are from Loic, as our camera had no energy anymore. Thanks Loic!