Jungles and Festivals
Trip Start
Jul 28, 2008
1
26
Trip End
Jul 2009
Luang Namtha, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
We gathered at Green Discovery very early in the morning ready and eager to set off into the forest and after brief introductions we unceremoniously crammed into the back of a TukTuk and set off for our starting point in a small Khmu village. Christa and I made the rounds of the village, including exploring their one room school hung with lively, fluttering paper cranes and stars.
The climb from their was up with an occasional merciful downturn or nerve-racking scuttle across a steep drop on a wobbling bamboo stick. Lunch came early but we were all ready for it and we eagerly devoured fish, vegetables and sticky rice off of our banana leaf table. At the time we had no way of knowing this would be our constant diet for most of the remaining trip and sticky rice continues to stick long after it has been ingested. Upward we continued to climb through dense jungle which would occasionally break into a bamboo strewn meadows offering sweeping views of a cloud scattered sky and protruding mountains. By the time we cut off the trail to gaze at a waterfall we were all exhausted but in good enough spirits to spare some breath for jokes. ("Did you forget to pay the water bill?" Banters one of the hikers with our guide.) We didn't have much farther to go after this point but that last hour was grueling and all of us gratefully dropped to the ground once we made it to camp.
Dinner was suspiciously similar to lunch with the addition to some greenery we had managed to pick along the trail and later that night some frog that some of our guides hunted from the streams. Despite the hard ground and freezing night air sleeping was easy and I awoke more refreshed than I had imagined. Breakfast was the remains of dinner with the addition of some truly atrocious powdered Lao coffee. This day, while quite a bit longer, was also quite a bit flatter skirting along to tops of the mountains where the breeze was able to penetrate the trees and cool us for a few blissful moments. We saw a Cobra during the walk but otherwise and an uneventful albeit beautiful day. That night we stayed with an Akha tribe who instead of fish shared buffalo meat instead and we all eagerly devoured it. Later that night the tribesman taught as how to call the wild buffalo using salt which we proved to be a little too good at. Perhaps sensing that we had just eaten his cousin the bull took an instant dislike to Christa and let her know on no uncertain terms. We dozed off that night to the sounds of Akha tribe songs pulsing through the night to the time of the cracking fire.
The final day was another grueling up and down until we finally decided into the Akha village and out to our meeting point to drive back to the town. Once arriving back in the town we discovered that it was a lunar harvest festival which we quickly took to exploring, stopping occasionally to play a carnival game or listen to a performer. In the end we were reluctant to leave LuangNamTha but eager to see what else Laos had to offer.
