somethingaboutmonkeys: Right on Trek

The long, bumpy and winding road to Luang Probang further north of Laos finally ended and Evie, Vic and I traipsed around trying to find room. Everywhere was fully booked so when we finally found somewhere it was a dingy hole with grimy paper-thin walls and no glass in the windows that not only led outside but into an adjoining room; that night we laid in bed listening to an hour long drunken conversation between the residents of our neighbouring room - it would have been interesting if it wasn't all in French. Early the next morning we left for a two day trek through the local villages, fields and mountains of the northern Laos countryside. Exhausted and starving we arrived in a small bamboo village, belonging to the Kmhu ethic group, in the foothills and as we waited for our food to be cooked by the locals we were taken on a tour of the village; they are completely self sufficient and we saw whole families mucking in with the farm work and we even helped some young girls collect some of their sticky rice crop that had been drying on a tarpaulin. The children took a particular interest in us and were excited to show us all their tricks such as jumping off the tables and in return we gave them some of our dinner which they wolfed down.

Thankfully we had our pointy hats as the sun was fierce. We wanted to fit in with the locals who we'd see squatting in the fields working.

This man was crafting incredibly professional chopsticks out of bamboo, each one taking only a few minutes.

This is the Kmhu village, some houses were surrounded by a thick 'fence' of cacti and all had dogs, chickens and children running around them.

This young girl had her baby sister firmly planted on her hip all afternoon and evening, the little one was fascinated with us and wouldn't let go of my finger.

They spoke no English and we didn't know much of their version of the Laos language but a heart is an international symbol!

Laos gets extremely cold in the evenings and that night was made even worse by the fact that we were sleeping on very thin mattresses on the floor of a bamboo hut on stilts (we also saw a rat right next our bed). We left at the crack of dawn and trekked through the jungle to the most stunning waterfall I have ever seen; we waded through the shallow top where the stone in the ground had been shaped in never ending ripples and the trees were growing through the water. At the bottom we jumped off a tree into the turquoise abyss feeling slightly guilty that we were contaminating the crystal clear water with our sweaty-trekky-can't remember our last shower-bodies!

The north Laos countryside.

Top of the waterfall.

Magical!

Just chilling under the waterfall!

Underwater tree root.

We walked through a sanctuary full of bears that have been rescued from their captors that cruelly cage them to harvest their bile for questionable Chinese fertility medicine.

Real travelling - mission accomplished. After a night of violently shivering next to a rat - maybe too much real travelling...? With this is mind we decided last minute to go back down south for a cheeky extra tubing session - the allure of floating down the Mekong to be dragged up the river banks to bars was just too much so as soon as we finished the trek we got straight on a night bus to touristy Vang Vieng. We arrived at 3am and kipped in a freezing seating area in the hostel surrounded by half finished rum and cokes, soggy playing cards and overflowing ash trays - a regular occurrence and quite an accomplishment for me considering that before I came travelling I was the fussiest sleeper alive!