Indo-China 6

Indo-China 6

Further to the glowing report on the Hanoi hotel.  When we logged onto emails in Laos, there was an email from them thanking us for our stay and hoping we’d had a good flight to Luang Prabang.   So they even remembered that - Amazing .

Two rivers meet here at Luang Prabang, the mighty Mekong which is quite wide upstream and the  Nam Ou which flows through a narrower channel with Karst Limestone alongside.  Apparently spectacular and that’s the one we join two days upriver in a few days time. 

Long, long minibus north, 10 of us for about 7 hours.   Us, another Brit, 2 Koreans, 1 Dutch guy plus sundry others.    The destination bus station at Luang Namtha  is 11 kilometres out of town and we’re told that this is to make sure that there’s employment for tuk-tuk drivers.   If the buses drop in town people just walk to their hotel.   It’s a very small place and our pre-booked hotel with attached restaurant is very  good, especially at 70,000kip a night ($9 or £6).   

Our two day, one night trek leaving the next day has a maximum 8 people and we are the only ones booked so it’s cost us $99 each.  That evening a single young  Korean joins, which will knock about $5 off.  We did want a group because we meet a number of people and if someone is real pain they can be avoided.   So we turn up in the morning to find the number up to 9 because a Korean couple had wanted to join.  Much better, we’re now us 2, 1 Dutchman (Ben, the same one who travelled up on the bus with us) and 6 Koreans.   A refund of $86 is handed over.  We’ve had a list of what we need to take, so just a day pack each, then just before we set off we’re given our first day water supply.  I start with 10 pounds of water to carry.   So into the jungle and I’m pleased to say it was.  An awful lot of the forest here has been felled and is mainly secondary growth and plantation but we are in a protected area,  a National Park.   We don’t know what protection a National Park means here but at least it’s not all cut down.  The guide tells us that we won’t see wildlife or birds because the local tribes hunt them all for food.  They make their own guns, one of which I see the following day.  It doesn’t look very safe.

The Dutchman, Ben is early thirties and one of those Dutch people who speaks betterer English than what most of us Brits do.   He contracts as a financial advisor and travels for 2 months or so each year.   As an example of his English, while discussing New Zealand I mentioned that it all seemed too new.  Ah yes he said, “it does lack historical depth”.  This is in his second language for goodness sake. 

The Koreans are all very pleasant with varying levels of English compared to our zero knowledge of Korean.  No dogs are eaten on the trek.  The ones we asked said they didn’t like dog anyway.

We overnight at a Lan Ten village , one of the local hill tribes.   These are seriously poor people, probably the poorest we’ve ever seen.  Three hours walk from the nearest road, no access to medical care, poorly clothed and mainly vegetarian but not by choice.   No machinery was visible except one ancient milling machine.  They sell beer and cans of drink which have been carried from that road 3 hours away for a mark-up of about 70p for a large bottle of beer.  Various hand sewn bracelets and pouches are set out for us to buy if we want but there’s no pressure.   We see the school in operation.  One hut, one teacher, 3 classes running at once.  A teacher gets $70 a month.   All of us sleep in a palm and bamboo hut with an earth floor, central heating (fire in the middle of the room) for cooking and a raised sleeping platform alongside with mattresses and mosquito nets.   We chose this tour company because they pay the villages for our visits, they say 35% of the tour cost is split among the various ones visited and they vary which ones.     These people really have nothing.   As we leave in the morning each of us is given a gift of an embroidered pouch.   Heather is reduced to tears and I can feel my eyes prickling as I type this up.

The trek itself was pretty strenuous and in very hot weather even under the leaf canopy.   So two days walking, a couple of rafted or canoed river crossings and a very humbling experience in the village.

The next day we leave heading towards  Muang Khoua and the start of our river trip having booked our own car and driver for a change.   This is from the trek company and our driver on the way across told us that as the bedding was being cleared up by the villagers on the trek before us they discovered a King Cobra up on the sleeping platform.   A King Cobra is highly venomous and not to be toyed with.  It gets its name from the old story “There’s a snake on the sleeping platform”  “what sort is it ?”  “I don’t know but it looks like a ‘king Cobra”.