Lao Trek and... ELEPHANTS!

2 Things before starting the main plot of this blog: 1) We saw the bearded hipster backpacker again (that man who didn't want me to take his picture); that was in Bangkok, this sighting was in Luang Prabang. Is he following us? Will he think that we're following him? He didn't see us; maybe it's for the best. 2) The travel down the Mekong reminded me of the boat journey up the river in Apocalypse Now, except no overweight Marlon Brando, no Valkryie helicopters, and a slight absence of horror.

Now, to the main plot: at long last, we finally found a trekking company we were happy with; the company’s relationship with the villages has been hailed: our guides would be from the villages we would be visiting and the elephant option would be humane. We signed up for a two day trek which cost over a million kip; we were millionaires for one brief moment before handing over all those bills.

We packed light, grabbed our head buffs, strapped on our walking sandals and headed out into the Lao countryside. Our guides’ names were Jimmy and Suo. We’d be heading up into mountains; yesterday, the American fellow who organized the trip said the walk would be 5-7 kms; today, our guides said 25. Huh?!

At 8:30, a truck picked us up and along with 4 other westerners (Canada, Finland, Switzerland and Israel) we drove an hour up into the mountains to our first village. Here, we said goodbye to the truck and said hello to about 20 children, who strangely greeted us with ‘bye, bye.’

The going was tough; and we had no choice but to get going. At points, we were going almost vertical over rocks covered in mud; it wasn’t raining, otherwise we would have been going DOWN the mountain as opposed to UP. Our guides told us once it had rained on a previous trek and several of the trekkers were reduced to tears due to their frustration. We climbed up a mud slide several times; soon enough our feet were caked.

Praying Mantis and Moving Stick Worm.

The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. At times, the trees would part and we'd see exactly how high we were; we were close to the mountain tops and the valley floor stretched out beneath us. Our guide hacked us off some bamboo to use for walking sticks. There is nothing like a good walking stick and this one is, without a doubt, my favourite walking stick of all time. Quite a statement.

Jimmy and Suo explained to us that once the farm fields we were passing through had been used to grow opium. The government had shut them down about 10 years ago, so now they grew rice. Interesting to be walking close to former opium fields. For that matter, it was also interesting to be walking through the most heavily bombed country in history. On average, a bomb was dropped by the Americans on Laos every 8 minutes, for 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. 

We stopped for lunch and water breaks along the way, and eventually made it to the mountain village where we would be spending the night. Some 500 people lived in the village; as we entered, I felt like Gandalf with his walking stick entering the Shire. However, as we passed the school we heard discoteque music blaring in the centre of the village. Apparently, there was a mid-afternoon party where a few villagers were sitting around drinking Beer Lao and enjoying some tunes. On top of this, we saw an old-school satellite dish standing beside a village hut. The contrast was bizarre.

Hut and Dish.

Our guides told us we could get showered up at the toilet, which consisted of upending a pail of water over your head. Despite the proximity of the squat toilet, this shower felt great and refreshing. Megan and I wandered about the village for a bit before dinner and met some of the local children: particularly two boys named Mow and Pit. As for the rest of the villagers, some smiled at us politely, but others glanced at us indifferently; they had gotten used to their village operating as a homestay for western trekkers for quite awhile it seemed.

Mow and Pit.

The village school.

Physical Education.

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After a lovely stirfry supper, it was soon dark out and since there was only a little bit of electricity powered by a local mill, it was a dark evening: reminding me of my days at summer camp, sitting around in pitch black nature simply having a conversation. The locals passed around a moon-shine drink called LaoLao made out of rice; it tasted like apple juice, quite sweet with only 3% alcohol. All of us trekkers had some warm Beer Lao, sold from the local store, and participated in cross-cultural conversations.

Meg and I retired to bed around 8:30 with accompanying mosquito netting for a good night’s sleep. Several hours later, we awoke to the Israelian in our party saying ‘oh ****’ followed by heaving. Now our rooms were located directly opposite the toilet and along with literally straw thin walls, we were in for a long night interrupted by our companion’s continuous yacks. At 5am, to these yacks were added the crying of an unhappy baby and the braying of a goat. What a glorious symphony! Yack, cry, bray, yack, cry, bray. Good morning.

We had assumed our companion had drunk too much the night before, but in reality he’d only had one beer, and it was not known why he had gotten so sick. After breakfast, we trekked for a good hour down to river, where we said goodbye to our trusty bamboo sticks (boy, those would make great souvenirs!) and hopped into a boat. We went slightly upriver where we got changed into our bathing suits behind a dilapidated shed and got ready for the next portion of our journey: kayaking. A truck from the company met us and took our overnight bags, giving us dry sacks; at this point, our sick friend decided to bow out for the rest of the journey and head back into town on the truck.

Stopping by the school for a morning visit.

Those aren't their names.

Our guide named Suo.

As for us, we paddled ten minutes downriver and got out at the local waterfall. Now, this waterfall is quite wide and consists of several levels; at each level, there’s a small natural wading pool. This is where we would experience elephant bathing.

Megan and I got on the bareback of a young elephant and rode it into the wading pool. Here, we spent 20 minutes trying to hold on as it pulled us around and under the water. The elephant, while young, was still massive. I went both in fear and awe of it. At one point, while we were in the water, the elephant purposely swept its legs and knocked mine out from under me. This unnerved me a bit as I pictured the elephant wanting to piggyback me next. Overall, the whole experience was super fun with Meg and I laughing nearly the entire time. The experience was a highlight of our trip. I greatly respect elephants and enjoy their quiet strength, as well as their ability to be playful and simply love a refreshing dip in cool waters. The elephant seemed to have as much fun as we did.

After the waterfall, we were supposed to kayak two hours down river, but it only took an hour. At one point, our guides said we only had 20 minutes left, and then suddenly, 2 minutes later we were at the end. Lost in translation.

Back in the city, we went out for dinner and drinks with our trekking companions (because we went on the tour, we all got a discount at the bar Utopia: a place with ‘Zen by day, Groovy by night’ as its tagline). Here, we grabbed some western food, which we all craved significantly since many of us hadn’t eaten a burger for quite awhile.

Our next destination: tubing in Vang Vieng!