Although not the prettiest of towns, we came to Luang Nam Tha to do a trek into the surrounding Nam Ha protected area, a vast area of pristine forest, rivers and mountains. We finally booked a 2 day trip, kayaking on the first day, a camp in the jungle overnight and a trek the following day. We arrived at the river on day 1 and proceeded downstream on 2 person inflatable kayaks. It turns out that kayaking together is not a skill John & I posess, as we wove our way down the river in any direction but forwards! After stopping at a hilltribe village en-route we got chatting to another English couple, and were relieved to hear that we were not the only couple who almost had a divorce in a kayak!
We arrived at the jungle camp, which was at the confluence of two rivers, and felt wonderfully like it was in the middle of nowhere. Whilst we chatted to the Austrian couple also on our trip and tried to dry our wet clothes round the fire, our guides were busy cooking up the most amazing feast. We had the ever-present sticky rice (excellent for eating with your hands as it does what it says on the tin: sticks) with a variety of local dishes, partly made with vegetables from the forest. Before bed at 8pm (what else is there to do with no electricity, painfully aching limbs from trying to make a damn kayak go in the right direction and breakfast the next day at 7am?) we had a fantastic view of the night sky - with no light pollution, it was completely lit up by thousands of stars.
After a fairly good night's sleep in the bamboo hut with 4 other people snoring next to us (JH: no chickens though), and a breakfast of......you've guessed it: sticky rice.....we set off on our trek. The first thing in order was to wade across one of the rivers. Admittedly, it was only thigh-high but still woke us up properly! The other side we dried off and got our shoes on, and were advised by our guide to spray insect repellant all over our shoes and tuck our socks over our trousers. The reason? Leeches.....we were very grateful that he did not tell us that BEFORE wading through the river, especially as one was then found wriggling on Sarah's shoe.
Then began a scramble up steep hillsides, through pristine jungle. Our guide was incredibly knowledgable, and pointed out many plants which could both be eaten and used as medicine.JH: This trek was definately tougher than the last one and often the trail was just a foot or so wide along the side of a mountain /river valley with a precipitous drop off below into the jungle. It was here we discovered that Sarah has all the nimble agility of a mountain goat.... if the goat has three legs, is drunk and wearing hob nailed boots! Several times she tried to throw herself off the mountain trail usuallly accompanied by a small scream! Our guide found this all very amusing and the local hill tribe guide who was also with us must have been most amused as there we were with our hiking shoes etc and he was wearing flip flops! We did however make it out of the jungle alive (I think Sarah would like me to add that I managed to trip over about 500 metres from where we finished our hike, on a very flat path just before we got a boat across the river to our tuk tuk back to Luang Nam Tha) and were very appreciative of the shower when we got back to the hotel.
As Luang Nam Tha was not the nicest town in the world (think soviet-style) we decided to head to Luang Prabang the next day, 10 hours away by local bus. Thus began one of the most vertiginous bus journeys we have ever been on! Northern Laos is incredibly mountainous and the roads are built into the sides of the mountains, twisting and turning in every direction. We are fairly sure that the bus ride would only have taken around 1 hour in the UK (as long as you are not on the M25, that is). The scenary was spectacular though, and well worth the death grips we both had on the armrests as we veered round yet another corner, on the wrong side of the road with a steep fall of 500feet or more below us. The fact that we passed several lorries, also veering round corners on the wrong side of the road but in the opposite direction, did little to reassure us. In the end, the best solution was to put the iPod on loud and shut your eyes. JH - Sarah actually slept for some of this trip and this was definately better than looking out the windows around the corners! Luckily the Laos drivers have utmost concern for health and safety and therefore hoot their horn each time they go around a corner.. this somehow activates a forcefield around the vehicle allowing them to avoid slowing down and ensuring both a huge lorry and a bus can pass with millimeters to spare! The journey would have been a lot quicker however the bus has many things to slow down for or swerve around, these include; chickens (I would run these over), cattle, dogs (both sleeping and mating in the road), crowds of school children and an assortment of old men and women carrying huge baskets of wood, fruit and bamboo.
Finally we arrived in the UNESCO World Heritage Site city of Luang Prabang - a lovely city nestled in the mountains and beside the mighty Mekong river.
