Luang Nam Tha and Nam Pe

In the words of David Faster Wallace, I would like to name this post "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again." I suppose "never" should be taken with a grain of salt, but I think it's pretty safe to say that neither Jon nor I will ever again go trekking in the northern highland jungle of Laos in one of their hottest months of the year. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it was cool to be in THE remotest part of the world we ever had (we had to take a 10 hour bus ride north of Luang Prabang on a windy dirt road through the foothills to start the trek. Wow! It was so bumpy, and we were shocked that the old bus actually made it. The Lonely Planet's description was surprisingly accurate saying that the Laos buses "are seemingly made of wet cardboard" and that "your bus will most probably break down and you'll be forced to sit in the skirts of the forest near a sign that reads 'We Welcome Tigers Here...'" !!!!!) Our first day we trekked 5 hours into the steaming jungle to the Khmu village of Nam Pe, which is seemingly only accessible by walking. Apparently it's part of their culture, but the men really don't do much while the women break their backs in the fields all day (they burn down entire hillsides to plant rice and rubber trees. When the land becomes too depleted to produce crops they move on to another hillside and repeat this process. It's really depressing actually, to see these charred, abandoned hillsides. Eventually they use up all the land in a 3 hour walking distance and move the whole village. The men help with this, of course, but it's the women who work so incredibly hard. Plus raising children and chickens, etc... There were millions of chickens running around the village. Chickens and barefoot children.) We enjoyed staying in the village and observing their comings and goings and tasting their food and giving candy to the children!

The second day was another 5 hour trek up and down steep hillsides through the bush on paths that seemed to have been abandoned for years. I'll just say that our conclusion was that this kind of trekking is clearly something meant to be endured and not enjoyed. It was brutal, but we are mostly glad we did it. Jon's version is a lot funnier than mine so you'll have to ask him about it when we get back home. Perhaps we just booked the wrong tour because other travelers we met loved their jungle treks, which sounded more like leisurely strolls along shaded streams. Hmmm.... :)