Trekking Day 1

We took a morning stroll to get a closer look at the town. There was fog everywhere, and it was quite chilly. Oh no, we thought. Bad weather. But that’s how every morning starts up in the mountains, until the sun kicks in around 10 AM. Suddenly, we realized we had booked a trekking tour that was starting in just 30 minutes. We had to hurry! Back to the hotel to pack, settle our bill, and then rush back to the travel agency. There are two leading travel agencies in Luang Namtha. One is privately owned, Green Discovery, and the other is government-run, Namha Eco Trekking. We opted for the latter. Namha Eco Trekking is much cheaper than the other option. The reason is that the salaries for the guides and office staff come from the government. To ensure neither agency has an unfair competitive advantage, they offer different tours. The tours are almost identical, but they don’t overlap, and the overnight stays are in different villages. We chose a 2-day trek with one overnight stay in a mountain village for 470,000 kip (about 260 DKK). Unfortunately, we couldn’t try a homestay, where you stay and sleep with a family. Our guides were named One and Ponsak. Over the two days, we were set to hike 30 km and visit Khamu and Lantern villages. The first day involved 4 hours of trekking, which wasn’t too tough. We had lunch along the mountainside, eating with our hands, which is a bit tricky if you’re not used to it. We had sticky rice, beans with beef, and chili sauce. Around 2:30 PM, we arrived in Khamu village, where we would spend the night. It was quiet… almost deserted. During the day, the men and women work in fields that are quite a distance away. Only the children and a few elderly folks were home. Some of the adults are away for months at a time. They sleep out in the fields until the harvest is in. Often, it’s too far to walk home every day. The village consists of 180 people and 36 houses. Each family has between 4 and 6 children. No one is a bigamist. The Khamu people have no religion; they believe in spirits. They hold three ceremonies each year: one before planting rice, one before harvesting, and one after the harvest to give thanks. You can really understand why the rice harvest is so important to them, as they eat rice all the time :) There are pigs and chickens everywhere. Some of the pigs had a triangle around their necks. This is to keep them out of the vegetable gardens, which are otherwise fenced in. But it’s not enough to keep the most food-loving pigs out. There are also quite a few dogs in the village. Some roam freely while others are chained up. They wait to be sold down in town, where people buy them to eat. There were quite a few Beer Lao bottles outside some of the houses. They’re used to catch eels. Once the eel swims into the bottle headfirst to eat the bait, it can’t swim back out. All the way to the village and within it, everything was very clean—no trash lying around. The government does a lot to preserve and promote Laos. The area we were trekking in is a nature reserve focused on nature and ecology. In the evening, we were to have dinner with the chief. They slaughtered a duck and a chicken for the meal. We had pumpkin soup, beans, and of course, rice. After dinner, we were allowed to ask the chief questions. Our guide, One, translated for us. We learned that a chief is elected by the village every three years. This chief was so well-liked that he had been in the position for 21 years. A chief’s main job is to communicate with the government. Currently, they are working to persuade the government to build a road to the village. As it stands, it’s a three-hour walk to the nearest road. Tourism has significantly improved the living standards in the village. The chief wants even more tourists to come, and he believes a road would help with that. It’s a bit of a dilemma. We tried to explain that tourists want to experience a challenging trek through the jungle and a village that feels cut off from the outside world, one that isn’t overrun with tourists. On the other hand, life today is tough for the village. There’s no way to get to a hospital when they’re sick. They manage with their natural medicine. If the road comes, life will get easier in the village, but there will likely be fewer tourists... After just a few hours in the village, we already smelled like the village—a mix of animals and campfire smoke :) There were solar energy stands set up by the houses, so we had a little bulb lighting up the ceiling in our communal house where we were to sleep. Otherwise, it was completely dark everywhere. At 9 PM, we went to bed. We were sleeping on the floor under a mosquito net.