Luang Nam Tha

Day One

Arrived in Luang Namtha around 3pm and checked into Manychan Guest house 30000 kip for my own room, top floor my own bathroom and with good view. Got some local food for lunch, tofu laab and some veges in curry sauce, the tofu laab was delicious! Was a Laos salad with chopped up tofu with mint, bean sprouts other herbs. I then went for a walk around town to find a 2 or 3 day trek into the forest, I found one leaving at 9am in the morning for three days 6-7 hours trekking each day and two nights sleeping in villages. The first day began meeting our guide, Boumee with a trip to the local markets to stock up on food for the trip, then a lift by mini van to a small house on the side of the river where a family lived, here we were given a lift by bamboo raft across the river to the beginning of our trek. We walked for about 3 hours through thick bamboo forest, was quite a beautiful walk the forest was unlike anywhere I had been before. We stopped for a delicious feast on top banana leaves including, bamboo shoots, sticky rice, greens, lots of chilli finishing our meal we kept walking. Arriving in the Khammu village around 4 and were greeted by many little boys playing on the river banks, they were amazed by us and just stood and stared. We entered the village, and people came out of their houses to look at us, babies took one look at us and started to cry, dogs came out and barked at us, it was very strange to be the only 3 foreigners in the village. We were shown to the chief of the village's house where we were staying for the night, we sat for a long time while the family looked and sussed us out, was very awkward. We then went for a walk around the village, saw many huts where they keep their rice away from rodents, some young girls who loved having their photo with us, then walked down to the river for a swim with the village children. After our swim we went back to our house for dinner, the family was very friendly and went out of their way to look after us, we cooked dinner together on an open fire on the floor of the kitchen inside their house. When dinner was ready we all sat around a small table and ate together, asking the chief questions about the village, interpreted by our guide, and he asked us questions about where we were from and what we did. After dinner we sat around the table and took turns having shots of lao lao (very strong rice wine) they insisted we finished the bottle, we sat making jokes and laughing with help of our guide, had a great afternoon and night in the village.



Crossing river, Bamboo forest, Our delicious lunch, Khmmu Village, Girls playing, Children and I, Kids Playing by River, Kitchen, Dinner with Chief, Boumme and my friends,
Day Two

Woke up around 8am and the valley was filled with mist, so beautiful! Helped cook some food to take with us for lunch, and some lovely stewed cabbage and sticky rice for breakfast. After breakfast we said goodbye to the chief and our family, outside some of the villagers had gathered around to say goodbye. We set off for another day of trekking with 2 local guides joining us (Khong, the young boy from the house we stayed and his mother) the mother was amazing, we were walking along in a stream for most the morning stumbling on rocks and branches and she was walking and weaving a bag at the same time with ease. We stopped for lunch around midday
and the mother cooked us the most delicious lunch inside a thick piece of bamboo on top of a fire she built, she filled the bamboo with different things she had collected along the walk, was so delicious! She also went digging in the stream and found two small crabs which she threw in the
fire to add to lunch and made us spoons out of leaves and chopsticks out of bark, she was great I asked my guide and he said it was OK to give her a tip. After lunch we kept walking up and down up and down steep steep hillsides until about 4pm when we arrived in the Black Thai Peoples village. Was a very small village only two families very basic but with so many animals, every farm animal you can think of, we arrived at feeding time so it was madness. The mother picked out a chicken for dinner, weighed it live and killed and cleaned it and threw straight into a pot on top of the fire, I was a bit worried there wouldn't be any vego food for me, I shouldn't have worried as there ended up being heaps of fresh cooked greens, cabbage and sticky rice. After dinner the father arrived back with a big bottle of lao lao whiskey and we sat around taking turns to sing Australian, Hebrew, Spanish and Laos songs while the others clapped, was a very fun night.

Khong and his Mother, 5 photos of trekking, Khong and his mother cooking, Fresh crabs, Dishing up Lunch, Animals in the Black Thai Village, Generator in Black Thai Village, Fishing For Dinner.


Day Three

We were up around 8am again and had some Laos breakfast, kind of fried rice with egg and coriander, very nice then set off for our final day trekking. We walked through the Lanten Peoples village and were shown some traditional clothes and the village school I gave the kids 2 boxes of pens, coloured pencils and some notepads which I read somewhere were OK things to give to help rather than money. We had a bit of a wander around the village and kept walking, was quite a hard day trekking very steep hills and some areas of thick bamboo forest, stopped for another delicious lunch, sticky rice, pumpkin with coriander, some spicy eggplant dish and greens. We arrived at our final destination around 4pm had a swim as we were getting pretty smelly by that stage then caught a tuk tuk back to Luang Namtha. My new friends Asaf and Luci decided to share a room for the night to save cash, 50000/3 so was very cheap, we took Boumee our guide out for dinner to say thanks and he took us to this crazy Chinese disco.

View Back to Luang Namtha through areas Cleared for farming, Lunch, Swimming in creek Before bus ride home, Rice Fields.

The whole trekking trip was an amazing experience, it was great to see how the different villages operated and how the people live. I'm so glad I did the trek, it was challenging and something I wont forget, one of the highlights of my trip so far. I will upload some photos later, maybe tomorrow.