Trekking - Day 51, The Physically challenging day

None of us had managed to keep any food in for almost a week and just walking to the morning market was most days too long a walk for at least one of us. But since we hadn't done anything active since Tiger Leaping Gorge, and none of us has ever been trekking for real, we thought we'd at least do something a bit 'sporty' after spendning almost 4 days in Muang Sing doing nothing.

So we signed up for a three day jungle trek, walking uphill 7-8 hours a day, 'moderate to difficult'.

Wait, what?



When we realized that there is no way we will survive the following three days, it was too late, and so we packed our bags, checked out and managed to walm 'all the way' to the morning market to buy snacks for the following day.

After this we met up with our guide, and the real chock hit us. We had no proper gear, and our backpacks being so small, we actually had to carry our water bottles and snacks in a plasic bag and have our sleeping bags hanging from our backpacks. Hysterically laughing (this is how we react when everything goes wrong) we jumped into the minivan, trying to eat as much as possible of our newly bought snacks, so we wouldn't have to carry so much.

It all started innocently enough, when we suddenly had to jump out of the minivan.
Communicating with our guide was a bit difficult, so we didn't know where we were headed, but we were told to leave our stuff. Turned out we were to visit a Akha village close to Muang Sing. The Ahka is a minorty tribe in Laos, although in Muang Sing they seem to be in majority... The women wear colourful clothes and they have their own langauge and religion (animism). The village was huge and we also visited a school, with hundreds of laughing children running around and shouting 'Sabai Dee'. Too bad I also left our camera in the minivan....

After seeing some Akha weaving we jumped back in to the minivan and were all too soon told to get out again. This time for real, and we started laughing hysterially once more. We met our other guide, Sasu, a Akha from the village we just visited, who carried our tent and our food. We felt immensly guilty because of this.

Ruut and Sophia, still happily unaware of what awaits them, just before starting to trek. (You can see the path we followed behind them)

Half an hour later our luaghter had died and we felt guilty no more, only thankful. We started by walking through an extreemly dense sugar cane field, on a 'path' (if you can call the opening Sasu created with his machete a 'path') that felt almost veritcal, with the sun shining in our faces. Luckily the field ended and we enjoyed the shade of the trees, but since we kept walking verically uphill the sweat was flowing and our legs already aching. 7 hours more of this?!

Uphill, constantly uphill...

Sasu watched us basically crawling up hill after hill, and decided to make us walking sticks out of bambu. When it was lunchtime, Sasu prepared a 'table' out of huge banana tree leaves and made us chopsticks out of bambu. As mentioned earlier he also carried our tent and food (not our immense quantites of snacks, of course) and was the one making the 'path' by swinging his machete. Sadly Sasu only spoke Lao and Akha, so during the first day conversations were limited, but we soon learned to understand each other. Sasu was our idol and we were greatly thankful for everything he did.... except his path choices. When walking on a path that would take us slowly up the hill, Sasu would turn around, look at ur red, sweaty faces and laughingly start walking straight up the hill instead of following the path. This meant more vertical uphill walking....

Sasu

Lunch

See the tiny cottage on the hillside? The white dot? That's where we are headed.

 After walking the last hours uphill (surprise) through bushes with thorns so sharp that we left a a trail of blood, hair and thred from our clothes behind us, and wading ancle deep in mud and buffalo excrements (very slippery!), we finally arrived at our 'camp' looking and feeling like we'd been running up stairs in a sauna for 6 hours.

Made it!

Our friendly neighbourhood buffalos.

We washed ourselevs (heaven!) in a cold stream and then crawled up in the buffalo herds' cottage by the fire, listening to Sasu teach Akha to the two buffalo herds who at the moment lived there (they shift, every buffalo owner lives there for a week every 5 weeks) while Keo, our guide made dinner over the fire. We always ate rice, for three days, with different vegetables and tofu.

Our shower. Water, such luxury.

Muang Sing could be seen from our tents, far,far away, down in the valley.

We felt slightly dirty....

The view towards our tents from the cabin

Dinner, the two buffalo herds warming themselves by the fire.

Aftwards we walked back to our tents and sat by the fire, watching the starlit sky above. Never has it looked the same, the whole sky seemed to be covered in stars! Suddenly the extreemly exhausting climb seemed to be worth it all!

We also started to finally understand our guide, and he us. Turns out our guide, Keo, was only 22, and had worked as a guide for one year, also working at his parents farm and rubber tree plantage. Before that he spent 11 years in a monestry. At first he didn't seem to understand what we meant when we asked him about what he did on his spare time, but then he admitted to drinking a little whiskey once in a while and playing soccer everyday at 5 a clock.

Ruut studying Euros with Keo by the fire.

When it got too cold (my shoe started burning since I apparently tried to warm my feet all too eagerly... Luckily they were only cheap, and not very comfortable, Chinese shoes, since I left my amazing Ecco walking shoes in Lijiang... oh well) we crept into our tiny two-person tent, and slept until about 6 a clock. It's not often you wake up to a view quite so awesome.

//H