Hill Tribe Hiking

It finally rained last night, and the temperature significantly cooled down. I mean, something like down from 35C to 28C - but it makes a big difference! It was lucky for us since today was all about hiking, up and steep, and we were quit glad the sky was overcast and the air somehow less hot. Somehow, I said...

So off we went, with a charming guide whose name we didn't quite get, in an old Land Rover outside of the city. We crossed a small river on one of those dangerously small sampan, and started walking in the lush vegetation (yes, I like this word, thank you) towards a khamu village.


Starting the hike up into them thar hills.

The Khamu are one of the mountain tribes of Laos, one out of 94 or so. They cultivate and eat sticky rice and live in what would be described in our countries as outright poverty.



A ban (house) within the Khmu village (ban).

The company we were hiking with does ecotourism , so that we know every 6 months the village gets money in compensation for all these "falangs" (white people, originally used to refer to the French) hanging out in the middle of their huts and taking pictures of their children. Still, it was a little bit disturbing, and looked like very harsh living conditions.
We took some rest in the classroom where were posted some health education posters that I found very striking.

The second part of the hike was in denser vegetation, a muddy trail winding between bamboos and teak trees, and very, very steep hill. Brian and I sweated all we could and drunk about 12 liters of water each, while our guide was hopping around in his overworn flip-flops.


Resting, near the top of the hill. I've been on some hikes in my life, and this one wasn't remarkable in length or vertical gain, but it was up there with the most challenging hikes because of the extreme heat and humidity.

The hike was rewarding though, as the view were stupendous, and we felt like explorers fighting the tigers and the elephants. Ok, the only elephants we saw were tamed and carried tourists, but whatever, it was still exciting!

The Hmong tribes live higher up in the mountains, again, far from everything, no road, no electricity, no water, and probably not a huge lot to eat either. Most of them were off working in the fields for the day, so the village looked a little bit abandonned. They use slash-and-burn (culture sur brulis) so the mountains have those big ardk paches averywhere. It's a very unsustainable practice, that accelerates deforestation and erosion, but apparently the government does not really care.

The hike downhill took us into more villages with more playing kids and apparently a little more resources - easier to grow fruits, have fish ponds and the likes at a lower altitude I assume.



After the hike, ready to get into the sampan to travel back down the Nam Khan to the land rover. Totally wet and wrung-out. This is the photo we'll use if we turn this into a travel guide book.

We finished off the day by a boat ride that took us back to our starting point. Along the way we saw fishermen, kids playing in the mud, buffaloes rolling in the mud, and again, beautiful scenery. We jumped off the boat to wash off the seat and the heat - well, wash off might not be word in such muddy water, but it felt good for sure!

Of course the day would not have been complete without the old land rover breaking off on the way back. We sat on the side of the road and watched kids trying to get their buffaloes out of a mud pond until we got hold of a tuktuk and finally made it home. And here's the picture of us at the end of this day!


And then after what we thought was the end of the day, the Land Rover broke down. So we got out and watched village life for awhile. Do we look like we mind?