We survived the jungle!!!
We had an early start on our first day to have breakfast before meeting the other 4 people on our trek plus our 4 guides. The other trekkers were a Belgium couple and an engaged Kiwi guy and Taiwan girl. Everyone seemed nice.
When we were dropped off to start our trek it was quite fun. Our English speaking guide kept stopping to show us different plants. There was a plant that you took a leaf off and the stalk you could open and blow bubbles from, a leaf you could split and throw through the air and a leaf that you could make 'pop'. After half an hour of fun though the real work started. We were walking up and up and it was really steep. We were walking really fast and I knew it was too much for me but wanted to keep up. Soon enough I was having a bit of trouble breathing and needed to take my inhaler. I had a rest and slowed down but it was really tough. I fell over at one point as well as it was very muddy and slippy from rain the night before. I half thought that I should have given up then as if it stayed that hard I wouldn't have been able to do it.
It soon evened up though and was more up and down gradually, not as steep. Then it started to rain for about 2 hours. So everything started to get more slippy and my raincoat makes me so hot!
When we stopped for lunch I was starving from all the walking and was ready for a rest. The guides were amazing. They just got the massive banana leaves and big fern leaves to lay out like a table on the floor. We all got a massive lump of sticky rice in our hand to dip and eat with containers of a salsa type dip and a mushroom and green bean dish. The Laos people were also eating raw chilli's! Crazy!
Once we had finished eating the rain stopped thankfully. We had quite a bit of downhill to do though and a little bit of uphill thrown in but not much. The downhill was really, really tricky. I fell over on my bum about 4 times and skidded numerous other times. I was filthy! I also had the pleasure of 3 leeches attaching themselves to me. They were disgusting. Some I knocked off by accident so I was bleeding quite a lot, they're well viscous!
Slowly but surely, we got to camp after over 5 hours of walking, not including the lunch stop. We had to walk over a tree trunk bridge across the river to get there. It was a simple place, made by local village people. It consisted of a small bamboo hut for a fire away from the rain and a wood and bamboo house on stilts for us to all sleep in. There were lots of gaps in the floor and walls but we had little mats put out to sleep on and a mosquito net to put over us so nothing too big could get in our sleeping bags!
We had a little rest and then went to our shower-a waterfall just by the camp. It was gorgeous but unbelievably cold!!! It was fun though, very refreshing! We relaxed for a while before tea and before the rain started again. The best bit about camp was the toilet! It was round the back of the hut and was a squat toilet out in the open but it always had about 15-20 butterflies around it! It was a little surreal to be surrounded by yellow, blue, white and black pretty little things! The black ones are so big too. I've never seen butterflies as big as in Laos, Ben sometimes has to ask if it's a bat or a butterfly!
For tea we had more big lumps of sticky rise, more of the salsa dip, a local soup with flowers in and jungle vegetables and a pork and vegetable dish. Afterwards, one of the guides whipped out a big water bottle that had the Lao-Lao local rice whiskey in plus some water to weaken it. This particular guide had been hacking away at bushes and trees blocking our paths through the jungle (which there was a lot of) with a massive machete and once we'd arrived in camp he had just been hacking away at bamboo making all sorts like spoons and cups! He didn't speak English but it's amazing how much you can speak to people without talking the same language. He'd made a shot glass out of bamboo and passed shots of Lao Lao round the circle. I only managed a shot and a half-I cannot stand that stuff! Ben had all 6 or 7 shots-I thought I might have to put him to bed! Anyway, the guide with the Lao Lao turned into the happiest man ever! It was so much fun! He could not get rid of his smile! He soon become Mr. Lao Lao and everybody's favourite. It got so dark and there was literally nothing else to do together so we all got in bed at like half 8! Everyone talked for a bit but we were probably asleep before half 9. It wasn't the comfiest but everyone was so tired it didn't matter. I wouldn't have minded a pillow though! I only woke up a couple of times in the night. It got pretty chilly at night plus my hair hadn't dried from the waterfall so the fleece I was using as a pillow was wet and I woke up around 11-12 because something was rustling in the bushes. It didn't sound small either it was quite exciting! Our guide got up just after to go to the toilet so I asked him if he'd seen anything the next morning. He said he'd heard a wildcat calling and thought it was that but by that side of the hut the next morning were little hoof prints so it could have been a wild boar.
Ben and I were up first apart from the guides and played cards for a while. I also had the pleasure of a big leech sucking my toe off in bed. I think i must have walked it in earlier but that wouldn't stop bleeding either! We had really nice scrambled eggs with of course sticky rice for breakfast and some green tea which was good.
After trying to find some dry, clean clothes it was time to go. There was a choice of a long way round for 5-6 hours and a short way of 3-4 hours. Thankfully we went for the short route. The climb out of camp was horribly steep and I really struggled. I needed my inhaler again and had to fight back a few tears of sheer exhaustion! The Kiwi was a big guy and he'd struggled the previous day as well but going up that hill he was throwing up quite a bit. Thankfully it got a lot easier and we came out on top of some big rice fields with beautiful views. It was much more fun walking with a view. The jungle was impressive but you were always staring at your feet to try not to fall over. Out in the open it was really hot so the sun had done a good job. We then mostly went downhill, a mixture of slippy and dry mud. I couldn't go a day without falling again but only did it once.
We went past some trees where the gum was being drained out of them. It was like glue but they use it for shoes or for the road. A local woman walked past with a bucket and was collecting it. We were back on the main road before we knew it, having walked for around 3 hours. We went to a nearby village and ate in one of the guides houses. We had more sticky rice, green beans and pork and a funny mushy thing. I could not eat anymore sticky rice!!!!!
We got into a mini bus and headed to a local village. We'd bought 5 yo-yo's for some of the kids and gave them out. It wasn't much to give but they seemed to really like them and it was fun showing them what to do.
It was nice to get back to town and have a shower and send all our laundry off to be de-mudded!
It was probably the most physically challenging thing I've ever done (the trekking, not the laundry). At least with the Manchester 10km I'd trained for it and it was over in less than an hour! The mud definitely made things harder. Plus we only had 1 rucksack so poor Ben was carrying most things. Everyone also needed 2 x 2 litre water bottles each a day. I drank at least 3 litres on the first day! And we had to carry sleeping bags. Trekking uphill is hard enough on your own when it's steep but when you're carrying things as well it's a different story. Then going downhill it affects your balance if you're slipping about. Poor Ben carrying most of our stuff! He was a real hero. I did offer to carry the bag to give him a rest but he wouldn't let me. When I was struggling to breathe on both days he took my bag too so that I could get my breath back. I felt terrible!!! He is the best though:) He also helped me going down hills so I didn't fall (as much). I've said it before but my legs definitely aren't long enough! They need to stretch more!
We went for a celebratory drink last night with the Belgian couple and we'll keep in touch with them. They had just been trekking in Nepal so did 6-7 hours walking a day for 10 days so they found it pretty easy!
We've had a v lazy day today. I'm aching all over and we have been a little hungover so have done nothing. We leave tomorrow and will cross the border back into Thailand, hopefully we will be able to reach Chaing Rai in 1 day. The bad news is the French guy has returned from a nearby town so no doubt he'll be on the same bus as us tomorrow!
Laos has been pleasantly surprising. I definitely didn't expect it to be so beautiful and it has been more of a country where we embraced the way of life, rather than doing trips or seeing things. It would be somewhere I'd recommend, I think there's something for everyone.