Natalie and me wanted to see more of Laos besides Luang Prabang. There was no questions, in order to see rural Laos we needed to get out of town. After some research we decided to do a 2 day trip, which would bring us into the mountains away from the city. The travel agency we chose, Tiger Trail, employes only guides which are from the local communities in the mountains and would also benefit the hill tribes we would visit on our tour. We started on Saturday in the early morning hours. Our guide introduced himself as Bouphan with a big smile and we left from Luang Prabang towards the starting point half an hour outside of town. With us on the truck was only one other couple with their guide. It appeared we would have our guide Bouphan just for us, as the other couple would do a day trip with the other guide on a different trail. How amazing was that? We had a private tour 
We started from the base camp at Nam Khan River which is a side river of the Mekong. Quickly they shipped Natalie and me on the river to the other side. From there we started our hiking tour. We walked through small rice paddies, hidden fields and orchards in the jungle. Bouphan led us safely over fences and small streams. We learned that water rice is planted 2 times during the rain season while the mountain rice, up in the higher mountain region, will only be planted once a season.
After 1,5 hours following a small trail we came to the first village. The people there are actually not considered Lao people. They belong to the Hmong which is one of many ethnic groups in Laos. They have their own language and culture. A couple of years ago this village (and many others in Laos) got a primary school for the first time, where local kids are able to learn Lao as a second language. It is part of a countrywide education development program of the Lao government. Especially in villages, primary schools were opened and compulsory school attendance was implemented countrywide. It is a big change for the kids to have a chance of a better future. At the place we stopped for a small break, a bunch of kids were playing around us. They seemed interested in us, but a bit shy too. Once I had given one of my cookies to a mighty little boy the dam was broken and suddenly I was surrounded by all kids to get a cookie too. It seems that some things are simply the same with kids around the world :).
We left the place with a lot of impressions of the village. The path started to ascent to the highlands and the jungle around became thicker. While we were stepping up our trail some local tree loggers appeared in front of us. They carried some fresh cut Mahaghoni wood boards downhill. Actually they did not carry it, it was more pulling it down. Bouphan told us that logging is illegal since a few years, but some locals still cut the trees to increase there little income.
Hiking up hills during midday in the rainforest is a very sweaty business. We both were completely wet and our clothes soaked with sweat several times over. Luckily our mosquito repellant worked very well, otherwise I am sure we would have been eaten up by mosquitos. Now we have a small idea about how hard locals work in their fields. Shortly after the little fields, the tree plantations finally disappeared and we were surrounded only by thick and lusch jungle.
Once we had passed the mountain ridge, we descended to a very small valley village for lunch. Only 5 families live there around a small pond. Our guide served us a lunch pack consisting of a very delicious fried chicken rice covered in a banana leaf. The area was very muddy because of the heavy rain we had the night before. This allowed us to watch a hugh number of tropical butterflies in all imaginable colors licking water and minerals from the ground. Some kids were playing on the benches among the pond. A poor little boy dropped himself in the mud as he slipped out while playing on one of the benches. First he was crying, but shortly after he washed himself in the pond and seemed to have fun.
The kids at this place are obviously not made from sugar. However bathing in this dirty water is still something that is difficult to see, when you think about kids in our regions taking a bath in a clean bath tub full of bubbles. One little girl was scratching her hair constantly. We assume the poor girl had lice. As we left from there we actually had only finished 3 of the 6 hours of hiking. It quickly turned out that we were not able to do the rest of the trip in 3 hours. Our narrow jungle trail turned into the deepest mud I had seen for a long time. Even worse, we still had to go steep up and down through the jungle and there was very little traction on that ground. Each step took ages and our progress on the trail was very little. I guess the weight of our trekking boots more than tripled since the mud sticked to them like glue.
On the upper parts of the trail we passed some open view spots along the trail which gave us an incredible view of the green and mountained country. It was all worth it! What a beautiful country!
When we reached some mountain rice and sesame fields, our guide gave us time to recover and shared some facts about these plants. Mountain rice does not need to be planted in rice paddies. It is just growing in steep mountain fields. Due to its slow growing process it is much more tasty and aromatic compared to normal rice. Besides these interesting facts I did not know before, the fresh green rice fields created a truly Asian atmosphere in the green mountains.
Two boys cutting some bamboo sticks beside the path, goats in the bushes and arty looking wet rice field mobilized our last energy reserves as Natalie and me expected being close to our last village for that day. We both were soo happy but fully exhausted and dehydrated when we reached the village. Finally we had hiked all day long for 8 hours thanks to the adventurous muddy trail. The village consists of 72 families. All of them belonged to the Khmu, another ethnic group in Laos, with their own culture, religion and language.
We went to the family house we would stay at for the night. Once we got there we downed a couple of water bottles to recover as we could feel that our bodies had lost more water than it had received. Bouphan introduced us to our host family. We looked around and I was pleased to see the kitchen, where the housewife was cooking so good smelling food for us. Once we had finished our tasty dinner, we talked a lot with Bouphan about the peoples‘ daily life, before Natalie and me went to sleep.
The little room was clean and equipped with some thick blankets and pillows. The bamboo walls allowed us to hear everything that happened in the houses around us. Unfortunately Natalie was still struggling with severe headache from dehydration. I took care of her with some dried pork and instructed her to keep drinking in small sips. In the beginning she woke up every hour to drink more water and it seemed the headache would simply not get better. When a big thunderstorm was pooring down at some point in the early morning hours, she woke up and needed to go to toilet really badly. Well, at least now her body finally had more water than needed again and she fell asleep quickly afterwards.
More or less recovered, we started into our second day. For breakfast our host served us a western style breakfast sandwich with scrambled egg. I think its done this way to make sure that all guests get enough food for the second day of adventures, but I really wanted to know what locals have for breakfast. After a couple of minutes Bouphan served me food, which he had this morning. He brought sticky rice and a super spicy chilli salsa to dip the rice in. A mild warm bamboo sproud soup was served too. And last a plate of steamed bug larva. Mhh yuuhhhmee, my chance to try some insects finally. Bouphan teached me to peel the intestine out of the larva. The larvas were in 3 different stages of their metamorphosis and all tasted differently. I loved it!
After breakfast we did a little tour through the village on our own. Based on our recent experiences we gave some choco cookies to the little ones, and one grandfather, who obviously liked sweet stuff too. We then left the village. In the beginning there were still some rice and veggy fields around us. Bouphan stopped at a single house inbetween a small rubber tree plantation. The family there lived from harvesting rubber from the trees. It is hard work as you have to cut small grooves in the trees in the middle of the night. This is done to keep the rubber tree juice liquid to get it run out during the cool night hours. Despite the hard work their income is quite little. Traders pay them around 0,70 Euro Cent per kilogramm and you have to cut many trees for that.
Our next highlight was a beautiful cascading waterfall at the foot of the mountains we had left in the morning. Shaded by trees with some local owned food stalls around, it was the perfect place to rest before we would start our kayak tour back to Luang Prabang. After some sweet bananas and some water we left this lovely place. A small boat brought us back down the river to the base camp from where we would start.
Bouphan got everything ready, equipped us and went through the safety instructions. He told us we would pass some rapids at the end of our tour and thus gave us some advice how to escape out of the water in case we would flip over. We started into a calm Nam Khan river with our two seater kayak. The current was strong due to the rain season and we did not spend much effort to move forward. On the shores we could see some locals in their fields. Some off them were fishing by net. Kids playing in the water. They were greeding us with a loud SABAIDEE, which is HELLO in Lao, every we came along.
After 2 hours more or less gliding down the river the first rapid appaered in front of us. Ups, it looked much more impressive than we both had expected. On the full width of the river the water was foamed. Bouphan gave us the last two instructions. We should always keep the kayak straight to the waves and should follow his tail in a few meters distance. When the first wave hit us in the front, we were soaked with water immedaitely. I paddled hard to keep us straight in the rapids, while Natalie tried to make her small, so that I was able to see the wave coming.
It was such great fun and we were getting better with each of the following rapids. At the end we had mastered five of them. On the last kilometer the Nam Khan was quiet and peaceful again. We had seen and experienced so much during the last two days. An unforgettable trip ended for us. We truly believe to have seen a small, but authentic part of the true Laos only in 2 days. For sure we have to come back!!
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