Days 52-54: Luang Namtha

Heading away from the big cities of Laos, we flew to Luang Namtha to experience some of the Lao wilderness. Our flight took us over picturesque views with swathes of untouched bamboo forests, rubber trees, snaking rivers and sloping hillsides.

 

iPhone picture from the plane

No it's not raining. Apparently it is NOT cool to get a tan

From our perspective, Luang Namtha is a rather small town that most travelers use as a quick stopping point in their journey. In true backpacker form, we caught a tuk tuk into town and wandered around for a place to stay. I knew we had found our place when we saw the sign for ManyChan Guesthouse! And with a room for $6 a night... sign me up!

A good fit

Our next order of business was to figure out what kind of wilderness activity we would do. We shopped around and settled on a 2 day "multisport" trip consisting of a day of kayaking and a day of trekking that would leave the following morning. Unfortunately, since it was low season, no one else decided to join us (which would have lowered our cost a bit, but again, still relatively cheap).

We spent the rest of the day exploring the small town, and hiked up to see one of the wats (temples). We later hit up their much smaller night market for some rather nice street food - ynoodle soup, Laos-style papaya salad, and juicy whole roasted duck, which at $3 I'm still salivating over.

 

Prepping our papaya salad

The next day we started off with the rafting portion of our trip. The river was swollen given that it was peak monsoon season. Our embarking point had even flooded over the banks in some areas. Once adrift though, the views were gorgeous. More bamboo trees all around us jand native villages along the way. We stopped at a village of Lantan people and watched them spin wool and use indigo to dye clothes in the traditional way.

Cheerful villager

 

The rafting itself was easy enough.... well for 99% of it. In fact, it was more of a float then anything else. There were 2 rapids in total that were actually quite small. When we hit the last set of rapids, I suspect our guide sensed that I wanted some "action" as he directed our raft to a trough with a steep lip. Our raft dove into the wave, but unfortunately got stuck there. It teetered for a few seconds until it felt like the entire thing was going to flip like a pancake. Unable to hold on due to the steep angle of the raft, Heather and I got tossed into the muddy river! I managed to stay with the raft and clamber back in but it was a few harrowing minutes until we got Heather and all the belongings back in. Turns out Heather was held under for a few seconds (swallowing a fair amount of nasty water) but her life jacket popped her back up. It was scary at the time but fun thinking back on it now!

Our almost trusty raft

That night we stayed in a Khmu village right off the riverbank. The village has one running water tap and electricity (although it was out the night we stayed due to fallen wires from one of the seasonal mudslides). They still live in traditional rattan huts raised on stilts and almost everyone spends their day doing backbreaking work in the rice fields. The younger kids are generally exempt and are quite playful. We had a group of kids hovering around our hut, one of whom had fashioned himself some mini stilts! That evening, we had dinner by flashlight with the chief of the village. Our guide served as a translator as we asked the chief about his duties and his villagers' interesting daily life.

After a surprisingly restful night's sleep despite sleeping on wood floors and with a confused rooster cockadoodle-dooing throughout the night, Heather woke up with round 2 of near-dysentery, just in time for us to head across the river to the Nam Ha NPA (national protected area) to begin our jungle hike. Within minutes, we were dripping with sweat as we climbed in the heat and humidity straight up the hill. After 20 minutes, we agreed we had had enough as the ground was a mud field and mosquitoes swarmed around us if we stopped. Yet we plodded on and did a 5 hour hell-loop. We were glad to have stuck it out, but it sucked at the time. The highlight of the hike was our lunch in the middle of the jungle. Our guide, Sai, foraged for ingredients from the jungle to make an surprisingly tasty stew with minimal resources. He snagged heart of palm (rattan) and banana flower and threw it in with some other ingredients - and then cooked it all in a bamboo stalk! He even had us fashion spoons out of banana leaves. A nearly 100% "green" lunch with almost no waste.

Fungus on tree

Exhibiting machete skills to peel the rattan stem to get the heart of palm

Peering down into our bamboo cooking vessel with our soup ingredients

Lunch is served

After our delicious meal, we eventually emerged from the jungle caked in mud (we both slipped and fell while descending on the slick paths) with tons of mosquito bites... then when we got to showering and discovered- leeches! Heather had 4 on her, while I had 2!

2 leeches! They bleed a bit after removal

We headed back to town afterwards and got some much needed rest. We even splurged to stay at the nicest joint in town, forking over a total of $7! The hot shower alone was worth it.

Rice paddy shot from a moving car