Tramping and Elephants

4/02/2011

Headed off today for Luang Prabang, a 6 hour bus ride with not one straight piece of road in sight. Amazing views. We passed so many villages where the people literally have their houses built on the edge of the road.

Luang Prabang is a gorgeous town nestled around the Mekong and Nam rivers. The streets are peppered with gorgeous shuttered french mansions villas with rambling bright orange honey suckle vines. I think it's honey suckle it looks very similar.

We quickly found somewhere to stay and ventured out into the streets where they have every night a street market. It is a delightful feast for the eyes, ears, nose and the stomach. Gorgeous textiles, jewellery, traditional medicine, hand made papers, lanterns, t shirts, shoes, coffee you name it is sold here. We are in heaven!!!!!

6/02/2011

Today we started on a 3 day trekking tour. We met our guide Gnod and began by travelling along the Mekong river road, from there we drove 60kms out of town. We were dropped by the river where we were taken across by boat to begin our tramp. By lunch time we had arrived at our first village. It was a Khamu village called Pha Phong. There are many different tribes in Laos and many speak different dialects. We stayed there for lunch and handed out pens and books for school. They have to board at school during the week because it is too far to walk each day. We were on the tour with a French couple. They had brought balloons with them which went down a treat.

our pad for the night

We arrived at our village to stay the night, Houay Wai, a small Hmong village of only 4 families. They had many turkeys, hens and roosters. The sun goes down at 6pm so we spent the night in darkness apart from some torch light. They cook on an open fire inside their house. There is no chimney so the house gets full of smoke. One bonus it keeps the mosquitos at bay!! The houses are very very basic, they have a dirt floor and the houses are made from bamboo and wood. They have no windows and have two doors, this is traditional for a Hmong house. We slept the night on a bamboo bed which wasn't too uncomfortable. We were woken about 4am to roosters. It sounded so funny we all cracked up laughing!!!

family we stayed with

impressive spring onions

                               

07/02/2011

Rise and shine up early for another day tramping. We tramped mainly under the cover of the trees. We arrived at our village at about 3pm. This was another Hmong village called Bouk Khay which means buffalo water. It was a big village consisting of 48 families.

The tragedy here is that a Laos company has put in a road for the people but is taking all their trees. Our guide was saying that the people do not understand that they are just happy to have the road.

                                                                                                        

We spent the afternoon walking though the village and acting the fool with the kids. It was so much fun. This village had many pigs, chooks, roosters and dogs. The pigs and other animals just come into the house as they please. Once again we were smoked out by the fire. Our bed for the night consisted of a similar bamboo structure but it didn't seem to be as comfortable as the one the previous night. Apart from really smelly blankets and being kept awake all night by yapping dogs it wasn't too bad. You have to bring along with you a sense of humour and tolerence.

The pied piper

08/02/2011

Our last day consisted of walking down quite a steep hill for about 4 hours. We all found this to be rather hard on the joints. We were looking forward to a shower and a comfy bed. Things you take for granted!!! We only walked about 45kms but it felt so much more.

09/02/2011

Very excited today as we went on our way to experience the life of a Lao Mahout (elephant trainer) at the elephant park project.

Firstly we got to ride on the elephants for about an hour through the river and around a surrounding village. Our elephant was called Mae Nam, which means mother. After our ride we bought some bananas and feed them by hand. What an experience. They are such majestic amazing creatures. This elephant park rescues elephants from a hard and abusive life in the logging industry. They only own one and the others are rented. To buy an elephant it would cost about $50,000 NZ dollars. I'd loved to buy, may have to win lotto first!!!! They are well looked after and they seem really happy.

lunch time

After lunch we were given some Mahout training. We were taught some basic instructions as to handling our elephant. We climbed on our elephants bareback and went through our lessons. Pie means move forward, how was stop and sohm was bend down and that is about it I can't remember any of the others. Later on in the day we each got an elephant each to ride back to the jungle. We then got the chance to go up the river and tube down to our lodge. Our guide said it would only take 20mins and it was getting really cold and dark. It would've taken at least two hours as the current was really slow. We tubed down for awhile and then thankfully the boat picked us up. It was so cold!!!

10/02/2011

Up at 6.30am to collect our elephants to bring down from the jungle and have a bath in the river. It was so much fun. The river was really warm. We were given a scubbing brush each to gave them a good old scrub. So much fun my elephant splashed me heaps with it's trunk.

We had a great time many meomories to cherish for a lifetime!!!

scrub a dub dub