When I reached Laos, I knew I had 3 things I had to do:

• Visit my family and learn about my motherland
• Eat lots of Lao food
• Go on a multi-day trek and visit a minority village

The first two points were happily and easily done upon my arrival in Vientiane.  My great uncle and his family took me on a tour of the parts of the city where my mom and her family lived and where she went to school. My uncle and aunt took me to new places to eat for every meal from top-rated restaurants on TripAdvisor to small hole-in-the-wall local places for almost my entire time with them. It was a very wonderful feeling to be with them and experience the capital city from a local’s perspective.

Luang Prabang – What’s beyond those hills?

However, when I reached Luang Prabang, the town that is declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the north of Laos, I knew I was among some incredible landscape that was begging to be seen, so I made it a priority to book a multi-day trek through the mountains. I wanted to see an authentic village and see the way people lived there, away from “city life”, so I settled on a two day trek with a night spent in a Khmu village.  Little did I know it would be one of the most difficult hikes I’d do (not that I have climbed mountains or anything, but still!) while also being the most remarkable insight into a different way of life.

I consider myself a fairly decent hiker but DANG this hike was difficult! The other three girls in my group were sisters from Spain who were pretty much on the heels of our guide the whole time while I was always about 30 seconds behind them. I just could not speed walk through the slippery descents, and at some points, barely one-foot wide rocky paths with a cliff on one side that just drops for who knows how many tens of feet.  I was amazed at both how easy it was for all of them to fly through the different terrain as well as my ability to (kind of) keep up (30 seconds behind is not bad, right?!) without twisting my ankle and only falling about 5 times.

Always a bit behind

There were lots of steep uphills and downhills, mixed with rocky and root-infested paths, some with inches of dried leaves which proved to be slippery whether you were going up or down  These paths were not frequented except for the occasional trekking group such as us, locals who work in the mountains and fields or one of the cows that were left to roam the forest for the day (how they kept balance on these paths I have no clue. They also left lots of poop on the ground for us to navigate around).

The first day we hiked from around 10 am 6 pm, with about an hour’s total break for lunch and to catch out breath (mainly for me as no one else seemed to be out of breath).  The views were brilliant and I sweated my entire face off.

[I also cursed myself in my head about every few minutes as to why I signed up for such a physically demanding tour.]

Maybe the picture won’t show it, but I am super sweaty!

However, when we reached the village and was welcomed by the locals with a cheery “Sa bai dee!” I felt like I was in a place few people who visit Laos have been.  Breathless and out of breath, we were shown our room which included a hanging lightbulb, wooden boards kept up on the stilts with a thin futon on it, covered by a hanging mosquito net. The bathroom, which was around the corner, had no lightbulb, but a squat toilet in the floor with a “bathtub” like reservoir that was filled to the top with cool, fresh water and a small bowl floating on the top (funny side note: when our guide showed me the bathroom, a young man came out of it in his underwear not expecting to see one of the “visitors” there and leapt around corner really quickly once he saw us, haha).

We slept in a hut similar to these.

Chickens, ducks, dogs, cats and pigs roamed the whole village while curious children shyly approached us and within an hour were singing songs and doing dances for us.  Teenaged boys who seemed to have fixed their hair and wore nice collared shirts and jeans walked by our hut many times, often sneaking a peek at the “falang” girls while trying not to make it obvious (but I noticed!).  The villagers seemed to regard my tour mates as the “falang” foreigners but looked at me differently. They pointed at me a few times (not in a rude way) but I didn’t understand what they were saying. I think they thought I looked like them and that I couldn’t be a “falang”. Even the kids looked at me curiously yet regrettably my Lao was not good enough for even a basic conversation.

Sunlight quickly disappeared and we took cold showers and lathered ourselves in mosquito repellant. Our dinner was cooked over a fire pit and was hot, hearty and delicious.  The children were called home by their parents and we got ready for bed. I shared the room with one of the sisters and it was a funny struggle as we got under the mosquito net and slipped into our sleep sacks (thank god I brought mine!) while wearing our torchlights.

A few minutes after we settled in, my bunkmate stirred and turned on the light. “Did you see that mouse that walked across our net?!” Thank god it wasn’t a spider, I thought! (Though I did see a really big spider in the room after my shower and got a bit paranoid).

The next morning we woke up to village sounds of roosters, chickens, dogs, water splashing, children laughing, babies crying and people getting started on their day. Our hot breakfast of an omelette with sticky rice and tea was a good start to our second day of trekking.

We bid farewell to our hosts and thanked them. “Khop jai lai lai!” we waved and bowed.

“Today is easier,” promised our guide. He must have seen how I was struggling on the first day.

And he was right. The second day’s trek was definitely easier and much shorter. We hiked through fields and mostly flat forests. We saw workers harvesting different types of herbs and vegetables. And lots of beautiful wild flowers.

 It took us about 2-3 hours of trekking through mostly flat forests to reach Tad Sae Waterfall. We got caught in a “traffic jam” of people riding elephants for a few minutes.

While I will never support elephant riding in Southeast Asia, we were in awe to be in such close proximity to the gentle, beautiful giants. It felt like we kind of stumbled upon them in the wild since we were in the forest, except for the mahouts and people riding them.

I was so grateful to reach the waterfall and to have lunch. Tad Sae is a tourist attraction, however since it was dry season, only about half of the falls had water. There weren’t as many people and we had access to bathroom facilities and places to buy snacks and drinks.

After a lunch of noodle soup (where I was hassled by the above cat for chicken), we roamed the area and checked out the elephant “camp”. I use quotations with “camp” as it was merely a small area with a roof and 6 elephants chained to it’s support columns. While we were no experts in elephant psychology, my trek mates and I all agreed that the elephants seemed sad. They all just stood there with the exception of one elephant who was bothering the one next to it. There was one elephant by the front who bullied me into giving it the banana that was in my pocket. It was pretty cute.

To my aching thighs’ relief, we took a short speedboat ride from the waterfall grounds to a taxi that drove us into town. No more trekking! Our two day strenuous hike was done! My legs and feet can now rest! I definitely need a massage!

On the river, back to town.

So what do I take from this experience?

1.) The trek was much more difficult than expected, but hey I pulled through with only a few minor trips and scrapes and my leg going through an old tree trunk.

2.) People who live in villages are use to it, and may even prefer it over living in the town/city. We may not, being people who grew up in more urbanized areas, but that does not mean we have to feel bad for them. I think most people who visit countries that are more ‘third world’ than theirs tend to think their life is of better quality, but children in the village go to school, people have access to clean water (at least the village we visited) and nutritious food. They have access to town if they so need it (there is a dirt road that is suitable for motorbikes and cars, and one truck comes by once a week to bring things/people back and forth) and they are not bound to live there is they do not wish to. It is not a scenario of growing up in the village and having no choice but to stay there for the rest of your life – people can choose to move or to stay. With that said…

3.) I cannot live in that type of environment if I had a choice – but that is my opinion. I got to see it, experience it and appreciate it, but I know that I would not be able to live there long term. Always wondering if a 2-inch spider is somewhere in your room or even near your futon while you sleep makes me nervous with tears if I really think about it and growing up in a city would make me believe that my body is vulnerable to certain illnesses and germs that the villagers are probably immune to. Parents leave their children to play in the dirt (see above image of the baby on the ground) and they play happily (I can look at that and smile because all other ‘urban’ kids, whether in Laos or Canada, are glued to some sort of screen at all hours of the day while theses kids jump around, sing songs and use their imagination while they are not in the classroom and I think that is fantastic). But being in the open with animals roaming around, I cannot help but think it is unclean, but if it was an issue for villagers, I’m sure it would have changed. But I’m sure as someone who didn’t grow up in that environment, it would most likely affect me.

4.) Laos is a beautiful country. Yes I may be bias as it is my motherland and where my parents are from but I mean, check this out:

I really enjoyed this experience – it was eye-opening in unexpected ways to say the least. And while I’ll take a break from long hikes for now, I’d love to explore more of Laos after I visiting a few more countries (hopefully the south where my dad is from!).

Would you do a multi-day trek like this?