These Shoes Are Made for Walking, Laos Style

About a week ago now, I was on the hardest trek I've ever been on to date. The trek we went on in Myanmar was long but basically childs play compared to this two day one in Luang Nam Tha.

After our failed atrempt at a longer trek in Muang Sing, Danna and I made the journey back to Luang Nam Tha in search of other bules to split the cost of a trek with. As soon as we got off the bus we saw a number of other backpackers and we were speculating on who would be up for an adventure. We checked into our guesthou

se and the owner inadvertently introduced us to two of our trekking friends when he tried to give them our room. Sean and Kyle are from the UK and were the first backpackers we had seen and talked to in days!

In our search for a trekking option that fit ourbudget and met our expectations, we met Steven, a Canadian traveling with his girlfriend and volunteering at the agency we ended up going with. Steven and Erin were awesome and thus far in their 8 months of travels have not flown on a single plane! They got to Asia on a cargo ship and apparently had a great time. Who even knew you could do that?!

Our group met the next morning at 8:30 and consisted of the UK guys, the Canadian couple, an Isralie couple, the two of us and our guide, Zouk. Somehow Danna and I managed to please the rain gods because it didn't actually ever rain while we were on ourtrek but we did have to deal with the aftermath of previous rainstorms.

To start our journey, we were driven in a tuk tuk to the jungle. Upon getting out of the truck, none of us could figure out where we would start hiking. Everything I could see was a tree covered slope with lots of undergrowth. Zouk, our guide,  led us to our trail, a tiny path almost hidden by the vegetation. Our hike started out vertical and just a little bit muddy. We got in a solid three hours of hiking before lunch. It was during this leg of the hike that we encountered a killer bee along the path. Prior to coming across this bee we had run into a team of four men sent out to find and kill such bees. Zouk cleared a new trail for us to avoid the bee on our path and informed us that it could indeed kill a child or elderly person with a sting. If it stings a healthy adult, they will fall sick for about a week. Armed with that knowledge, I freaked out just a bit anytime any sort of bee came near me on the trip.

At one point as I was slipping and clawing my way up a particularly steep and muddy path, I thought, 'If this is up, what is down like?' The answer to this question came shortly after I posed it. The answer: holy slippery, muddy mess! 5 of the 9 of us wiped out at least once. Somehow I managed to avoid falling on day one and am still questioning how in the world I managed it! The journey down to our lunch spot was a slow process with everyone attempting to find the least slippery spot. Multiple times I gave up on normal walking and did a front crab crawl down the slope because even standing still, my feet would start to slide apart.

Lunch was a very authentic assortment of Lao market food and consisted of sticky rice, bamboo shoots, another type of bamboo, veggies, buffalo intestine, fish and bananas. Bamboo shoots are a very intense food with a very strong smell and taste that I do not find appealing. However the other type of bamboo wasn't too bad but I definitely could not bring myself to try the intestines.

After lunch came the real challenge of the day in terms of hiking. I had foolishly thought that it couldn't get any harder but the trail proved me wrong. Most of the afternoon's hike included tromping through streams and walking on barely there paths up steep mountain sides. At first, walking through the water was refreshing. However, after I found my first and certainly not last leech on my leg, the water quickly lost its appeal. My

shoes alternated between being insanely muddy to clean countless times. I did completely sink my shoes in the mud and after saving myself from a face plant, thought for sure I was going to lose them while trying to get out of the mud.

In the late afternoon, Danna gave me a mild heart attack when she slipped on our barely there trail and then caught herself on the tree we were simultaneously climbing under and over. Thankfully she was not hurt and

no one was despite the countless falls the group had.

Finally, after what seemed like days of hiking uphill, we finally made our way out of the jungle but still had a ways to go to reach the village we were staying at for the evening. Part of this leg of the hike consisted of walking hunched over through the vegetation Zouk had haphazardly cleared for us. Between the overgrown trails and barely there paths, it was clear that no one had been on this particular trek in quite some time.

Around 5:30 we finally stumbled into the Akha village we were to spend the night in. Compared to the warm welcoming greetings we received at the homestays in Myanmar, the welcoming we got here was almost glacial. It was quite the shock. Not many villagers seemed happy that we were there and more than once I got some strange looks from adults and children alike. Apart from this, it was interesting to see how they lived. Showers are communal spigots with nothing to block you from watchful eyes. Families build tiny huts for each of their teenage sons once they reach a certain age. The boys are allowed to bring their girlfriends into the huts and I quote, "See if they can get along," before getting married.

That evening, before bed, one of the more awkward experiences of my life occured. The trekking company had advertised a massage at the end of the day and it came to us in the form of giggling teenager girls with a random group of village men standing in the doorway watching, laughing and talking. The 8 of us laid on our giant bed and then the girls

attempted to squeeze into the space left, which wasn't much. Then, the very unskilled pounding and weird butt grabs in the name of a massage began. Anytime my 'massause' paused to giggle and shout something to her friends, she without fail rested all her weight on my tailbone. I think all of this lasted maybe 15 minutes but it felt like it went on for hours. As Steven so aptly put it, "Who's idea was it to get the village teenagers to do these massages?"

The next morning dawned bright and not so early by the time everyone rolled out of bed. Everyone was still pretty tired after a night of sleeping on the floor in extremely close proximity to everyone else. The roosters at 4am also didn't help but made for a good laugh once everyone was awake. We set off for a day of what Zouk promised to be much easier than the previous day's hike. This proved to be true expect for a very hot, hard 45 minute

vertical climb. We stopped here for a short rest before continuing on to our lunch spot. It was at this point I had my first and only wipe out of the trek. I found my fall fairly funny as it felt like I was doing the running man backwards.

Lunch was delicious and included rice, a pumpkin dish, and veggie dish. Zouk made us bamboo chopsticks to eat with. After eating, we continued the short jaunt to the road where the tuk tuk was waiting to pick us up. Before we got to the road, we had to pass through some rice paddies and very sketchy bridges over irrigation systems. I was positive I was going to pull a Becky and land in the paddy while crossing some of the bridges. There was one in particular that was really tough to cross as it was just a trunk of bamboo and not secure. It rolled and if someone hadn't been there to give me a hand, I definitely would have went in!

The scenery along here was spectacular and made the trials of the bridges worth it! Our blessed tuk tuk and driver were already waiting for us and on the drive back to Luang Nam Tha, the thunder and rain clouds rolled in. It was an absolutely perfect ending to the trek to know that we had just barely beat the rain.