Gooooooodmorning Belgium,
Here we are again with some news from our 3-day adventure trek in the Namh Ha nature reserve.
I did this trek together with Kjersti, a nice norwegian woman that I met in Luang Prabang, a guide and a porter.
Day 1
Our first day begun with rain pouring from heaven.
The trek started in a local Khamou tribe village where we picked up one of the villages porters and the english speaking guide (Man and Somhat).
From there we went through the ricefields where we met our first nemesis of our trek, we were literally swarmed by leeches and in a few minutes they were crawling up our legs and started to drain us of our precious blood.
During lunch we took the time to burn those suckers with sigarettes so they'd let go.
Because they inject something that stops the bloodclotting, our legs soon had multiple streams of blood running down into our shoes.
We looked like we came right from the set of a horror movie.
After lunch it really started, to get to the first basecamp we had to climb a mountain and that almost literally killed me, I was exhausted !!!
To go uphill we mostly used animal tracks that are only as wide as my 2 feet together, very slippery because of the rain and the 20kg backpack certainly didn't help.
Just imagine an impenetrable green wall of vegetation to one side, a very narrow and slippery path to walk on, a steep slope on the other side, a heavy backpack, lots of insects and struggeling your way uphill.
When we finally got to our first camp after 6 hours of climbing I was exhausted and just barely managed to get to the stream to wash myself before dinner.
Day 2We got up really early for a 8 hour trek to the second camp.
I had had a good nights rest, the muscles weren't complaining, breakfast was great and the sun was shining so I felt pretty confident for this part of the trek.
Hey, I survived the first day, it couldn't get any worse could it ?
You bet it could get worse !!!!
We started going uphill again for about 2 hours and then the real fun started, going down for 6 hours in much worse conditions than the first day.
Often we even didn't have a track and had to create our own way through the jungle.
We couldn't afford to take our eyes from the track because else we would certainly slip or fall and slide down the slope untill a tree 'd stop our descend.
After a few hours I was mud from head to toe, was bitten by insects on every possible spot, my feet hurt badly and I was sweating like something incredibly sweaty.
I had been struggeling for hours and all I got to see was an impenetrable wall of jungle, didn't even got my camera out for some pictures because there was nothing worth taking pictures of.
When we reached the second camp I was ready to kill someone !!!!!
But me mood quickly changed, the setting was beautifull next to a river and 100's of butterflies were flying around.
After the leech burning and a bath in the river I felt much better.
As usual diner was fantastic, the guides gathered stuff to prepare as we trekked through the jungle and everything was served with sticky rice.
After dinner we talked for some time with the guides, drank some coffee, had lots of laughs and even a few songs.
A good nights rest was all I needed to be ready for the last day of our trek, it certainly couldn't get any harder......or could it ?
Day 3
This day was day 1 and 2 combined and my mood worsened with each new step.
We climbed and descended 2 hills while we were continuosly under attack of leeches.
After going uphill and downhill for a couple of hours we came onto a buffalo track which we followed almost all the way to the finish.
A buffalo track is extremely muddy, the mud sucks onto you with each step and buffalo shit everywhere.
Instead of shoes I was wearing clumps of mud, I was bitten all over, blood running down my legs from all those leeches, insect bites in every imaginable place on my body and to make things worse my left knee started to hurt quite a lot.
The knowledge that this were the final hours of our trek made me pull through.
When we emerged from the jungle I was the happiest man walking on this planet.
I signed up for a 3day adventure and got 3days of horror in return, never to repeat again !!!!
Not all was bad though, the people who accompanied me were the nicest I could imagine and thanks to them I look back onto this trip with a smile.
After a good shower and a few beers, a man tends to forget all perils he has been through.
Big hugs and cya later,
a survivor ;D
With pain in my heart I left Laos and the nice people that I've met there, so a very big hug to Femke, Dave, Jules, Heather and Jo.
Of course there are some risks because not all tigers are chained but a lot of volunteers try to keep the risks at an absolute minimum as you can see on the picture above, all the people with yellow T-shirts are volunteers who are used to deal with those magnificent animals. There's also the abbot who keeps a very close eye to the visitors security.
To my darling girlfriend; one day I'll take you there because I think this really an experience that you'd enjoy maybe even more than I enjoyed it.
This trip that took me almost 6 hours of traveling was certainly worth it and was the perfect closure of a beautiful trip to Asia.
