Once Devon was feeling a bit better we decided to do a village trek with Green Discovery Tours. We decided on "The Challenge," which included hours of mountain biking and hiking each day and an overnight at a traditional village. We stowed our big packs and just took the necessities, leaving at 8am with our guides, Dom and Somxay (pronounced Som Sai). Dom was our driver and personal chef while Somxay spoke English, took us mountain biking, and was our main guide. We started the trip with a stop at a local markets to pick up a wide array of vegetables and meat for our meals and started on our way.
We drove about 2 and 1/2 hours into the adjacent National Forest to what we later found out was the village at which we would be spending the night. From there we hopped on rusty, old mountain bikes and headed in the direction of a waterfall. The biking lasted about 3 hours, with ~10 inclines that literally took our breath away and reminded us that we have not been exercising enough. Only our guide could climb the hills while on his bike, although Breen did climb one or two all the way. Devon for sure would have, but the rusty gears on her over sized bike slowed her just enough to make it impossible. We ended up at an AMAZING waterfall, which emptied into a large pool that we were able to dive into and swim in while our guides prepared our lunch of BBQ and fried rice. It was a highlight for sure.
After that we trekked through some rain forest with two local forest guides added on to our crew. One led the way and the other tailed us for safety and to help the local economy (the trip was expensive). Luckily we avoided snake attacks, spider bites, and leeches sucking our blood. It was a beautiful trek lasting a few hours, ending at a Mekong River tributary where a longboat driver was waiting to take us back to the village. The very old, almost submerged long-boat didn't enable us to move much, but was a fun and beautiful ride.
Our host family was lovely, the father with is weathered, smiling face was welcoming as were his sweet daughters and his little granddaughter was quite beautiful. We stayed in their raised, thatched hut, talking for hours with Somxay about his life, dreams, women, and growing up in a poor northern village in Laos, a country which is rapidly changing. Dom cooked the market food with our help over an open flame. We made traditional larp (a favorite of ours), which is a minced meat dish with many fresh herbs. We had a feast with the family including a veggie stir fry and the larp and (of course) sticky rice for all. We also were able to try the fresh tree leaves they use in place of sticky rice and utensils. It tasted like ginger to us and Somxay said it is of the same family.
After dinner Breen and Somxay walked to purchase Beer Lao to share with the father and the group, and we continued our conversation about life with Somxay for a few hours more. It was fascinating to him and both of us. Somxay loved our insight, advice and knowledge, and we were sympathetic to the issues an intuitive dreamer would have in a country so far behind yet moving so fast towards western ideals. It felt like a discussion with a genius child, as he was so energetic (only 23) and full of life, and seemingly so far ahead of everyone else we had met in terms of his life aspirations and goals for his current and future family. He wishes to study psychology in America or Australia and we plan to help him find a grant or scholarship if we can. He was a very smart, driven, kind, funny young man and we felt lucky to have him as our guide and get to know him a bit.
The next day was more of the same, except that the first hour of biking was along an industrial dirt road and we probably ate about a pound of dirt. Overall the day was easier and more low key. The bike ride was to a park service area with another, less exciting but beautiful, waterfall where we walked around and swam again.
We watched Somxay climb a tree, prepared to jump into the river (which he never did because it was much too shallow -as we had told him), and find the reddish gingery leaves we had eaten the night before. Dom and Somxay, being opportunistic, grabbed handfuls for our lunch and for their dinner later that night. We trekked again for an hour or so over makeshift bridges and stagnant ponds and streams.
Dom and Somxay had known of Devon's singing ability from the night before, asked her for a song, and she obliged with her original song "So Real" (a Capella of course, which triggered about the billionth time she wished she owned a travel guitar). Then Dom prepared a lovely lunch of stir fried veggies (with Devon's help) and we had it with the ginger leaves and sticky rice. A tiny black kitten took a liking to Breen and was following him around. After that (sadly) our amazing trip was over and our two wonderful guides drove us back to Vientiane.
Somxay didn't want the fun to end and invited us to come out to dinner with him and his girlfriend that night at the night market on the river. We ate fresh grilled river fish and more larp with more sticky rice (at this point our new favorite food), sharing laughs, a few glasses of Johnny Walker whisky and more Beer Lao. It was an incredible few days that neither of us will ever forget. Thank you Dom and Somxay!!!
We had one more day in Vientiane and we went via bumpy, dusty tuk tuk ride to Buddha Park, a park full of all kinds of concrete Buddha sculptures. It was beautiful with interactive sculptures, may favorite was a daemon mouth that you climb through and enter hell, you can climb up the 7 layers of hell and out the top of the domed structure with a perfect view of the park and the big sky. We ate a yummy lunch of fried rice, morning glory, fried eggs and sticky rice down by the lovely river by the park.
Later that day we decided to try the Indian joint on the river front where we ran into our friend Paul from the Slow Boat and shared a night of boisterous conversation (and more Johnny Walker and Beer Lao) at the Beer Garden near our guesthouse. Paul is a golfer and we enlightened him about Disk Golf, which BLEW HIS MIND. He is convinced he will become a billionaire by introducing the sport to England as "Frolfe." As recent MBA graduated we made sure we would get a cut (;
We then headed down to the Southern most tip of Laos to 4000 Islands "Si Phan Don" for some water side relaxation, kayacking and hopefully some views of the very rare and endangered Irrawaddy river dolphin...
Love,
Devon and Breen
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