Trekking Luang Prabang

Written by Julian and Sarah

After catching a flight to Luang Prabang we spent the first day finding an agent to trek with the following day and in the evening we headed out to the night market to scoff our faces before our trek.

Trek Luang Prabang

We set off on a bumpy and dusty road in the back of a van with two other men (Tony from Switzerland and Migon from Argintina). We also had two local guides, Nick and Tim. Two hours later we arrived at the start of our adventure! We were told to carry as much water as we could as it had to last us two days as the village we were staying in didn't have any drinking water. We squeezed as much as we could (10 litres between us) into our small rucksacks and headed off across a bridge and up a steep hill. The trek was up hill for the first two and half hours with no shade in the mid day sun!

Trek Luang Prabang

We had drank quite a lot of our water at this point and decided that we had best start rationing if it was going to last the two days. 

The start...The start...

Trekking Luang Prabang

The start...made our first stop at a Hmong village   consiting of 100 or so people. We visited the school within the village which had lots of children and only one teacher. We bought writing books and pencils at the market the previous day to give to any children we saw whilst trekking, so we donated the majority to the school. We stayed for a while helping the children and listening to them sing songs. Although our time their was short, It was one of the things we enjoyed the most. After that it was back to the trekking and 6 and half hours in total in the blazing sun we arrived at our Kamoot village,, hurray, very thirsty and absolutley knackered!

The village was very poor but the people were really friendly. We were staying with the chief of the village and his family and they made us feel very welcome in their home. We were told each family in the village had roughly eight children, babies everywhere :0). We were then shown to our room (4 of us in a bed) very cosy! We were told that we could rest untill dinner so in desperate need of a clean Local women putting us to shame.Local women putting us to shame.

Local women putting us to shame.we headed to the shower/ pots and pans washing/ animal watering and bathing area. There was a bit of a que for the hose pipe in the middle of the village. But everyone quite happily sat watching the other get naked and have a scrub down. It was eventualy our turn although Julian opted to keep his pants on I decided I didnt smell that bad after all :-) 

Trekking Luang Prabang

We played with the children in the village and then were invite in for dinner, sticky rice and soup. Lots of the kids had gathered around at this point waiting till we finished eating so we could play games and sing songs together. Julian broke into song and statrted with "Old Macdonald" whilst I followed with ''Head shoulders knees and toes'', Julian then went on to show them how to play thumb wars and a hand slapping game, we had a great night. 

The following morning we were up at 5am to the sounds of the animals and the men of the village getting ready to hunt or farm in the fields. After an early breakfast we had started the trek by 8am. We walked mainly through jungle.

We'd pretty much ran out of water after another 2 hours of walking but luckily enough we had reached the end of our trek. We had stopped for lunch at the river, where we had a cool off and caught a boat to our pick up point. An hour or so waiting for the bus we were back on the dusty road to our hostel.

Hope your well, 

Recommend Luang Prabang Trek tour by ACTIVETRAVEL ASIA:

Highlights: 

• Awesome scenery
• Combination of jungle trails and village roads
• Home-stay in tribal villages
• Cruise on the mighty Mekong River