Trekking for three days near Luang Namtha, Laos

I went on a three day trek in the hills to the west of Luang Namtha. We (nine of us) started of with a tour of a local village on the road to Muang Sing (the start of the golden triangle).

The little huts on stilts are for storing rice. From there we hiked along a stream into old growth jungle.

Later we hiked into a bamboo forest. We stopped at a series of huts for the evening. Nearby was a cave that we explored.

For dinner we had sticky rice, water buffalo and sticky rice. The group was French, French-Canadian, Swiss and Israeli. Banana leaves are used as table cloths. We ate with our hands. The French were sick with food poisoning from eating raw fish from the Mekong. What were they thinking.

On the second night we stayed in a ghost town. The Akha village was resettled outside the national park and closer to the road were the younger people in the village wanted to be. The village was serene and relatively clean. Usually the ground is bare and the covered with animal droppings...

For firewood we cannibalized the abandoned buildings. The Akha came from Tibet about 300 years ago. They do not have a written language. There town can be best described as a dump or as bacteria haven.

I suspect the rapid urbanization and growth in Laos has naturally led to the transfer of the relatively unhygienic habits endemic of village life to the towns. In the rural area, just dumping all the waste at the edge of town may be sustainable and tolerable, but as the density goes up, this habit is multiplied and is conspicuously nasty. While the Lao people and the government intend to become more modern, there are many areas that they are leaving unattended until the future. It is not stupidity or sloth, just the inability to see the consequence of bad habits in a sustainable rural environment transferred to an unplannedurban environment that won't sustain it. From what I have heard of travellers in China, the pollution in Beijing is the full expression of going too fast in consumption and ignoring the consequences of environmental neglect. Beijing plans to build an aquaduct from one of its major rivers to Beijing. Unfortunately the rivers are heavily polluted. So anyone overly concerned with the rapid growth of China should consider that China, for the sake of its future growth, is going to have to spend heavily to upgrade its habits a to avoid living in a country that will become a giant cesspool.

The farm machinery and mopeds are exceptionally inefficient at burning fuel. For the individual this pollution is small, but when multiplied, busy city streets become choked with unburned gas, which added to the dust and heat makes some of the towns a real hell.

Deforestation is happening rapidly. The trees are a very valuable source of cash and the cleared land can be used for farming.

I am having dinner tonight with the French Canadians. Tomorrow we will rent mopeds and ride to Muang Sing. After that I'll head east to Chiang Mai in Thailand, then south to Cambodia.

Luang Namtha is a frontier town. Old Chinese tractors drive main street, kicking up loads of dust and belching smoke. There is a massive amount of contruction, apparantly funded by the Chinese. The owner of Green Discovery disappeared a month ago on his way to the airport. The night before his house was lit on fire with gas. I guess he made some enemies...