Laos: One day out of my life....

....walking and climbing trough the mountains of Muang Ngoi, with Amelie, Mariia, Romain, Noy (guide) and Le (alias monkey, also local guide)

One little backpack filled with nothing more than; 1shirt, 1 pair of socks, 1 longpants, towel, sarrong, soap, toothbrush and paste, 1 set of underwear, headlamp, playingcards, dices, camera, little notebook, suncream, moskitospray, flipflops, 1 longsleeve and 1 warm jacket.
I'm wearing underwear, trekkingtrousers, socks, shoes, hat and sunglasses. I'm ready for a 3-day trekking and leave with motivation, a good mood, a big smile, and good sense of humor. I will need that because it's going to be hard. Three days walking, the first and the second each eight hours and the last four hours. A boat will bring us back to Muang Ngoi.
At 8am we are suppose to leave but at 8.30am, everybody has had breakfast and had gone to the toilet so ready to go. We wait for 30 more minutes for monkey...he didn't finish his breakfast yet...now we leave.
We walk, flat, a lot of talking, nice landscape, tempo is high, monkey leads and he is fast even on flipflops. We cross water by stones and barefoot. Taking shoes off and on a couple of times, wet feet, wet socks. Wondering if my feet are going to like this. For the whole day each of us carries 2 bottles of water. We arrive at the first village, there is a small guesthouse as well, so they are used to see tourists. We take a break, it's getting hot already and not much shade. We continue walking, now it goes up and down, both very steep, sometimes I have to use my hands. There is more shade now, so the sun burns less :-)
Around noon, lunchbreak....breathing, sweating but still enjoying. I feel happy to be in nature, my body feels good although it has been ages that I've been doing something activ.
We continue...there's still a bit of water, but it won't last for the whole day. The main question is...how long to walk till we reach the next village, 2 more hours to go. The guides just wanted to pass the village, we resist and want to get more water. At the third house we ask, we have luck, we buy overpriced, smoky but drinkable water. We continue. I'm getting tired but feel blessed doing this. What do I want more, lovely people around me, walking in the middle of nowhere, with a 'awesome' (Amelie ;-)) view.

It's past 3pm now and we are walking on a dirty road...again no shade. Two hours uphill, downhill but more uphill. I'm fighting with the heat, legs and I feel a blister. You might think this is a wonderful time to think things through\over...but NO WAY this is hard work! There's nothing more than climbing, curve after curve, rest a bit, drink a bit...everyone walks for him or herself. I hear only my own breath and footsteps, my mind is clear....empty. I need salt, minerals. I've sweat a lot and there's nothing else to drink than water, no salty snack. We have a break, 40 minutes more to go we are almost there. We' ve seen the village but it is still far away. I continue. It's better to stay with my rhythm instead of having to many short breaks. Twice I'm getting really dizzy...later I can hardly speak or think normal anymore. After 1 hour Romain and I reach the village where we will spend the night. The one and only 'shop' in town has warm sprite and coke. We go for it and buy some 'chips' too. Soon I feel better and learnt my lesson for the next day. I'll bring something on the road to refill my sources. The people here are not used to see 'white people' and stare at us. Shower\bath or whatever you can call this....food....playing cards, my sense of humor, the big smile and the motivation for the next day are all back!

Thank you Amelie, Mariia and Romain for sharing this great experience with me! Love ya....