Luang Nam Tha; A Walk In The Jungle

From northern Thailand I travel to Laos, crossing the border at Huay Xai I make my way to Luang Nam Tha. It's a small dusty town in the north of Laos and it's main draw is the nearby national protected area of Nam Ha; a vast jungle, home to clouded leopard and tiger. Nam Ha is what I've come for and so I set out on a two day trekking and kayaking tour. We begin in a village on the outskirts of the NPA where farmers are sharpening their machetes and naked children are swimming in the river. All the villagers work on the land and there are lots of rubber tree plantations in the surrounding area just outside the safe area of Nam Ha. We trek through the dense jungle and wonder at the presence of great beasts under the very same vast canopy as us. Of course we are to close to the outskirts and too noisy to see any of the inhabiting creatures. It's a tough challenging trek, mostly uphill and steep. We hike for several hours like this, stopping periodically to drink, catch our breath and wipe the sweat from our eyes. After what seems like an eternity we finally reach the top of the mountain, yay! After a lunch spread on banana leaves we continue walking for several more hours thankfully with a bit more downhill, until we return to the village where a refreshing swim in the river delights us almost as much as the children. We spend the night in a Lantern village where pigs, chickens, ducks and dogs roam freely around and very happy and dirty children run around squealing excitably. A man butchers a dog by the river, presumably for his dinner and people in the village are feeding pigs and tending fires. We stay with the village's 'head' family in a large bamboo house where they feed us copious amounts of delicious food. The second day of the tour is for kayaking and after breakfast we leave the little village on inflatable vessels, paddling down the river. As it's well into the dry season the river is very shallow and quite difficult to navigate. Many areas are too shallow to pass and invisible rocks spatter the areas that aren't so it's a tricky but more interesting ride as three of the kayaks manage to bail one passenger at various points including my friend Julia who is thrown from her seat as she crashes into kiwi and I who are stuck on a rock and rather inconveniently blocking the path! After a few rapids and a splash of white water we finally arrive at the finish point completing a tiring but very satisfying tour glimpsing the beauty of Nam Ha national protected area.