Luang Prabang, Laos - Visit to village and Kuang Si Waterfall
John and I took purchased a one day trek from White Elephant Adventures to villages and a waterfall.
Apparently if it's just a simple village visit, the tour companies don't pay the village anything. One of the tour operators conjectured there's often not a lot going on in village life and a polite visit from a few foreigners provided some much needed entertainment. The village people often look at you like you're from another planet. I try to be as polite as possible, take a few pictures and smile a lot. On the trek, some of the villages require payment for passing on the trail through their village. In cases where tourist stay overnight at a village, the tour company pays the host family for the stay.
The thing that constantly amazes me about the villages is that they all have satellite TV. It appears the signals are decoded through a pirated device, so they just buy the equipment once and pay no monthly fee. I guess that how they're able to afford it. Every village also has motorbikes. They tend to be the work horse of poorer countries. They carry everything. For example, I've seen motorbikes carrying; a family of five, a queen size mattress, huge plates of glass, large earthen pots, bags of potatoes, small trees and just about anything else you can imagine. Some single drivers ride their motorbikes while holding an umbrella over there head to protect them from either sun or rain. I've seen one talking on their cell phone while riding a motorbike. They don't go at breakneck speeds, but it doesn't take much to cause an ugly accident.
We visited a school as well and there are some brave pupils that will laugh and smile, but many of them have severe scowls on their face. They're just not quite sure about these foreigners...
We started the trek and hiked through some very beautiful rice fields (not paddys, they were on a sloping hill. We came across women carrying huge sacks of peanuts on their back using a strap over their forehead to secure the load.
Further on a man was hunting birds with a flint lock rifle. They use shaved bamboo as the tinder for it. I guess it doesn't always work, as we heard him shoot and it was a misfire and sounded more like a twig breaking than a gunshot.
We came to steps leading down one side of the upper portion of the stream above the true waterfall. The curious thing was, the steps where partly covered by the waterfall. Your feet got soaked as you walked down water splattered steps.
The main waterfall itself was breathtaking! It was very high and complex. On the left side water oozed over rocks in such a way that it looked like snow. On the right there was a huge cascade of water creating it's own wind storm. A few of us ventured into the spray and it was a very refreshing, mist blasting experience.
Lower down was a swimming area with rocks and trees to jump into the water from. Some British friends practiced back flips and got quite good at it. I jumped off the tree, swam some, but decided against trying to break my neck with a back flip.
Afterwards we visited a area near the waterfall where they cared for abandoned animals, in this case a tiger and some Asian black bears.
John and I took purchased a one day trek from White Elephant Adventures to villages and a waterfall.
Apparently if it's just a simple village visit, the tour companies don't pay the village anything. One of the tour operators conjectured there's often not a lot going on in village life and a polite visit from a few foreigners provided some much needed entertainment. The village people often look at you like you're from another planet. I try to be as polite as possible, take a few pictures and smile a lot. On the trek, some of the villages require payment for passing on the trail through their village. In cases where tourist stay overnight at a village, the tour company pays the host family for the stay.
The thing that constantly amazes me about the villages is that they all have satellite TV. It appears the signals are decoded through a pirated device, so they just buy the equipment once and pay no monthly fee. I guess that how they're able to afford it. Every village also has motorbikes. They tend to be the work horse of poorer countries. They carry everything. For example, I've seen motorbikes carrying; a family of five, a queen size mattress, huge plates of glass, large earthen pots, bags of potatoes, small trees and just about anything else you can imagine. Some single drivers ride their motorbikes while holding an umbrella over there head to protect them from either sun or rain. I've seen one talking on their cell phone while riding a motorbike. They don't go at breakneck speeds, but it doesn't take much to cause an ugly accident.
We visited a school as well and there are some brave pupils that will laugh and smile, but many of them have severe scowls on their face. They're just not quite sure about these foreigners...
We started the trek and hiked through some very beautiful rice fields (not paddys, they were on a sloping hill. We came across women carrying huge sacks of peanuts on their back using a strap over their forehead to secure the load.
Further on a man was hunting birds with a flint lock rifle. They use shaved bamboo as the tinder for it. I guess it doesn't always work, as we heard him shoot and it was a misfire and sounded more like a twig breaking than a gunshot.
We came to steps leading down one side of the upper portion of the stream above the true waterfall. The curious thing was, the steps where partly covered by the waterfall. Your feet got soaked as you walked down water splattered steps.
The main waterfall itself was breathtaking! It was very high and complex. On the left side water oozed over rocks in such a way that it looked like snow. On the right there was a huge cascade of water creating it's own wind storm. A few of us ventured into the spray and it was a very refreshing, mist blasting experience.
Lower down was a swimming area with rocks and trees to jump into the water from. Some British friends practiced back flips and got quite good at it. I jumped off the tree, swam some, but decided against trying to break my neck with a back flip.
Afterwards we visited a area near the waterfall where they cared for abandoned animals, in this case a tiger and some Asian black bears.
posted by Chris at 10:00 PM
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