Dear readers: as we are coming towards the end of our trip, things precipitated and we’ve been falling behind on our blog posts. But we promise this was not (all) due to laziness. Our second post about our Laos adventures found its way to Southeast Asia Backpacker magazine instead of the Slow Train blog. We hope to be able to share a link with you soon, to that article and maybe a few others that we get published.
In the meanwhile, here are a few photos from our beautiful jungle hike and stay tuned for a post on our adventures in Thailand soon.
Women selling turnip-like vegetables and bamboo shoots on the side of the road from Luang Prabang to Luang Nam Tha
Various jelly and soy-based deserts sold in the market at Nam Tha. If you’re wondering, they’re chewy and not overly sweet and come in a little plastic bag with a straw.
Our first lunch of the trek, in a Khmu village house
Early morning on day 2 of trekking: fog crawls over the mountain walls that surround us. In the foreground, the bamboo structure you can glimpse is the communal village shower where everyone washes, covered in sarongs for modesty.
And this is how you drink bamboo water, the cleanest, best filtered water you can get, with just a hint of fresh cut grass undertaste. And it’s slightly woodsy on the nose, with a rose finish…
The lovely hills of Laos
One of the villagers kept an owl as a pet. Sadly, this was one of the very few live birds we saw in Laos. In fact, their absence was conspicuous.
Drinking beers and taking in the views from a villager’s porch.
A typical village house in Laos – on stilts due to the possibility of floods or mud slides and for protection from animals, covered with a thatched roof.
When the sun finally came out on our last day of trekking, the landscape was lovely and lush.
Slow Train to the Coast 