The bus system in Laos obviously has a deal with the tuktuk system, because every town and every bus station is always located at least 4km out of town, where the tuktuks are waiting like sharks to pick up the recently deposited tourists. You are more than welcome to walk the distances, but in the case of Luang Namtha, the station was 8km away, so we were forced to haggle for 10 minutes before we could get a fair price into town. Upon arrival we were ushered into our lakeside bungalow where we spent the next couple of days recovering from the minibus trip through the mountains. 

It’s low season in Laos at the moment, so a town as far north as Luang Namtha is reasonably dead with only a few brave tourists wandering the streets. Most of the tourists in Laos at this time are further south in the more populated and english-speaking areas. This didn’t bother us at all and it felt good to be out of the glaring light of the western world. In saying that, Luang Namtha is still heavily tourist orientated, offering rafting and trekking to any tourist that finds themselves this far north. The town itself isn’t much to marvel, so we decided to go rafting through the jungle for two days. It was pricey as it was just the two of us, but we didn’t care.

We were introduced to our two guides Yung and Hung, Yung was younger and Hung was bigger, I kid you not. We then loaded our boat onto our tuktuk and headed up stream to take on the wild rapids of the Nam Ha river. Monsoon had just passed this part of the country by so the river was high enough for some adventure but not high enough to cause any pants to be soiled. So for most of the first day we just floated down the river without much of a worry. Although, it has to be told, for the sake of our parents, that there weren’t any worries during this trip.

Yung and Hung were awesome guides. They pointed out all the things that our untrained eyes easily missed and worked well together at keeping everyone entertained. Hung was the local with the knowhow, who was skilled in all sorts of village life, from bamboo craft to ratang ball, a form of soccer combined with volleyball. Yung spoke perfect English and taught us about the biodiversity of the river as well as how to tell the Lao that we didn’t eat meat. “Por koi borken sin” being the magic words. 

We carried on to a small island for lunch, where Hung and Yung prepared all kinds of vegetarian delights, including sticky rice, the main form of rice you'll find in Laos. We ate from our jungle leaf plates till our stomachs were bursting, dodged the maggot ridden bananas and watched Hung work his craft magic on a shaft of bamboo. Soon turning them into a pair of cups and shot “glasses” for us. He carved special messages into them for us. Richelle’s saying “beautiful girl” and mine saying “hello”, you can tell who his favourite was. 

After a day rafting we wound up at the local village where we’d be spending the night. Hung and Yung immediately disappeared to announce us and begin the preparations for dinner, by which I mean drinking beers and playing ratang ball for a couple of hours. We were kind of left by the river for a few hours by ourselves, we didn’t really care and snoozed while watching the locals kids play with the boat.

Yung showed us around the village, where we found Hung playing ball with the rest of the young men. The setup is very much rural with farm animals roaming freely, children running naked and a non-existent electrical grid. Yung took us up to the top of a lookout to see the layout of the village’s rice fields, which covered most of the land on the opposite side of the river as well as the mountains. When harvested, there’d be enough to feed the village for the whole year, which most rely solely on as they live a complete village life without any form of income. Although, they receive money every time a group stayed with them, it's usually not enough to play an active part in the larger society. Luckily for them the social system in Laos is good and the government is fairly free of corruption, so most of their external needs like higher education and healthcare are free.

The fact that we didn’t eat meat perplexed them, as these people are known to eat anything, from cats to rats to bats, although only in the most dire moments, so we were told. A big dinner was prepared for us by the family we were staying with. There was sticky rice, steamed greens, stewed tomatoes, baked pumpkin, steamed and salted beans and a green soup. It was all vegetarian and all delicious. It was the best meal we’d had in Southeast Asia. We went to bed early and listened to all the different sounds that a rural village made at night. 

The next morning we visited the local school. It’s attached to the village and all the kids under 10 are required to go. Richelle and I were nervous about causing too much of a distraction so we just peaked through the window and left the kids to their morning maths. Breakfast was fried egg and more sticky rice, they have it with everything. We found two new puppies tucked away under a house. When they saw us they ran to us, thinking we were the bringer of food. We gave them as many cuddles as we could in ten minutes then headed for the boat.

We kept on going to a tributary, where the Nam Ha joins the faster flowing Nam Tha and a rope swing hangs temptingly from a tree. Hung, the monkey that we now know him to be, instantly pulled it from it’s place and flipped from the rope, neatly landing without much of a splash. Not one to be outdone, I took the rope, held it tightly between my slippery fingers, plotted my trajectory and leapt from the trunk. I felt the sensation of flying over the boats and then the g’s as I continued upward and out. I was a machine. A terrible falling machine, as I lost my grip and plummeted into the water. The sting of laughter washed over me. I wanted to let myself float down the river for eternity. I pretended to laugh along but was thinking fuck that. I rushed out of the water and recovered the swing. This time I’d hang on. I climbed even higher and swung myself more in a circle, I again felt the pull of gravity as it attempted to shame me another time. This time, however, I held on and arched right out. Content with hanging on I let go in triumph, no somersaults for this lad. Exulted, we climbed back into the boat, and floated for 5 minutes before we landed a last time on the shore. We waited a few more minutes for our tuktuk to arrive and headed back into town. Our faces were shining, our skin was burnt, our clothes were soaked and our bellies were full. If you come to Luang Namtha, go rafting.