Day 18- Luang Prabang- Elephant riding.

We were up and out early this morning for our much anticipated elephant riding.  We drove about an hour outside of town to a valley surrounded by steep, lush, peaks about 2500 feet high along the Nam Khan River. The elephant camp consisted included housing for overnight guests (tw0-legged kind) and a very nice restaurant.  

The owners of the camp rescued elephants from logging camps where they were often mistreated and abused. 

Jeri and I took the lead elephant with Rick and Harriet right behind us.  Because of their position, they became the most photographed “mahouds”: on the planet.

Our driver was pretty chatty.  He had been a mahoud for about 7 years and learned his English from his passengers.  After taking us through the river to an island , he asked me if I wanted to drive.  He hopped off and I straddled the elephant’s shoulders.  

It looked a lot easier (and safer) when he was doing it.  He was very content to practice his photography with my camera. 

I continued on back through the rushing river as the driver to the shore.  The river was high enough that I had to pick up my knees to keep from getting my hiking shoes soaked.  The current was very strong and I felt pretty unstable up there.  It was tough on the hips holding on for dear life. 

Once we made landfall, Jeri took a turn at the wheel.  She quickly decided she would have to continue to search for something else to do in retirement.  Mahouding was not going to be her chosen profession.

She thanked our elephant after our journey with an elephant treat, bananas.

Our Mahoud

We all made it back in one piece.

Riding elephants makes you walk funny

Even Molly and Suzanne looked pretty relaxed up on their respective elephants.

After our trek, we started out on a hike to a remote village of Khmus, one of the mountainous  ethnic groups in Laos.  The hike was a bout 1 and ½ hours each way. We first had to cross the Nam Khan River (this time by boat) to get to the trailhead. 

At about the halfway point, we came to a small river we had to cross.  There was a bamboo bridge, but it had been damaged during the rainy season, and had not been repaired.  Jess checked it out and decided it was too dangerous.

The alternative was wading across.  We were all remembering our respective travel clinics’ admonition “don’t gp in any fresh water!” Jess assured us that we probably would not die, and that there was a pretty good chance of most if not all of us landing in the drink if we chose to use the bridge.

S o off came the shoes (again- we thought we were safe today with no temples) and we walked across with water above our knees and our feet sinking into mud up to our ankles.  

                                      

                                               

We had one more chance to die before the village.  We found a pretty creepy, poisonous spider in a web along the trail.

Finally, the village came into sight.  As we entered, I kept replaying the movie “Volunteers” (with Tom Hanks and John Candy) in my head, and expected to see a drug dealer/warlord come strolling out of one of the huts.

Sticky Rice Drying

This 3 year old with a huge knife was as close as we came to a warlord.

      

Most of the village was out working in the rice paddies , with only a few women, and mostly little children.

The kids were all very cute and excited to see us.  Most loved posing for the camera.

It was a real eye opener to see how the rural ethnic minority Laotian lives.

On the return trip, we came across a bunch of school aged boys coming home from classes riding a Laotian tractor.

We got to cross the stream once more with one final shoe removal.

As we got closer to the river, we heard unhappy elephant sound.  We met two elephants (with mahouds) that had surprised a water buffalo.  Elephants are oddly afraid of the water buffalo (what do they know that they are not sharing with us?).  We had to scamper to stay out in front and Phil had a hard time scampering with a sore knee.  Fortunately, he was not trampled. 

Lsst stop before crossing the river was an elephant “orphanage”, where they kept a baby elephant to protect it.  We all fed it bananas, which it greatly appreciated.

With the elephants fed, it was now our turn.  We ate at the restaurant at the camp.  We were all hot and sweaty so it was fortunate that we had the entire restaurant to ourselves.

All in all, it was a pretty unique (and enjoyable) day.