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Our trip to Laos (Ban Na & Ban Hatkai)
Related to country: Laos

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Sven de Jaeger & Tim De Keyser

We went for a 2 day experience in Laos to go to the villages of Ban Na & Ban HatKai. After leaving Nong Khai/Thailand at 8 a.m. in the morning we arrived in Ban Na at 12.30 p.m on Saturday.. After a good lunch we were finally ready to go into the jungle. The first thing you notice when you enter the jungle is the sign that says “NO ENTRY”. You can never go in the jungle in Ban Na without a guide because you’ll probably get lost. After a long walk through the jungle of almost 3 hours we arrived at the elephant tower, the place where everybody stays the night. A great meal of sticky rice, pork, vegetables and a spicy sauce was prepared for us by the guides. When everybody had eaten enough it was time to go to bed. In the tower you just sleep on a small matras in a sleeping bag, it’s really a big adventure. You might even see wild elephants at night. When they come you are wide awake in no time. Although we got up at night to go to the toilet we didn’t see any elephants. Finally we woke up in the morning to return to Ban Na village. Even though we hadn’t seen any elephants, just the experience of walking through the jungle with the idea that you might ran in to them is amazing. When we arrived at 10 a.m. in the village of Ban Na again we asked Buntanom, the man who arranged our trip into the jungle, to take us to Ban HatKai. This village is about 20 km from Ban Na. We wanted to go there because we knew that Shaun, Ida and Ellen were staying there. They were the people we met on the information days. Normally we were just going to look them up for a few minutes and then return to Thailand. But it only took us 5 seconds to decide that we wanted to stay there for a bit longer. This village is something we had never seen before and people there hardly ever saw foreigners like us.
Thongvan was the only person in the village of Ban HatKai who spoke English. We had to call him Wan. Because Shaun, Ida and Ellen were planning a hiking tour in the jungle we decided to go along with them and three guides, Bunkian, Kammoon and Wan. First we had to do a boat trip for about an hour which was already amazing. Everything in Laos was so beautiful and untouched by tourism! Finally we arrived at the Keng Mang Waterfall where we got out of the boat to get into the jungle. Going through the jungle at Ban HatKai was even more amazing then the jungle trip we had at Ban Na. After 2 hours hiking through the jungle we stopped to have some lunch. After lunch we continued our walk to the top of the mountain. Once on top of it I just couldn’t believe my eyes: what an amazingly beautiful place it was. Between the top of that mountain and the one we could see on the other side there was a river called the Namang River, which of course we couldn’t see. But just to be on top of the mountain where almost nobody else had been was so amazing. We took a 15 minute break, took loads of pictures and then returned to the foot of the mountain because we had to be back before nightfall. When we arrived there at the Keng Mang Waterfall we all went for a good swim and then went back to the village of Ban HatKai by boat. When we finally got back into town it was already 7 p.m. Shaun, Ida and Ellen had to go to the temple to teach the local kids some English. Because it was too late for us to return to Thailand we joined them to teach some English. The kids are so excited that we just kept on teaching for more than 2 hours. Finally we had to stop because children have to go to bed some time. After dinner we stayed at Kammoon’s house to stay the night. In the morning Wan and Kammoon drove us to the big road with their motorcycles where we could take a bus to Vientiane which is the capital of Laos. From Vientiane we took the TukTuk to the border with Thailand again.

These past two days had been the most amazing days of my life! I just want to go back to Ban HatKai right now!
© Sven de Jaeger / Februari 2008

February 16, 2008 | 9:00 AM Comments  0 comments

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