Anyone getting sick of reading about treks yet? Well I'm not sick of doing them.

Feeling a bit under the weather today, so I'm avoiding the heat and taking some time to blog.
Luang Prabang was nice, but more of a place to take a break from traveling and hang out for a couple of days than a place you want to be when you're traveling alone. There's not much to do and it's difficult to meet people there since there are no hostels and the town shuts down at about 11 p.m. I quickly got bored, and headed to the northern town of Luang Nam Tha.

I booked a minibus there, but arrived at the bus station to find that I was the only person in the van. This changed quickly, though, as my driver began stopping every few miles to ask people on the side of the road if they were heading North. We picked up several people and the van was completely full most of the way there. I wasn't complaining. More money in my driver's pocket, and I don't have to worry about the awkward silence of a 9 hour drive.

The roads in northen Laos are much worse than the south. For the first couple of hours, it was smooth sailing, but we soon came to the unfinished area, and spent the next several hours crawling along over huge bumps and constantly stopping to clear the road for construction trucks. It was rather interesting, though, to see the way road work is done here. Most of the workers were Chinese from the Yunnan province, and most of the equipment was man-powered. Men were literally breaking boulders with nothing but a big mallet, sifting concrete mix by throwing shovels-full at a giant screen, and carrying supplies up and down the mountain on wheelbarrows. There were tent camps lining the highway the entire way, and signs reading something to the effect of "Projects are the foundation of a nation, and hard work is the basis for all projects."

I arrived in Luang Nam Tha after dark and expected to spend all of the next day hanging out in the town and checking out my trekking options. But no sooner had I put down my bags and headed out for dinner than a group of people stopped me and invited me to go along on their trek the next morning. The more people, the cheaper the cost, so I took them up on their offer and by nine the next morning, I was in a tuk tuk headed for the Nam Ha NPA, a massive forest preserve that's reputed to be one of the world's great spots for nature lovers.

Luang Nam Tha is really foggy at this time of year, so visibility was pretty low and the views form the mountaintops weren't the best. But the cool air and cloudiness made walking through the jungle more bearable. And the jungle here is awesome! Unlike Cambodia, there is no deforestation inside the Nam Ha, no burning, and since the climate is a bit cooler and less dry, more greenery. Plus, the more mountainous terrain made the trek itself more of a challenge, which I enjoyed.

We spent a bit of time at a Khmu village in the morning, then traveled on and spent the night at a Lenten village of about 65 people that night. It was more of a visit than a homestay (which I liked--sometimes you can feel a bit vouyeristic staying in these people's houses and just observing them while they stare back at you) and we stayed in a small hut on the edge of the village. Among the highlights of the visit:

-Playing with the little kids. Some of them were scared of us, but others warmed up quickly. Especially after one of the trekkers brought out a bag of balloons. The little boy had no idea how to blow them up and it took him a while to adjust to their weightlessness, but once he got the hang of it, he loved it. We spent a good while bopping the balloon back and forth with one another.

-Fishing in the river. They use nets and a small homemade spear to catch the fish, which include a freshwater species of blowfish. We ate the spoils for dinner, bones and all, in Laos' national dish of fish laap.

-The FOOD! We might have been hiking several miles each day, but I'm sure we took in more than double the calories we burned. Every meal was delicious and aside from the first day's lunch, which our guide brought, it was all prepared with local ingredients-mostly bananas, bamboo, fresh caught fish and meat, and some plants and herbs from the jungle. Wish I could eat as well every day in the U.S. as I did while sitting on the dirt floor of a grass hut.

After returning home from the second day of hiking, we took our guide out for dinner, then I hightailed it to the border Town of Huay Xai the next morning, took a ferry across the river, and said hello to Thailand.

I made it to Chiang Mai last night and am laying low today with a slight flu or something. I'm starting to feel a little travel weary after the whirlwind through Laos, so I think I'll hang out in Chiang Mai and the surrounding areas for a few days before heading back to Bangkok to meet my brother, Jim, who's coming in for a weeklong visit. We'll do a bit of Central Thailand, then head south and hit up some of the islands. Bring on the beaches!

Trying to get artsy with some incense.

Trying to get artsy with some candlewax and a Buddha shrine.

The beginning of our gastronomic journey through the Nam Ha NPA. Squash with tofu, stir fried veggies, another veggie-meat concoction, and pureed eggplant with spices.

The classic lesson, with full color illustrations: Don't shit where you eat.

It's not every day you see a baby wielding a knife.

World's tiniest frog! These were all over on the riverbank where we stopped for a break. About a quarter of the size of a fingernail.

Our guide, Ponsap, gives out corn cakes to the Khmu children as part of the government food assistance program. The primary school in this village just opened this year.

Yet another test of my wits in the midst of creepy crawleys. Dozens of daddy long legs swarming the underbrush on our hike.

Vines are neat.

Another jungle feast: Ratton, banana flower and bamboo shoot soup cooked in a piece of bamboo, with the everpresent accompaniment of sticky rice.