Leeeech!!!

Cooling off under a waterfall

So I wanted to do some serious hiking. And I got serious jungle hiking. So much so that I have officially declared a moratorium on jungle hiking until further notice. The jungle in Laos is about as hot and humid as the jungle in Thailand. I sweated profusely all the time and exploited every opportunity to jump into a river or to cool off under a waterfall.

Hiking in the Lao jungle

Because it is still the end of the monsoon season, the jungle is wet and that means leeches abound. I have never seen a leech before, much less had one bite me. Until now. I was forewarned, I wore long pants and I pulled my socks over the cuffs of my pants, but these yucky pests get in nevertheless. I was actually quite lucky for there was no leech on the first day, only one on the second day and on the third day I was so nervous about getting another one that I finally figured out what our guide did: he checked his shoes about every two minutes and had a lighter handy to burn off any buggers that dared touch him. So I didn’t get any leeches on the third day because I also checked myself every two minutes and I stayed close to the guide so that whenever I spotted a leech climbing or burrowing into the seams of my shoe, I asked him to burn it off. He really enjoyed zapping them. Needless to say, I was so relieved when the jungle was over. I thought I might even dream leeches.

Bicycling among rice fields

After the jungle hiking I rented a bicycle in Luang Namtha for a day of sightseeing around town. I discovered that bicycling is a much more pleasurable sport than hiking in the hot and humid jungle. There are no leeches on the roads, the wind blows so it isn’t so unbearably hot, the traffic goes on the right side of the roads in Laos (it's on the left in Thailand) which is fine with me and there isn’t too much of it so that is seems reasonably safe to be on the road.