SO. We'd heard 2 reviews on this one:
1. It's so beautiful. Get a boat there and go swimming. It's really leisurely.
2. We trekked for 3 hours through mud. One poor woman had some many leeches on her that all her arms were bleeding by the time we got back.
Hmmm now this is us I'm talking about. Which version do you really think we ended up on?!
We didn't want to do a group tour thing so we just hopped in a tuk tuk and asked him to take us there. More of an adventure doing it alone and all that. We got there at about 9am after I nearly wet myself on the way. I have to set the scene ok! You need to know things like that. We'd got up early doors to see those monks marching the streets. So we get there and the driver says he'll wait for us. We're just going to see the waterfall right? Yep. First up were some bears. They looked bored. Then we ventured on and came to the waterfall pretty much straight away. It wasn't that hot yet being so early and we were aware of leeches. So we didn't have a dip. Just admired the view and started climbing up the hill to get to the top of the waterfall. It took a good 30 minutes. Jan had to talk me through climbing a load of steep steps right next to the waterfall, and then I had to talk her through crawling under a brach full of big ants. We're a pretty good trekking team. We don't need no guide. We got to the top and were faced with the jungle. We saw a massive spider up in the tree and tried to capture him on camera. It was actually here that I found the 'macro' feature on my camera. Hence why from now on you're going to see alot of shots with something close up in focus, and the background all blurry. It's me being arty ok! I don't think I'll get bored of it either.
So, top of the waterfall. Jungle. Lots of flies and nats landing on us. Looking for spiders and stuff. And it was pretty muddy. Neither of us mentioned it but we were both thinking it. Leeches. Flippin' leeches. We decided to try find the road which should have just been that way (pointing right) but it turns out it wasn't. So then we came back and went left. We could have just gone back down the waterfall way but it was a pretty steep climb and where's the fun in that anyway!! So we ducked and dived under ant infested branches and twigs and leaves, but were still mainly concerned about all the mud and the leeches. They started appearing but we were on guard ready to flick them off ASAP. It was good that it was so early as we were the only ones there and hence felt free to let out scream. It helps to cope with leeches aswell. Scream them off. And what not to do is stop to take a picture or film of a cool leaf that looked as though it was just spinning in thin air. Which is what I did. But because I was so engrossed in the leaf spinning action I wasn't on leech duty and didn't notice the little shit that slid in to my shoe. By the time I had noticed he was pretty much finished and was all fat (from my blood). I screamed him off and then screamed some more at the blood that was pouring out my foot. Jan screamed as well. Lots of screams. We ran for a bit, screaming along the way, then stopped to discuss (using high pitched screamy voices) whether we should go back and climb down or continue (but we hopped around whilst discussing so not to be stood still for more leeches). We decided just to carry on so continued hopping over as much mud as possible. The day was getting hot but we were doing really well. Finally after trekking through a jungle of mud slides we heard water and came to a river!! YEHH, we must be getting near. Nope. So we walked along the now open and dry mud track. We came across a couple of water buffalo, who when we asked them what way we should go, just ran in to the bush. Rude. Finally we found another road to meander along and came across a couple of huts. We chatted to a couple of Laos blokes who lived there. We didn't have that much in common though so headed back the other way. We were 3 hours in to our trek now and wondered whether Mr tuk tuk would still be there! We came across a weird Laos man. I won't go in to why he was weird. But he was, and we didn't want to be around him. He luckily went off in the other direction and we legged it down a new road. About 30 minutes later we came to a tarmac road. YEHHHH!!!!! We went the wrong way for a little while (obviously) and then turned back and went the right way, eventually making it back to where we started. PHEW. Tuk tuk man was still there although we're not too sure what he did for 4 hours. Woops!
We had so much fun though. Again, that was looking back. But we do still laugh at our screaming. We want to become tour guides for the same trek as we're so at home with nature.
Quote of the day came from Jan:
"Why can't it just all be beautiful butterflies?!"
Wouldn't be much fun would it Jan!!
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