Grandad and Jo
A bit like a national park, PKK encompasses 2000 sq km of sandstone mountain range. It is home to elephants, gibbons, bears, tigers and clouded leopards although the visitor is unlikely to see any of these apart from elephants (in season). We researched getting there on our own steam with advice from the tourist info centre in Vientaine. Two bus rides and a car ride and quite some time later we arrived in Ban Hat Khai, an agricultural village on the edge of the NPA.
Our accommodation was on the ground floor of a village house whilst our host family slept upstairs. A thin mattress on the floor, mossie net, electric fan and sheets strung up on lines made our room. All meals were composed of a big pot of sticky rice, a couple of vege and a dish of meat. It is considered impolite not to eat up so we had huge helpings of rice and all the veg, but the oesophagus soup and crunchy fried tripe were not so popular.
The following morning our two guides arrived and took us to a tail boat on the river, we travelled upstream then walked through a variety of forest (bamboo, dipterocarps, orchids) to an escarpment with fab views of the mountain range, lowland and the Mekong in the distance. Across the valley a new road cut a red scar through the forest, our guides informed us that it was to service a tunnel to divert water for a hydro power scheme.
The second day started the same but to a different destination, a waterfall. Luxury, a swim, followed by picnic on the river bank of sticky rice, pork, cucumber and vege. The guides carry lunch in little billies and plastic bags, and the rice is carried in tightly woven bamboo pots that are a speciality of the village. The walk back to the village was along a road, at the edge of the NPA (delineated by a check point) the deforestation started, rain forest trashed to plant rubber trees. Priceless to be the only foreigners with the villagers all to ourselves.
Our accommodation was on the ground floor of a village house whilst our host family slept upstairs. A thin mattress on the floor, mossie net, electric fan and sheets strung up on lines made our room. All meals were composed of a big pot of sticky rice, a couple of vege and a dish of meat. It is considered impolite not to eat up so we had huge helpings of rice and all the veg, but the oesophagus soup and crunchy fried tripe were not so popular.
The following morning our two guides arrived and took us to a tail boat on the river, we travelled upstream then walked through a variety of forest (bamboo, dipterocarps, orchids) to an escarpment with fab views of the mountain range, lowland and the Mekong in the distance. Across the valley a new road cut a red scar through the forest, our guides informed us that it was to service a tunnel to divert water for a hydro power scheme.
The second day started the same but to a different destination, a waterfall. Luxury, a swim, followed by picnic on the river bank of sticky rice, pork, cucumber and vege. The guides carry lunch in little billies and plastic bags, and the rice is carried in tightly woven bamboo pots that are a speciality of the village. The walk back to the village was along a road, at the edge of the NPA (delineated by a check point) the deforestation started, rain forest trashed to plant rubber trees. Priceless to be the only foreigners with the villagers all to ourselves.