No gear in the world…

We had a discussion recently with some friends about the utility of outdoor gear. Does Gortex really make a difference? Do Vibram soles really help with hiking? Are bike socks different from snowboard socks? Like really different? And is it worth spending hundreds of dollars on individual pieces of gear?

I am a huge outdoor gear fan. Any excuse to get a new special backpack, a lighter Gortex jacket, a smaller but more powerful headlamp. The friend I was talking with about gear would call me a sucker, and a gear marketers dream. We had a healthy discussion, which continued in spurts throughout the weekend we spent snowshoeing, skiing and snowboarding. Who was drier, huh?

Well, our recent trekking experience in Laos leads me to believe I am a sucker. After just two days of slipping through rivers of mud in the jungle, I think I would have been better off with a pair of flip flops and a bathing suit. All the Gortex, sealed shoes with special hiking soles and light-frame fitted backpacks couldn’t protect us. The trek itself was with Green Discovery, an ecotourism company which is also great at marketing. I loved their posters and brochures. We were promised an exciting three-day trek through the Nam Ha protected area, with local guides, and overnight stays in forest camps.

We set out with our guide, a very affable guy called Mr Phet (pet, like the animal, he said). Phet was great. As we climbed up along a creek, he insisted on making us walking sticks. Using his trusty knife which could truly cut through anything, he cut two lengths of bamboo, one for each of us. He cut one end at a sharp angle, so we could use it to dig into the trail. These things were lifesavers. Througout the day, we used them to ferry down steep muddy banks. To balance on “bridges” consisting of one thin log. To test the water’s depth where there was no bridge. To flick leeches off of our shoes.

Along the way, Phet showed us the plants which the locals used for food and for medicine. There was wild galangal, cardomon, ginger and mint. Tender young ferns. There were leaves you could boil up to cure morning sickness. Or to rub on open wounds to stop the bleeding (he showed us, this really worked). Rattan, used for building housing, and furniture. People here also eat rattan in stew – the young shoots are delicious. There were massive “elephant ear” leaves, used to treat malaria. “When the elephant ear leaves taste sweet, you have malaria,” he explained. “And when it’s bitter, you don’t have it. So we drink it for many days until it tastes bitter.” ( I personally would like everyone to have access to artemesinin combination therapy- a proven treatment based on a traditional plant extract. Phet said that many children in the area still die of malaria, and that mosuitoes, not tigers, was the truly frightening animal.)

The trail itself would have been fine if it were dry. But it’s rainy season here. So we faced trails which were kid-fun muddy in parts – a little splashing around. And truly perilous in others. I had tried to ignore the woman at our hotel that morning, who was fresh off the trails with a badly sprained ankle. The closest villagers had to carry her out on a stretcher. My beige pants turned red with mud. And my new Patagonia shoes were sopping wet – the Vibram soles so caked they were useless.

Phet walked easily ahead of us, wearing simple Converse-style hightops he had stepped down at the ankles, so they were like slip-ons. Our other two guides, Mr Aunchan and Mr Long, who had gone ahead of us to prepare the camp, wore flip-flops, and carried all of their supplies in plastic bags. After about 6 hours, we were wet, very dirty, and looking forward to a rest.

The forest camp was, well, really in the deep of the forest. It consisted of narrow swathe in the jungle, with a small bamboo/rattan “kitchen”, where the boys had started building a fire, a largish elevated hut with one room and a few rattan mats on the floor, a clean toilet, and a table and chairs made of bamboo, which I swear Julia and I could have built ourselves. That’s to say, it was pretty rickety. The forest was thick all around us. Phet told us there was a stream down the hill. Ah yes, another muddy hill.

At the stream, I noticed my trousers were red with mud, but also red with blood at the knee. A leech had really filled up on my patella. Oh well. We washed up a bit , and went back to camp, and waited. We couldn’t really help with cooking, as Phet and the boys had it under control. I didn’t have a book. Julia did, and I tried to let her read. I am not really great when I have nothing to do. It was only about 430 pm. The mossies were bloodthirsty. The cicadas were singing. The frogs were bellowing. I thought the tigers might be circling. And we had hours to go before bedtime.

The food came, and it was really excellent. Laos food is extremely fresh. Phet had in fact been picking a lot of our meal along the way. And on one little fire he and his colleagues had managed a true feast. Fresh fern stir fry, the traditional chili jeow, a tomato sauce which would put many Italians to shame, a mushroom stew flavoured with fresh herbs, and mounds of sticky rice. You basically take a bit of sticky rice, roll it into a little ball, and dip it into shared dishes. It was fun, and tasted fantastic.

After dinner we had Lao Lao – the Laos homemade rice wine. The basic ingredients are rice, rice husks, yeast, and water. A few shots of that and we were ready for bed. It was about 730 pm. It was going to be a long night. Phet, Anchaun and Long had prepared the beds. They were surprisingly fine – mattresses on the floor, draped with big mosuito nets. Still, I was not looking forward to trying to sleep for 12 hours, and especially, to going to the bathroom outside at night – something I’ve always hated, since my childhood cottage outhouse days.

That night, I understood how the jungle could drive a person mad. The cacaphony of cicadas, birds, frogs, flies, and I didn’t really want to know what else, penetrated through my eardrums into the depths of my skull. Sounds started to stop making sense – the bullfrog croaking which initially sounded innocent, turned menacing, swinging through my ears like evil horror film whispers in Dolby stereo. Trying to focus on just one sound was impossible – a rustle in the jungle was drowned out by the chorus of beasts. My imagination ran far too wild at times. The night was unending.

I probably slept more than I thought I had. We were both relieved when Phet and the boys rose to start breakfast. Light, morning. And like dinner had been the night before, breakfast was amazingly good. We put on our wet, muddy “gear” in relatively good spirits. We set off walking, on what was to be a light day.

It started well, and we made good time up and down and across the hills of the Nam Ha Forest. But then the rains began again. A twenty minute downhill walk was interminable. Picking my way down the muddy slopes, trying not to fall. And falling. I really really didn’t want to be carried out on a stretcher. Julia is more lithe of foot, and made a valiant effort to help my ungainly frame down.

Phet continued to be a champion. He made us “umbrellas” out of big palm fronds. Our gortex jackets were simply too hot to wear in the jungle heat. He produced another devine lunch when the rain let up, and we ate it on a palm frond table. Then it started to rain again, and we had hours more walking to the next camp.

I should say I am not a complainer. I love hiking. I’ve trekked for 25 days in a row in Nepal. Happily hiked in Ladakh, in the Canadian Rockies, in the Swiss and French Alps with Julia. But these steep muddy downhills were the most difficult walking I’ve ever done. And the only time I thought “I really don’t want to be out here anymore.”

Julia and I made a pact. If the next camp was comfortable enough, we would stay. If it was not, we would ask to trek out that same day. As we approached the camp (after I’d fallen through a rotten “bridge”) – it all looked promising enough. Instead of being in the jungle, it was on a higher open grassy plateau. Cows were grazing nearby. From a distance, the hut we would sleep in looked somewhat inviting. But as we neared things weren’t so promising. Let’s just say the cows had been allowed a little too close to the hut. Flies were feasting on the significant offerings they had left behind. Flies and wasps were also enjoying the dinner leftovers from the night before. The toilets were filthy. I think Julia and I were secretly glad, as we didn’t want to spend another night in the forest. And all of our clothes kept in our great backpacks were sopping wet.

We told Phet we wanted to hike out. He didn’t bat an eye, and said “no problem.”

We spent 3.5 more hours hiking out to the road – over every imaginable terrain. Slash and burn forest, trail so overgrown, Phet had to spend several minutes cutting a path, down more muddy slopes, through thigh-deep water, and down, finally, to beautifully green rice paddies, which glowed in the dusky light.

We passed some local people who had been gathering something in the forest. They wore flip flops, and the women were hauling huge loads, strapped across their foreheads in light cotton bags. I had to let them pass me, as they were so much faster.

We arrived at the road as the last light faded to dark. The air smelled of cooking fires. People still walked up the road, going home after a long day in the rice paddies. “Sabai dee,” they greeted us.

It is now three days later. My Patagonia shoes just dried today. Our gortex jackets are still flecked with mud. Our backpacks need a really good wash. My leech bites are still itchy. I left my pants behind at the hotel.

And next time, we’re wearing flip flops.