Day 1 Start with a 1.5 hour drive to the Nam Xuang river. We’ll cross by small boat and begin our trekking 4-5 hours through beautiful dense jungle. There are both Hmong and Khmu villages to visit and where we can stay overnight as preferred by you or your guide. Your guide will introduce you to the villages, prepare dinner, and tell you everything you want to know about these remarkable people’s lives. These villages tend to be highly interactive. Please ask to join any activity you see.

On Day 2 we’ll wake, enjoy breakfast, say our farewells, and begin our day trek along a stream to a larger and equally remote village of adjacent Hmong and Khmu villages with an interesting history. Plenty to see and do as you enjoy your 2nd overnight.

On Day 3 after spending two days trekking through jungle, you enjoy a beautiful ascent as you crest a mountain before descending to the river from which you started this tour. Take a swim in the Nam Xuang river and enjoy lunch on it’s banks before concluding this amazing tour.

Itinerary

Day 1:  8:30 a.m. meeting, introduction to group and guides, deposit your luggage in our care while on the tour, and briefing on tour before departure.  A delicious breakfast is included on all home-stays, provided at the onset of the tour.

Begin our tour with a drive of about 2 hours north of the Luang Prabang, half along a paved road and then along an unpaved road paralleling the beautiful Nam Xuang River.  We’ll pass countless villages through rugged mountains on our drive as you leave everything resembling a city far behind you.

We’ll cross the Nam Xuang river by wooden boat and begin our trekking through dense old-growth jungle.  The first day of the tour is largely shaded as we make our way to our home-stay villages.

On this tour we alternatively visit and homestay at two villages, one Khmu and the other Hmong to reduce the impact on either one in particular.  We take time to explore one of the villages and then home-stay at the other so that you can explore both ethnic groups in these remote villages. Our guides will cook for you, help translate if you would like to talk with anyone in the village, and will inform you about any aspect of local life.

Day 2:  Wake for breakfast about 7:30, pack, and say your farewells.  By 9:00 we’ll start hiking along a stream bed (during the rainy seasons there are small waterfalls) through gorgeous jungle.  You will be getting your feet wet.  These best footwear are open sandals such as Tevas.

Arrive by about 2 or 3:00 p.m. at a Khmu village situated in a valley surrounded by high mountains.  Your first night was in a small village.  The village on the second night consists of two very large adjacent Hmong and Khmu villages making for a different experience both nights.  You arrive much earlier in the day so you have plenty of time to explore the villages and interact with the people.  You stay as a very welcome guest in the village chief’s home.

Day 3:  Wake for breakfast about 7:00.  Bid your farewells to your host family and begin a trek of medium difficulty up a mountain with beautiful views.  After cresting the mountain you’ll begin a descent down fairly steep switchbacks for about 2 hours to the Nam Xuang river.  Eat lunch on the river banks, take a swim in the river, cross the river by boat to meet the truck, then drive back to Luang Prabang about 2 .5 hours arriving before 5:00 p.m.