Thursday 28th October, Kho Moung to Ban Hin, Return of the Leeches

It had rained again all night and just after breakfast the rains finally stopped. We had arranged to visit the local primary school today before we started trekking. The group and the local children thoroughly enjoyed our visit and we gained a good insight into village life.

This village has no vehicle access and all our luggage had been carried, from the track end to the homestays and back, by the locals. My bag was almost larger and probably heavier than the girl who carried it back uphil to the jeeps.

After our short visit to the school we started our trek to Ban Hin our next overnight stop. Within minutes of leaving the village the heavy rains returned and the path were again flowing with water and very slippy. Chris took a heavy fall on a short descent, badly hurting her arm, fortunately it was only badly bruised and not broken. A number of others performed spectacular bum slides on the thick red mud, on a particularly difficult section of track.

The leeches also decided to return for another bite of the group and three more clients had them removed during the morning and running repairs made to the wounds.

Just before lunch the track improved considerably and we reached a river. We used the opportunity of flowing water to remove the thick mud from our boots and shorts. Jenny and Mike had fun washing each others shorts.

After lunch our route took us through Pho Duan, the largest village in this area. Shortly after this we followed a smaller track to our final overnight stop at Ban Hin. The trail was now much improved and we made good speed through the paddy fields to the homestay. As we arrived the heavy rains returned again and we were fortunate to have reached shelter. Unknown to us these rains were to continue all through the night and make for a very interesting final day to our trek.