Laos: retreat to the rainforest
In a lodge in the Laotian rainforest, Sasha Bates finds that learning to live like the common people makes her appreciate the luxury of her own life.

You never quite know how you are going to react in a crisis. Naturally I have always assumed that I would remain cool, calm and collected. So when the guide explained that faced with a leech the very worst thing to do is to panic, I was confident. It wasn't until I saw the slimy little monster settling its jaws into my skin, that I discovered that I am a textbook example of hysteria.

It was an unfortunate time to discover my cowardice. I was in the depths of a Laos rainforest and had never felt farther from safety. A three-hour trek had brought me here from the camp, and the nearest town was another three hours by boat. Should anything more insidious than a leech clamp on to my ankle, I figured my chances of making it back to anything approaching medical civilisation were pretty slim.
You should be careful what you wish for. Eager to escape predictability and crowds, I had come in search of a truly authentic Lao experience and I had certainly found it, like it or not.

That morning I had boarded a small wooden boat in Luang Prabang in the north and enjoyed a leisurely sail along the Mekong river. Had I stayed on board I would have eventually reached Thailand, but I disembarked at Kamu Lodge, an upmarket camping resort promising total escape from phones, televisions, computers and crowds.

Climbing through the rainforest and into the hills above the resort, I had left the 21st century behind. The Kamu people still hunt, fish and cultivate the land in the traditional manner, and we passed grazing buffalo, fields of paddy, sugar cane and corn, all clinging to the hillsides. Lush and green, the scenery was stunningly beautiful and the higher we climbed the more dramatic the views of the Mekong became.

The guide's machete came into its own as the paths grew narrower, until we reached a dirt track leading into a village. Wooden shacks on stilts had pigs, dogs and chickens roaming freely beneath them while whole families lived in the single room above. Women were grinding corn, whittling bamboo, cooking on open fires, or thatching a roof with dried bamboo, while toddlers carried their baby siblings in slings on their backs. It was like a living, breathing open-air museum.

Embarrassing though it was to be walking round local homes staring as though they were exhibits, for once the curiosity felt mutual. The Kamu stared back shyly, and ran outside to look at us with just as much interest. It was hard to know who was more intrigued by whom.

One of Kamu Lodge's functions is to make sure that the money it earns from tourism is ploughed back into the local villages. A school had recently been built in the village, and now 80 per cent of the under 10s attend for nine months of the year. After weeks of travelling in an Asia where everyone I encountered stuck a hand under my nose demanding dollars, or tried to sell me the same old tourist tat I see on every other Westerner, or to entice me into their taxi, it was enormously refreshing both to be a curiosity and to feel that the money I was spending was actually doing some lasting good.

Back at the lodge I tried my hand at some traditional activities. First up, pounding rice. I had seen the women and children in the village do this seemingly effortlessly - lifting a huge pestle with one hand and bringing it rhythmically down into a giant mortar until it was full of ground rice.

When I tried, it took me two hands just to lift the pestle from the ground and bring it ineffectually down on the rice. Making no inroads whatsoever and drenched in sweat, I gave up and tried the fishing. The local practice is to fling a huge weighted net deep into the Mekong then drag it back, supposedly full of fish - or, in my case, full of mud. Slightly disheartened I then turned to my arm to the archery. But even hitting an immobile target a mere 15 feet away still proved beyond me.

By rights I should have gone hungry, having contributed nothing to the evening meal, but Kamu hospitality ensured I was treated to a traditional feast. Meals are served communally in one of two open-sided pavilions - one atmospherically positioned in the middle of a rice paddy, the other on the river bank. The food is local, of course, which means it is heavy on the water buffalo, although river fish are also served on request.

High-class camping, of course, is all the rage at the moment and although our tents at Kamu Lodge would struggle to match the designer luxury of some of the big African camps they provided a comfortable and well-equipped night's rest. You have all the advantages of camping - such as being able to leave your tent flaps open to commune fully with nature - while still having the comfort of a double bed and private bathroom with running water.

That night the running water on the outside of the tent was rather too much in evidence. I was woken in the early hours by a dramatic storm and from my bed had a ring-side seat to watch the monsoonal rain and natural lightshow illuminate the river and jungle below. The sturdiness of the tent meant I had no real fear of getting swept away, but that didn't stop me from flinching and cowering as the crashes and bangs roared directly overhead.

It was all part of a sobering understanding of why it is so important to escape the comforts of home from time to time, partly to underline our modest role in the scheme of things - out here, hundreds of things could maim or kill you: the searing heat, the mighty Mekong river, the snakes, the scorpions - and partly to gain insights into other cultures. The people who have carved a life out of this inhospitable terrain are remarkable. They can navigate the Mekong, tame the jungle, plough the fields, and are now taking on board education.

A visit to Kamu Lodge is important, not just because it is a model of environmental and sustainable tourism but because it gives jaded Westerners such as myself a chance to put their life into perspective.