Lao Lao and I

Hi again. When we last saw our hero, he was striding off alone again to tiny Luang Nam Tha. I had planned on going straight on further north to Muong Sing, but when I stopped for lunch by the bus station, I ran into a few fellow solo travellers -Toby the Aussie, Merit the Mexican, and Roger the Swiss- and I decided to stay there.

New Years actually turned out to be pretty tame. We all took rooms together in a little fakey traditional bungalow type place. Thinking we'd really feast, we stopped in at an Indian place that according to the Lonely Planet had the best Indian food in SE Asia. Not quite, though the accidental dramatic entertainment was certainly interesting. While we were hungrily and impatiently waiting, a fistfight broke out in the kitchen, causing tears and a few people to storm off in a huff. Apparently the chef was one of them. After that, our night was just card games and whiskey cokes until after what we think may or may not have been approximately midnight according to our many watches.

On New Years day, Merit, Roger and I rented bikes and did a tour of the villages in the area which was really cool. The whole area is gorgeous with rice patties and small tribal villages scattered about. Every village had a party going on and we got so many invitations to join them. We accepted a couple, but after more than a few lao laos (rice moonshine) and Beer Laos we had to turn down most or we would've been zigzagging home.

At one point, while going down a dusty road, we got stopped by a couple guys with AK47s slung over their shoulders. They were dressed in regular clothes so I don't think they were army. It was a little unnerving at first, but they just made sure we knew where we were going and sent us on our way. I really wanted a picture but figured it wasn't nice to annoy the men with guns. Since then, I've come across guys armed like this on the bus and elsewhere so it doesn't seem to be a big deal.

All along the way we went, there were some obvious signs of the occasional tourist, but we still got many stares and never saw another foreigner. Roger had lived in South America for much of his life so he and Merit spoke mostly in Spanish. We had odd conversations with one person speaking in one language and getting answers in another. I loved that random kind of international experience and I was so proud that I actually remembered so much more from high school than I thought I had.
The trekking office finally opened up that evening and I managed to snag a last minute spot on a three day trip. I had come up here specifically to find trekking that wasn't so overdone and overcrowded but there were so few people that they weren't sending out many treks and almost no longer ones out into the less touristed spots. Again, I lucked out though. We had good local guides and a good group of people (l to r): Mai Hoi our lead guide, Minna from Finland, Manuel from Germany, me, Ben and Natasha from New Zealand, and Boon Ta our other guide.

The trek turned out to be incredible. Far from the tourist nightmare that Ben and Tash had described in Chiang Mai, the places we visited seemed still unchanged by us visitors. In the first village we stayed in, an Ahka village, I was a little surprised by just how many animals they had just wandering around with no apparently markings. They somehow knew which of the hundreds of pigs belonged to whom though because I saw a girl throwing rocks to shoo the wrong ones away from the feeding trough. People were genuinely friendly and kids still seemed very curious and a little hesitant. After a minute though they warmed up and, before long, we were playing rattan ball together. If you haven't seen it, rattan ball is like volleyball except you can only use your feet and head. We all got the hang of it eventually, but of course the locals trounced us in every match. For dinner, they killed a chicken and fed us an amazing meal. In some ways it was odd though, because the Ahka in the village were not that different from the urban Hmong families that I had just been with. Some of the houses in the village were nicer than some of the poorer houses in town.

The second day was even better. We got up early but had a nice relaxed start. We ate a nice big breakfast and they killed a couple more chickens for us to take as lunch. Before we left, one of the three chiefs stopped by and gave us little touristy water-bottle bags made in the village. Not only were they not begging us to buy things, they were handing it out!

The hiking that day was real nice as we wandered across some mountians in the jungle and through bamboo forests. As we walked, Mai Noi pointed out all the plants the hill tribes use. We also picked some wild starfruits, gooseberries, and figs, but they weren't quite ripe. The scenery was incredible along the whole trail with wild bananas growing everywhere and birds squawking just like the recordings at the zoo.

***Warning -Parental guidance suggested (i.e. if you're the kind of paranoid mother who worries retroactively, skip this part) ***

The area we were trekking in was one of the most thoroughly destroyed during the wars in the seventies. A number of times, we crossed ridgelines where you could see the faded signs of fighing -old overgrown trenches, rows of foxholes, and rusty spent clips from assault rifles. I'd seen plenty Civil War battlefields near home, but this was different because it was so recent. Boon Ta assured me that the trails we followed were safe and that these mountains had been cleared. Other mountains in the area, pulverized by American bombings, are definitely not safe though and he said the tribes won't go there. Apparently many stray animals have been killed by UXOs. It was one of a series of experiences I've had which make me less than thrilled to be an American.

So anyway, for lunch, our guides prepared us a picnic hilltribe style with bamboo used for everything. As we were hiking, one just stepped off the trail and cut down a huge piece about five inches in diameter. Another found some wild banana flowers and palm stems. A large round green section was used as the stew pot; another section cut down the middle made two huge bowls; smaller pieces sliced diagonally just above the natural divider made spoon bowls with strips bent and tied as handles. All of this was served on banana leaves as a table. I tried my hand at making one of these spoons and failed miserably, slicing my hand open in the process. I'm so impressed with how they can use this giant bamboo for just about everything.

During the course of the hike, we came down out of the hills and into the lower rice paddies. There were two villages quite close together, one was Lanten tribe and the other was Khmu, where we would be staying the night. Despite the fact that the people in the villages mixed a great deal -many of the Lanten came over to join us at night- it was still very clear who was of each tribe. The Lanten women all wear dark blue dresses with white leggings and distinctive silver jewelry and shave their eyebrows, while the Khmu women looked more like the Hmong. Most of the men just wore western clothes, but all the Lanten men had huge knives in woven bamboo basket sheaths. This village was also much larger and more advanced than the last one. They had an ingenious hydropower system set up with a series of dams on the river channeling the water into huge wooden pipes with what looked like outboard motors in reverse. There were about eight of these, each one capable of powering a few lights. I'm not sure, but my impression is this is part of the governments bribe to them for giving up opium production.

We were especially lucky in that the night we arrived, as they were having a ceremony for a girl in the village. It had already been going on for a while when our guide brought us into the local shaman's house. The place was filled with people already and there was barely room for us but they welcomed us in. In one corner they had a large clay jar of rice wine with reed straws which I was led to repeatedly. As you drink, they refill the jar with water of a questionable nature using a little horn cup. The custom is that the two people drinking should drink until twenty-four cups have been replaced. The stuff was pretty potent even with the water added and tasted a bit like a port with a beerish finish -not bad really. When not taking a turn at the rice wine, we were often passed more of the ever-present lao lao. These people must rival Koreans for liver damage. Then again, the life expectancy of a man in Laos is only 50 years.

The main part of the ceremony was kind of like at the Hmong New Year, where you tie a string around someone's wrist while giving them a blessing. Everyone ended up with dozens of little strings tied around their wrists, but especially the girl at the center of the ritual. Her arms were covered from wrist to elbow with blessings. I have no idea what people wished for me, but Boon Ta translated some blessings for Ben which were something about having enough children to fill a village and grandchildren to fill a city. Tash was not thrilled. I was again very nervous about taking photographs and ruining the moment. Boon Ta pushed though and I eventually got out my camera. Far from bothering the people, they were thrilled to be photographed and check out their pictures on the screen. I ended up acting as photographer for them as they all wanted to pose with their friends. After we got back, I made prints and gave them to Boon Ta to pass on.

The other reason for all the celebration was that a wedding was happening the next day. People had come over from the next village to celebrate. We farang passed out around midnight, but could hear the party flare up now and again throughout the night. I swear they must have been playing the same song over and over again. When I woke up -6:30- I wandered over and joined the party. Some of the men had clearly been drunk the whole night and weren't slowing down at all. Nor did they want us to slow down. So at about 7:00, I was tossing back a few more lao laos and taking turns at the rice wine. Quite the healthy breakfast. Again, we were asked to play official photographer while the extremely drunk father of the groom slowly gathered everyone together for group photos. Those who spoke English practically lined up to practice on us, all asking the same questions.

When the guides finally pulled us away from the party, it was well after we were supposed to have left. We finished the trek by hiking out of the mountains along a beautiful stream. Of course, the first time I wear shoes in almost a month is the day we have to zigzag over the stream a dozen times.

That's not really the end and I've got loads more to tell but I'm sleepy and it looks like this internet place is closing down. Talk to you all again soon. Hope everyone out there is happy and well.