I arrived in Luang Prabang with the intention of finally tackling this trekking thing that everyone keeps on talking about, having decided to skip it in Chang Mai because it didn't feel right. My suspicions have been somewhat confirmed with rumors that hill tribes are being forced to stay in the mountains to support the tourist industry even though they want to leave. Personally I would advise everybody to avoid hill tribe trekking in northern Thailand unless you can find a reputable operator and the Thai government steps into to give more empowerment to the tribes themselves which are currently being exploited. Additionally the trekking in Laos is much better, more authentic and very well run, with a lot of protection for the local communities.
But I wanted something different again, as walking into a village, taking happy snaps handing out some school books and leaving the next morning also didn't feel right so I inquired as to whether I could spend multiple days in the one village. This was possible however I would have to cover all costs by myself as there aren't many people that want to do this kind of thing. After some intense negotiations with the company about route and price it was agreed that I would pay US$60 a day for the approximately 6 days of trekking. An expensive outing it would be.
However as soon as I walked out of the shop I was approached by a Tuk-Tuk driver who was hanging around while I was undertaking the negotiations.
He told me he could do a similar thing but for only $50 a day, into a different area that included his home village. I have to admit I felt very uncomfortable about this situation and my intuition told me to go with the tour company, but the other side of me thought sometime you have to take risks to have a great experience, so I agreed to go with him. He did say that he was an ex-guide with the original company I was going to use and he used to run similar tours in the area, but with know evidence to back him up I was a little apprehensive. The next day I packed my things and was picked up by him and a friend, who took me out of town while Tee went to do some final errands. About 30min Tee arrived and took me further south of Luang Prabang to a small village where and Uncle of his wife lived and where he parks his Tuk-Tuk overnight. As his home is another ten minute walk to the Nam Kham river, which he crosses by wading through if lo and by boat if high and then another ten minute walk through the village to his (current) home on the otherside. But I only went there afterwards. After a 30min wait while Tee figured out how to manage everything we got back in his Tuk-Tuk and travelled another twenty minutes further south where he handed the keys to his uncle to drive his Tuk-Tuk back home. Here we had 'Foe' (Noodle Soup) for Breakfast before heading down to the wharf to catch a boat upstream. At this point I was still apprehensive as everything seemed to be organised in a very ad-hoc way. And I wasn't sure if it was going to turn out what I wanted. But I waited patiently, bought a can of coke to pass the time and watch as a middle aged lady carried 59kg bag of rice on her back, using a strap over her forehead to hold it in place, up the hill to her house. A walk for about 150metres I would guess. She ended up doing about six of them. I tell you, I couldn't have lifted that.
Finally the boat had enough customers to warrant a trip up the river and we were on our way. The boat trip lasted about 1hour and a half before we were dropped off at the entrance of another river. Here again I waited while Tee negotiated a price for the
next leg. Our options being, walk with backpacks, send the backpacks in a boat and just walk, or go in the boat altogether. While this negotiation was playing out a couple of local filtered the broken eggs from the ones we bought that morning, and whipped up a nice omelet over the open fire and with some sticky rice and chilli, we had lunch. I as usual was offered the chair while most of the other squatted. You have to get used to that kind of special treatment.The negotiation concluded with our bags being put on the boat while we walked to his home village Pak Pong. We set of in the sweltering heat down the dirt road that connects the various villages alongside the river. While not to strenuous the up and down nature along with the heat meant that plenty of water was necessary. On the way we talked and passed through and passed a few villages consisting of between 30 and 59 families. Note that there is no connection to electricity or water mains in any of these villages, and the roads and pathways a all dirt road and paths that turn to mud
in the rain.
I might digress here and tell about two individual kids that I met while in Laos. The first I saw while on this trek in one of the villages I passed through. Even though it was in the middle of the day I noticed the one child wasn't at school and looked fairly dejected and quiet sitting in a corner. So I inquired as to why he was not at school. It turned out that this child had been fine up until about the age of 6 and was going to school like the other kids, when for some reason they could not explain the child had lost all strength in his legs and one of his arms. He cannot walk anymore and has limited capacity to do anything with his left arm. Not being able to walk to school and no-one willing to carry him there, this child no longer went to school. He sat presumably spending his days at the front door to his house watching the world go by and amusing himself on the chicken and ducks around him. I am sure that this child has no hope in life and will probably lead a quiet, lonely and somewhat hopeless existence until the day he dies. As all the villages are farming villages that require hard labour, he is pretty much useless to them.
The second a little more optimistic but you wander what might happen is a child in Vang Viang who, again for a reason noone could explain was mute. He spent his time running around, playing in the river as most kids do here and communicating with very simple sign language. In one of those beautiful contrasting images, and tourist bought him a bottle of pepsi, and so he squatted in nothing bu his underwear underneath a tree and drank his pepsi. I decided to see if I could teach him noughts and crosses, but after about 15 minutes of trying to teach him the rules through demonstration I achieved little success. HE held his hands to his shaking head and looked completely overwhelmed with non-understanding. But forever smiling he happily went on his way to do whatever it is he does. I don't know if he does go to school or not, but I suspect not being able to speak is again going to isolate this child from mainstream society and the people here have little spare time, money and energy to help this child to a meaningful life.
Anyway, back to the main story. After resting in a bamboo shelter in the mid afternoon we arrived in Pak Pong at about five in the evening. As soon as I started to wade across the river into the village, the vague echoes of 'falang' (foreigner) could be heard from the village children and by the time I reached Tee father house, my residence for the next six days, a crowd of about 20 children had filtered in to look and watch me. By far the biggest welcoming committee I have ever had. It transpired that I was in fact the first falang to sat in the village for over a year Of course communication was difficult and took a few days for the kids to relax for at first they where quite scared of me.
My time in the village not a lot happened. I watched and observed the village asked questions from my guide and met various people including his old school teacher, his family and other friends of the family. Every meal was a traditional meal though a little fancy as my money went to buying noodles, ducks and coffee which the families would not normally eat, as they need the animals to sell to make that little bit of money they have. Tee estimated that most people in the village would earn between 1-2 dollars a day. Despite this because they are farmer and partially grow their own food or can extract it from the jungle (1-2 week bamboo, being a staple), I did not sense that anyone in the village was particularly starved for food and generally has three simple meals a day.
The dynamics of village life surprised me somewhat in its complexity and it is to much to explain it all here, but suffice to say most families are managing land, animals and other smaller product or services in order to earn their income. And dividing the time to achieve all this thing as well as run a family (most families will have three of four kids) means that the daily tasks change daily and life is quite varied.
I also had the good fortune that Tee father wanted to go out hunting overnight and wanted Tee to join him. On health grounds, Malaria, and gastro diseases this was not a wise move, but it was good fun.
I spent the day out on the field stacking the left over wood from the slash and burn farming process, for further burning. The irony of participating in an activity that
the department I work for at home wants to stop did not escape me. We also collected some wood and bamboo in order to make a bamboo hut the following day. I couldn't bear the heat so I only did about a quarter of work of the others. After lunch we headed with Tee, his father, his cousin Paeng and myself further into the jungle to hunt some game. For the first few kilometers there was a path which got progressively narrower till finally we cam to a point where there was nothing to do but hack our way through the jungle with machetes. This was a real test for my balance and walking skills which were found wanting against Tee father and Paeng, who nimbly ambled their way through the jungle in Flip Flops. After a steep incline and then steeper decent, and then up a river creek we finally cam to our point to sit and wait for the animals to come. I was given a tarp to sit on and told to be quiet and wait. I sat there watching small daddy long legs type spiders advancing on me in group of three while at the same time fending of mosquito. Breaking through the ruccas of the jungle the occasional gunshot would go off, however the proceeding plop or celebration of capture never followed.Unfortunately before the prime evening time arrived it started raining and expecting a big storm we backtracked to and overhang nearby to sleep for the night. We ate cold food as we could not light a fire and there was still more hunting to do tonight. This time I waited under the overhang with Tee while the other two went out. Unfortunately, again not luck apart from a very small bird. Upon their return a large fire was started and the bird was promptly skinned, cooked and eaten, with some more sticky rice before going to bed with nothing more than a tarp and sleepsheet. Not the most comfortable night sleep but no the worst either.
The following morning we headed back early as the rain overnight meant there would probably be little stirring in the morning. So we hacked our way back out of the jungle arriving back on the plot of land to start building the bamboo hut by midday.
The bamboo hut went up surprisingly quickly with about four people completing it in about three to four hours, with again precious little help from me. After 18 year of
education and a post graduate degree it is surprising how little I have to offer these people. So I observed and helped carry a few things before heading back to the village in the afternoon.The following two days I spent in the village and the next village doing more observation than anything while the kids observed me write, play guitar, shower and wash my clothes as all this is done out in the open and the local tap of which there are a few in the village. Not all village in Laos have running water, still carrying buckets to a nearby river, but I think most do!
By the end of five day I had developed a good rapport with the children, Tee family
and some others in the village, so much so that they wanted to hold a party. In order to help them with the party I decided to invest some money in some Beer Lao and upon the recommendation of Tee, I bought a goat. I was also present when they killed the goat, bled it, and skinned it, though the heat, the beer and the sight of it made me me a little nauseous, so I missed it being gutted. Staying inside to drink water, I emerged 15 minutes later to find the goat in pieces and two of them cleaning the insides. One thing about rivers here is that if it looks clean enough most villages wash in the river. However the small river they cleaned the goat in, including its inside, flow into a large river, which eventually flow into the Mekong off which a large amount of the fish in Vietnam is farmed. What goes around comes around so to speak. Having eaten Mekong river fish in vietnam and now having an idea of the extent of what goes in the river it gives a new perspective of things.Anyway the whole goat and I mean all of it was cut, sliced, diced and prepared in to
an expansive meal from which about 29 people ate, in about 3 hours. The meat was BBQ'd, the liver turned into soup and the rest of the inside mashed and made into a sausage (the best part). I consumed some of all of it and found it all to be quite tasty, and wonder why we in the west give so much to the pigs. Of course the locals laugh at me when I tell them this. Throughout the whole time I was in the village, duck and goat was the most conventional piece of meat I ate. I ate some birds, some sort of Asian badger type thing, and squirrel.The following I said my goodbyes and arranged for the donation of Blackboards and Schoolbooks for the local schools with my guide. I then departed from the village in a canoe using just the power of the river (no motor)that is a most pleasant way of returning to the real world.
