I am back in a place that has electricity/internet. Laos has been fantastic. The people, the scenery, the simplicity of life here, it’s all been such a great experience. I have spent the last several days up in a village on the Nam Ou river in Northern Laos that had indoor lighting for only 3 hours a night. From there, I met two guys, Tim, 50, from England but has been living in Australia for the last 5 years, and Paul, 54, from Wales who is nearing the end of his 1 year trip. They are great guys, and we immediately got along great. We decided to go on a trek without a guide through the villages in the area. It was definitely a highlight of my trip. I fashioned a rather spartan map of the route from hand-drawn maps hanging at little restaurants in the villages, and although we got lost a few times, got our legs riddled with leeches, and made, we are certain, several nearly unforgivable faux pas in every village we walked into, we can say we did it ourselves! Some of the highlights of the trek include getting lost for almost half the day on the first day, stumbling though leech-infested trails that led only to fish traps down at a river, and finally giving up and heading back to our first village for dinner and trying to figure out where we took a wrong turn. We NEVER did figure out how, exactly, we got so turned around, so we decided to skip that route at take a shorter route that would give us one more night in a remote mountain village and then drop down to a village on the main river and get a boat back to our main village where we started. Along the way, without fail, we would walk into the village just in time to see the women bathing at the town spring. We stopped for lunch and had some rather bland food with the ubiquitous sticky rice that is served with nearly every meal here in Laos. We couldn’t eat even half of the mound of sticky rice they gave us, so we put it in a bag and took it with us. Hours later, we arrive at this fantastic little mountain village and are lead to the village chief who has the only place for us to stay. We greet the chief and his wife and, not knowing what else to do with it, we offer them our sticky rice. The look at us like we have just farted, but politely take it and we walk off to see the village before it gets dark. As we are walking away, I turn back to see the wife feeding the sticky rice to the mangiest dog in town. If there was anything worse to offer these remote villagers than day-old sticky rice, the ONE THING they absolutely do not need, I can’t think of it. Can you imagine? Oh look, foreigners with big expensive cameras have come to our village! I’m sure they have something new and wondrous to offer us! And here it is…..dog food. Once we realized our mistake we had a big laugh about it and started calling ourselves the Sticky Rice Stooges. I’m sure the villagers thought we were complete idiots. I joined the kids in a game I’ve seen all around Laos. I don’t know the name of it, but it’s basically volleyball, but with a woven rattan ball that you kick or header over the net. No hands allowed. I figured my hacky sack days would finally pay off now…but once I started playing, I realized I hadn’t played hacky sack in over 10 years. Still, I got the ball over more than once and had a good time with them. The crowd of smiling villagers watching us seemed to confirm that perhaps we were forgiven for the extremely disappointing gift of sticky rice. There were so many fantastic photos to take in this village, but we all found ourselves quite unable to take very many because it just seemed invasive and maybe a little disrespectful. Even asking to take their pictures seemed embarrassing. So I ended up taking only a few photos of this village. But let me describe it: it’s like a farm. There are pigs and chickens and dogs and children roaming around everywhere. The men hunt the forest with these long-barreled muskets, which must be quite accurate because they are bringing home the smallest of birds, which seemed to be the only thing left in the forest that hasn’t been eaten by them. We did see the tails and skins of some furry four-legged creatures, perhaps civets or some kind of other small mammal. We had seen, sadly, a few baby monkeys tied to trees as pets at villages along the way, but here, thankfully, there weren’t any. Perhaps they had already been eaten. We had also seen a few birds stuffed in the smallest of wooden cages, looking miserable and hardly able to move. Nearly all the cats we have seen have had their tails chopped off, leaving only a few inches of stumpy tail. Why? Cat tail soup? Superstition? No idea. In this village, at least the chickens and pigs and cows all looked healthy and reasonably happy. The people also seemed content and happy despite the dusty shacks they called home. So, given that there were so many animals wandering around the village, we expected our dinner to be chunks of bland meat and sticky rice. What we got, however, was completely unexpected. His wife prepared our meal in the kitchen: a small fire on the dirt floor, a single knife and a piece of wood on the ground. All preparing and cooking is done in candlelight while squatting on the ground. In this remote, dusty village, in the Chief’s house, his wife came out with a large platter of the most wonderful, fragrant, flavorful vegetarian food we have ever eaten. It was impossible to explain. On our trek into town, Tim had found a strange fuzzy orange plant laying in the path that looked like a small pitcher plant. When we arrived, we asked the chief what it was, and he got excited, grabbed a large bag from inside his house, and showed us a bag full of beautiful red and white flowers. What we had found was the outer shell that these flowers grow out of. At dinner, we found a plate full of these flowers, now cooked and blackened and seasoned. They were absolutely delicious, with a peppery flowery taste, and great texture. There was some kind of gingery, pulpy chili condiment that was spicy/hot but very flavorful as well. The other dish had a variety of greens and veggies and fruits in it that were completely foreign to us, some of it may have been tender bamboo shoots, but much larger than I’ve ever seen, all cooked in a delicious curry sauce that had hints of coriander and coconut milk. It was all so so good you can’t imagine our surprise and delight. Breakfast was equally surprising and wonderful. We were completely taken aback, especially considering the village has NO WATER in it. To wash and get water, you have to haul it from the stream about a quarter mile out of town. So as you can imagine, these people are all in great shape and the women are all beautiful. Since there is no electricity, it seems the only thing to do at night to keep warm and be entertained is sit around the fire, drink lao lao, and have sex. Not a bad life I suppose. The next morning, we head out and immediately take a wrong turn because our village chief tell us to take a left turn 4 KM out of town, so the first left turn out of town, about 300 meters from the last structure in the village, we completely ignore thinking it can’t possibly be THIS left turn, so soon after the village….after a good 40 minutes of hiking up a hill along a ridge, we meet some Laos people who indicate that we have taken a wrong turn and that the trail to Hasaphuay, our destination, is back the way we came, actually way back at that first left turn out of the village. So we lost about 70 minutes or so from that wrong turn. But the VIEWS from that wrong turn were amazing, we were actually looking down into two valleys, east and west, while we hiked along a high ridge. A very nice wrong turn. So down we go into the valley, now certain we are on the right track because the locals have once again gotten us going the right way. We are becoming convinced that they must, by now, believe we are complete idiots. The trail down into the valley is astouding, a beautiful, steep mountain is in front of us, teeming with giant forest trees and hanging vines. Below us are rice terraces and banana plants along the rivver. Once at the base of the valley, near the river, we find ourselves hiking through a beautiful bananna forest, then giant bamboo, then the trail goes right into the river. It seems strange to hike in the river at first, and for a time, we stop and try to suss out whether or not we have taken a wrong turn. Looking around, the river is gorgeous with hanging vines, and gouged stone, it’s actually very easy walking and so lovely, we vote to continue forward and hope it’s a trail. After about 20 minutes of hiking down the river, just when we are all starting to worry that this can’t be the trail…we find a trail that looks fairly used coming out of the river for a spell before dropping back in once again. So we continue down more and finally see are very wide, steep, slippery trail heading up out of the river. It looks steep but is clearly in heavy use, so we head up, very steeply. It’s not 100 meters up when we start to realize that this just can’t be right. It’s incredibly steep and there are no foot steps carved into the clay-like earth, like almost the entire rest of the trail. That’s when it dawns on me that this isn’t a trail, but a log shoot. Just then, from above, comes this splintering banging racket…. Just kidding. Actually, from below, a villager spots us and explains in laos that we are going the wrong way. When we get back down to the river, he’s disappeared. So we walk not 5 steps further down the river and see the actually trail winding up out of the river bank just 5 meters from the log slid. We are once again feeling like absolute fools. After another hour of hiking, we finally drop down to the river and our final village, Hasaphuay, where we hope to hire a boat back down the river to muoang ngoi, the adventure complete. Arriving in Hasaphuay, the first person we meet is a man who appears to have a boat and wants to take us to Muong Ngoi. Ok, that was easy. We gesture that first, we would like to eat. So we are lead to the middle of the village where we sit under a house while children and older men gather around to stare at us. The children are carrying smaller children on their backs, and the men are all carrying children on their backs. The women are all beautiful and many of them are pregnant with even more children. Soon a crowd of children is watching us. We don’t even realize how many children are gathering around us, because we are too busy trying to soak in this extraordinary setting. There are beautiful women walking through the village, there are beautiful women bathing at the local outdoor spring across the street, there’s a beautiful young woman pounding rice with a see-saw contraption that has a big stone on one side pounding into a larger stone mortar filled with un-hulled rice, and in a see-saw action, see steps on the far side of the board to lift the stone up and down into the mortar. In front of her is a baby sitting in a rice basket. The entire scene is surreal in it’s simplicity and beauty. And I, a “professional” photographer, found that I just couldn’t raise my camera for fear of ruining the moment. It would have been rude to take a photo without asking, and if I ask, it ruins the magic, whether they refuse or not. So I didn’t take a photo of any of these things. It was for the best, I think. However, I then snap out of my vaguely leacharous Laos beauties daydream that had something to do with impregnating several of them, I realize that we have a sizable audience of children in front of us. A table seems to appear out of nowhere in the middle of the village “square” and a delicious rice noodle soup is prepared for us right there in the middle of town. We sit and eat our delicous soup while all around us, curious eyes stare at us. Children and adult men alike. Hardly any women stop to stare, except a few older women a bit further away than the rest. The pretty younger women are probably smart to keep away from us. I feel compelled to entertain the gathering crowd, so I go and drum up three objects off the ground of approximatley the same size and weight: an orange, and two rocks. I juggle them for a while and then try to show Paul how to do it. He tries in front of the kids and can’t do it, and they laugh. Then I do it again and I am actually doing pretty good with it. Then I stop and try to hand them to a child, who becomes surprised and nervous, and the crowd giggles. They are very shy and polite. Then I pick up my camera and take several photos of the kids and show them the pictures. They love it. All is good. I felt fine about photographing the kids, because I was interacting with them, entertaining them, and showing them the photos. I don’t feel nearly so comfortable photographing the adults and especially the beautiful women, who are very camera shy anyway. After eating, the man we met on the trail takes us to his boat and we head downstream on some of the most beautiful river scenery I have ever seen. Just stunning karst mountians with gorgeous jungle dripping from them, villagers fishing and rowing and bathing on the shores. Incredible. After about a 20 minute boat ride, we arrive in Muong Ngoi with an incredible high from the entire experience. Tim and Paul were an absolute joy to hike with. They were both so easy-going and humorous and fun to be around. We voted on every questionable turn, and it all turned out extremely well. Just a great time. I have now redrawn the map with new details on the hike and I might have one of the better maps of the area at this point, since mine indicates times and elevation gains, and water sources and trail markers. We actaully felt a bit smug and a bit like experts advising other travellers in Moung Ngoi to head out into the villages and spend the night…it’s so magical. I’ll never forget it.
Now my Laos visa is coming to an end. I am heading back down towards Thailand now. I will stay in Luang Prabang until after Christmas, and then into Thailand by boat along the Mekong River from Luang Prabang to Chang Mai; a two or three day journey I think. I will celebrate New Year’s in Chiang Mai and then head down to Bangkok to get my Burma visa and flight, ship some things home, and prepare for the next part of my adventure. After a month in Burma, I will be heading to India and Nepal for the following 3-4 months, then over to Cyprus and Egypt, and finally Italy, Prague, & Barcelona before heading back to the USA in September. What a trip this is! I can hardly believe how great this has been. Merry Christmas and happy new year!!
