TREKKING IN THAILAND WAS A JOKE...

After trekking here in Laos for three days we both feel like we've got the urge for trekking out of our systems. At least for a while... We did trekking through the company called Tiger Trail. When we were in Malaysia, Katy met the cousin of a friend from New Zealand, who told us about this company and recommended it as the one that not is just making money on us but also uses a part of its profit to help the local communities. So, we went there. They had many different programs from which to choose, from elephant riding to kayaking and trekking. They also were quite flexible as to how many people could go and you also could choose the activities you'd like to do. Anyways, we chose one that was quite new. It was trekking on a new trail to the north-east from Luang Prabang, where we'd visit three very remote villages. At first because many people here want to go only for a day of trekking, we thought we'd go just by ourselves plus a guide. But as we were signing up for the program one German girl (Katinka) who was with us on the same slow boat from Thailand saw us in the shop and since she also wanted to do 3 days trekking she gladly signed up to the program as well. That made our group to be only four people including our guide.
The next morning we showed up at the shop at 10 to 8am as we were told. This time we minimized our stuff to take with us. No heavy lenses and tripods. I figured that with my photography skills I will take some excellent shots even without a tripod. And it was a wise decision as we soon found out. Our guide showed up later and introduced himself as Nyot (I'm not sure about the spelling). As we learned later he was from the Khmu tribe and spoke Lao, Khmu, two different Hmong languages, English and Thai. We got on a tuk-tuk that took us to the bus station where we had to take a "bus" to the point from which we start trekking. It wasn't really a bus, but a truck with the seats in its cargo area. We were waiting there for over one hour for it to take off. We were the first to get in the truck and while we were waiting we went to look around the small marketplace to see if we could buy any pens to give village children. When we came back to the truck we found a little old lady sitting inside. Very very little and very very old. She was snacking away on this and that for the entire hour we waited, and even managed to mix her own medicine, with a portable pestle she was carrying. As she was only about 4 foot high the seats in the truck that we thought low were even too high for her, so she had brought her own even lower seat, on which she sat at the end of the truck. At one point Vlad asked me to guess how old I thought she was. I thought at least 85 but possibly over 90. Nyot then asked her and although hard of hearing she eventually understood his question and replied with one gutteral syllable and a clap of the hands, which seemed to mean something because the now almost full truck suddenly came alive. This person and that began to exclaim. "How old, how old?" we asked. Nyot seemed a little dumbstruck. "One hundred and ten."
"A HUNDRED AND TEN" Oh my Buddha! And I started clapping and shook her hand, cos it's not every day you meet someone that old, someone who has seen the entire modern history of Lao, from the arrival of the French through the formation of the Lao People's Democratic Republic and the Vietnam War (or American War to them) and now into the age of cellphones and Internet.
With her little hat pulled down over her short hair and her busy little movements, she immediately captured out hearts. When the truck got moving she put her bony hands on one man's knee and laid her head down there to sleep. And when the truck jolted she grabbed out for his knee or someone else's. At one point I caught him massaging the leg the lady was leaning on, and the man and I exchanged smiles. Although neither of us knew this lady we both felt her to be our grandmother and would never deny her a knee to nap on or grab onto.

Earlier she had watched as Katinka ate her breakfast baguette, and had started pointing at it and saying something. We somehow guessed that she wanted it because she had been eating the whole time. But with the amount of food she had consumed it also somehow didn't seem possible that she could also fit in a baguette. Nyot was somewhere else, so we looked around at the other passengers for some clue as to what to do. Does she want it? Should we give it? While we were looking around the grandma had been fumbling in a small purse and pulled out a couple of grubby notes. By this time we realized that she even intended to pay for the leftover baguette Katinka was still eating. Katinka, being a happy-go-lucky sort of girl, just shrugged and laughed, and although still hungry, handed over her baguette and waved away the proffered notes. The lady put her hands together in thanks. She then busily tied the plastic bag together and shifted around some items in her bag to make room for the half baguette.
With 18 people now in the back of the truck we thought we were ready to leave. So I asked Nyot how to say "Full" and learned it was "Dem leaow" so we said "Dem leaow" quite a few times and loudly, followed by "Bai bai" or "Bai tor" which means "Let's go" and hoped that our pronunciation was correct.
But it's amazing how Lao people don't like to waste anything. Of course the truck-bus had to be filled up to the fullest extent possible and much beyond that point. So even when we started off, we picked up another few people until there were 25 or 26 in the back of the truck. But everyone was smiling and friendly to us and tried to teach us some more Lao words like "Stop."
We did get a bit nervous at one point when a teenager with an AK 47 on his front jumped on the running board at the back. I wouldn't know an AK 47 if I fell over one, but Vlad, being Russian, somehow knows these things. Apparently he was in the army...but if he was, why was he alone and was he off duty or on...
When the truck dropped us off an hour and a half later, Nyot found a local man to take us across the river and then our trek began. The sun was very hot that afternoon, and our clothes quickly became drenched with sweat. Vlad hates sweating so he took every opportunity to cool down as we crossed and recrossed a small stream. Although the water was barely over our calves he managed to submerge himself each time. We then kept walking up and up until we reached the village we would stay at for the first night, a Khmu village.
After walking for a couple of hours, we looked forward to the "clean river" Nyot had told us ran through the village, but when we arrived we found only a muddy water hole. Disappointed, we tried to make the best of it. While local boys jumped naked into the dirty pool, we sat in the cleaner pool a few metres up the river. But then curiously we discovered that the topmost pond was stagnant and no water at all dripped into it. We then realized that the pool we were sitting in must be the source of a spring, and that we were probably sitting in the village's drinking water. We looked around sheepishly and quickly got out. Over the next couple of hours all village women came to the dirtied pool to wash themselves and sometimes their clothes too. I find it quite an impressive skill to be able to wash in public wearing clothes. I didn't manage to master it in those three days and consequently arrived back in Luang Prabang quite dirty and smelly too probably.
Only one woman didn't wear a sarong while washing. We were a bit shocked actually when she took her t-shirt off. Vlad turned away but I looked sideways and saw she had an almost entirely flat chest with large well-sucked nipples. She then pulled up her skirt, while holding the front of her bits and splashed water up her legs. The children stood on the bank with unsmiling faces, so perhaps this behaviour was even anomalous for their community. Maybe she's the local crazy lady. Vlad also reported that one man had come down to the pool naked and managed to wash while holding his bits with one hand the whole time. Vlad also didn't manage to master this washing technique in three days, but he still seemed to be cleaner than Katinka and I.

Vlad was something of a hit with the young boys in this village. His camera was like a talisman that gave him some mysterious power over them. They followed him wherever he went and dutifully repeated English words as he tried to teach them eyes, nose, mouth and head. I think he fell in love with one little boy called Weang, who smiled at everything and loved all the affection he received. Eventually he even learned the names for most of the little boys, Kumsee, Eah, Suang, Heum...
Khmu build houses on stilts so some people, like the house we stayed in, had two storeys. Because it had been so hot the first day, Nyot suggested we get up early the next day so we could beat the heat. Vlad somehow got the idea that we would get up at 4am. Sometime around 4am he must have heard someone get up and decided that it must be Nyot. So he got dressed and woke me up. I got dressed, went outside to the toilet, which by the way is everywhere cos no house had a "toilet" or even a hole in the ground behind their house. And only then did Nyot wake up and ask why the hell we were up so early. "Oh" said Vlad.... "I thought you were already up...." At that time it was still quite cold and foggy, and Nyot reminded us that we couldn't leave until the fog cleared enough for us to see the path. So Nyot went back to sleep and Vlad went down the pool to see if he could spot any aquarium fish. He has been disappointed thus far that the kinds of fish he could buy in Tashkent and Seoul, supposedly from this region of the world, are not to be found anywhere. But half an hour later he came back quite triumphant that the dirty pool was now crystal clear and he had spotted a yellow fish with black spots. I lay there in the dark listening to all the sounds of old macdonald's farm, and dozed off and on.
Just a word about the toilet situation in these villages. At first I was surprised none of the villages had anywhere specific to do their business, but on the second night, after seeing first hand how the pigs cleaned up after me, I realized that it is far cleaner to not have a designated toilet area. In comparison with our lifestyle, these villages consume very little and pollute very little too. Their only crime as far as I can see is that they practice slash and burn agriculture. I presume they could learn to grow food in another way, but as most people in the three villages we visited were almost entirely uneducated it would take an NGO quite an effort to teach the knowledge these people would need to change their agricultural methods.

In the morning, after a breakfast of sticky rice and squirrel we set off up the hill. A group of village men and the little boy, Kumsee, were also going the same way. They carried home made rifles and were off for a day's hunting, perhaps to catch more squirrel or maybe snake or rat. For some reason neither Vlad nor Katinka touched the squirrel, even though it was better than the rat we ate on the trek in Thailand...
The hill climb was very challenging and I don't think Wendy would have liked it at all. When we got to the top Nyot pointed out the barely visible hill we would reach by the end of the day. Vlad, disbelieving, took a photo of our destination, to later prove it. Then we trudged and trudged until we reached a small stream where a couple of Hmong ladies were bathing and eating lunch beside their basket full of forest goodies. They invited us to share their lunch and although we had eaten breakfast only a couple of hours before, they were so insistent we felt it rude to refuse. I was a bit disappointed they only had plain rice not sticky rice, but apparently Hmong always eat plain rice, perhaps because they originate in Northern China/Mongolia whereas Khmu people come from Southern China where sticky rice is grown. For flavoring they dipped the rice in chilli with salt and supplemented this with a few pieces of pork and some cooked forest mushrooms. We felt a bit guilty that after offering the three of us a piece of pork each the ladies only had one piece of pork left each, but again, we felt it was impossible to refuse.
Since we hadn't washed properly the previous night we all removed our clothes, washed them in the stream and put them on rocks to dry. But then we heard thunder and the day clouded over. When it was time to leave, the clothes were still not dry, but it was better to put them on than walk bare, because we were about to enter leech territory.
If you are like me and have only seen leeches on TV you might think they are quite large and black, like slugs. But the leeches here in Asia (Malaysia and Thailand included) look like small brown worms. They stick up from the ground, sometimes unmoving and then suddenly extend their bodies and wave around looking for a host. They also "walk" which seemed to scare Katinka. We had a very funny afternoon trying to avoid the leeches and screaming when we found one. The most clever leech was the one that found its way into the crevice at the side of Vlad's sandal. It was wedged in so tightly that we weren't able to get it out and so Vlad had no choice but to drown it in mosquito spray and hope that it would be squashed as he walked.
The walk up to the next village, besides being leech infested, was also very steep, slippery from leaves and eroded in parts. When we met a man leading his buffalo along that track we were amazed that buffalo could walk such paths.
Before we reached the village, we walked across the ridge of a hill which had been entirely burned, ready for rice plantations. We could see a few people on the hillside collected the blackened wood for firewood. Nyot then looked at the sky and predicted rain. He made no mention of when, but suddenly began to run toward a couple of bamboo huts further down the ridge. We were too tired to follow at that pace, but soon began sprinting down the hill as the rain began to pelt down in heavy drops. We reached the huts before we became soaked and laughed to think that we had almost ignored Nyot's warning. The villagers who had been working in the fields hurried to get out of the rain also and were no doubt surprised, like the bear family to see Goldilocks, that we were sheltering in one of their huts. But instead they didn't seem to mind at all and for the most part ignored us.
The hillsides these Hmong had been working on were so steep that we could not believe they would be turned into rice fields. Unlike us, they seemed to have little trouble walking up and down those slopes. And they did this day after day, while we were only "trekking" for two days... We think this is probably how the one hundred and ten year old lady had stayed so fit and strong.
When the rain had passed we trekked on up and up for another hour and a half to their village, around 1600m above sea level. This village, named Bwok Guai (Buffalo Pond) was relatively rich by their standards because they had many buffalo, pigs, goats and cows. However, they did not have electricity and since the only access to Bwok Guai is to walk for three hours uphill on muddy paths, the villagers could not even carry a generator up there. The pond the village is named after no longer exists so the only running water was one tap somewhere in the middle of the village where everyone congregated at night to wash.
We stayed in the 31 year old chief's house - he was absent - and when we arrived at 2.30 pm, Nyot prepared our second lunch, which we ate and promptly fell asleep on the the bamboo mat beds in the corners of the house. In Hmong homes the cooking is done inside, so after both lunch and dinner the house was full of smoke, which didn't seem to bother the locals. We almost choked however, and only managed to go to sleep after we had opened both doors and ventilated the place. In the morning though, we woke up before we were asphyxiated because the calf outside was bmooing for its mother. We had eaten parts of its mother, who had died of a snake bite, in each meal and she was delicious.