Muang Sing- North Lao

In this part of Northern Lao are many different hilltribes who came from China, Tibet, Mongolia, and Myanmar. We did a two day trek through the jungle and stayed in an Akha Hilltribe village. We had a lunch of barbequed water buffalo, young bamboo shoots, acacia leaves fried with onion, garlic and chillies, sticky rice, and other jungle plants that we don't know the names of. It was a lovely setting beside the waterfall.

On the trek were a couple from Switzerland, a German and us. We had 2 Akha guides and a Lao guide who all spoke English. None of us escaped the leeches that live on the jungle foor. This fat one on John's sock had a feast on him.

The villagers cooked for us (turkey and jungle vegetables), sang and danced for us, massaged us, entertained us, and answered all our questions. An enlightening experience.

The children played to the cameras!

The villagers worship spirits and have a swing festival to mark the Lao New Year- the date is set by the village leaders. Each village has a spirit gate that cannot be touched and a new one is built each year.

Laos

On the Thai- Laos border we met these two fun ladies from Shanghai-Xie and Song. We plan to catch up with them later.

In this bottle is Lao rice whiskey, a cobra and a scorpion. The instructions say one glass a day cures lumbago, arthritis and the sweats.


In Luang Nam Tha, Laos we did a one day trek into the hill villages.
These villages 10 years ago grew opium poppies but now grow rice, and rubber trees and sugar cane for China.

This lady is planting dry rice on the hill areas where the forest has been burnt and there is no water. I had a go and it is back breaking work!
John in a rice paddy which is about to be harvested. They grow 2 crops a year of this wet rice.

We had a Lao picnic of fried water buffalo and yardlong green beans, green eggplants and coriander, fried pumpkin and sticky rice. It was delicious.

The Lao people are really laid back and life is simple but we often see them letting their hair down in the evenings.

Visiting a Karen village in the mountains - Thailand

We enjoyed our trip with Mr Dam so much that we went on a one day trek to a Karen village with him. The mountains were covered in mist and we walked 6 kms in to this village. Only the children were home playing marbles and the adults were another half hour away planting dry rice.There are 60 people in the village.

The men used long bamboo poles with a trowel attached at the end. They dug a hole while the women followed putting in a few grains of rice. They left a field fallow for three years before planting it again.

An old man prepared food for them in a hut on the field and they returned to the village at the end of the day.

Mr Dam took us to a villager's house and cooked lunch for us. The house made of bamboo and palm leaves was on stilts and had a small 'deck'.

Mr Dam cooking inside the house on a pit of ashes. We had a delicious meal of stir-fried vegetables and locally grown dry rice. The rice was drying above the fire. In this room was a rooster tethered to a pole. He was used to trap the local wild jungle hens. There was a sleeping area beside the fire.

The village has been here for 200 years. The locals get a small income from selling buffalo and hens to Burmese passing through and weavings to the tourists that guides like Mr Dam bring to the village. An aid organisation piped a water supply into the village for them so they didn't have to carry water. They live on food they grow and what they gather and hunt in the jungle.They use homemade guns and homemade ammunition as well as ingenious traps.

The Government offered to relocate the village to be closer to a road but they are happy where they are.

Exploring the tribes of Mae Hong Son - Thailand

We went with a guide who spoke several local tribe languages and fluent English. He told us a lot of things we would never have learnt by ourselves if we had hired bikes and gone to the areas outside Mae Hong Son. This picture is of Burmese refugees who live along the river and dive for sand and then sell to the local construction companies.

We visited an area where Chinese families from the KMT fled Yunnan in China and are now settled in Thailand. They live in mud and straw houses set on the ground and grow ching ching and oolong tea. Mr Dam is showing me how to pick tea.

As we drove around between the villages Mr Dam pointed out this site. Many Hmong people are animists and they sacrifice a black dog if there has been a death or bad event. The skull of the dog is mounted on the bamboo poles.

At the Karen village near the Myanmar border, we met Mr Dam's friend from the 'Long Neck' tribe. She is 80 years old and fled Myanmar. She has no family in Thailand and no ID card so has to remain in the village which is a refugee camp.

The neck ring ( a single coil) is solid brass and it squashes the collar bone and ribcage to make the neck look longer. The neck ring is balanced by the leg rings. It is a myth that when they come off they will break their necks and die.

We were shown her house - she has one room for sleeping, raised off the ground and one for cooking. This was her dinner cooking on the charcoal fire - jungle rat.

We met a 21 year old girl who is waiting to hear if she can go to NZ as a refugee along with 6 members of her family. She has removed her neck in preparation and learns English in the village school.

Some snaps from various places- Thailand

Mimosa leaves- used in cooking.

Fried crickets.

Worms tasted like salted chips!

Kapok seeds.
This was near Healthy Road!

Chiang Mai - Thailand

Chiang Mai is a noisy busy city where we managed to find a nice guesthouse with a garden- a sanctuary from the hectic city.
We visited all the Wats (temples) of note on a hot 40 degree day.

We did a cruise on the river that runs through the city and saw river fish farms and these fishing cranes.

The cruise usually lasts 1 1/2 hours but the boatman was so interesting it took us 3 hours and we were the only ones in the boat. He came from one of the hilltribes and talked about his family life there. We visited a farm upstream and he showed us all the vegetables, herbs, and spices that the Thai use in their cooking.

We even spotted this enormous butterfly in the garden.

Chiang Mai has a moat surrounding the city and we stayed inside the original walls of the old city with its narrow lanes.

There were many tourists even though it is the low season.

We met this young Austrian guy. He bought a 1957 Honda 100cc motorbike in Vietnam and rode it through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and was heading to the south of Thailand. He paid $150 US for it and didn't even get a flat tyre in his 3000 kms of travel! He did get sunstroke though!