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.
