“We could have just gotten a
trekking guide from the agency,” my friend whined, after plunging her
left foot into the mud. The right one was already soaked in
the sloppy soil a few seconds earlier. Kampoon, our
friend, somewhere ahead, shouted back to us, “I think we took the
wrong trail. The plants are getting too savage here. We definitely
can’t pass.” Up until now we had been lucky enough to
frequently run into people from the surrounding villages from
whom we could ask directions, but our luck had run out. According to the
trek itinerary, we should have arrived at Changtern village at least 3 hours earlier. But it
was now 4pm and we didn’t know where we were. We
headed back to the last crossed trails we passed, which
hopefully, would be the correct turn. My thoughts ran wild
with all sorts of possible dangers in this forest after
sunset. We were definitely being punished for ignoring the
trekking agency’s warning that a self guided trek in Phongsaly’s jungle
could easily get us lost.
---
We stopped at the main town in
Phongsaly province, the northernmost part of Laos bordering to China’s
Yunnan, a few days before, and spent the whole time
trying to arrange a rural trek
with a local agency. Instead we decided to save our money for the rest of the trip.
We copied a 4-day trekking itinerary for a tour of the Ahka hill
tribe villages (the agency was kind enough to supply this for free). We
planned to hire a local who knew the forest well.
With the help of a man
teaching English at the town’s non-profit language center, we
were introduced to a local named Kampoon, who agreed to lead us. Kampoon
didn’t know the forest nor did he speak any hill tribe’s
languages, but he was able to ask for directions in Laotian, which was
also understood by hill tribess, so we settled to the deal and left Phongsaly
town at 7 in the morning.
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The sea of mist on the way to the first village
|
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| Drying corn seeds |
This morning’s trek was fairly easy, just
a mild hike up and down mountains. We passed some deforested
areas and farms, merrily greeting the locals all the way. We followed
a trail, pioneered by the French during the Vietnam War, according to the
itinerary. We arrived to the low-water-level Nam Long river by
lunch, across which we waded our way through. An abrupt change
started on this side of the river when the trail turned steep, narrowed, and
nearly blocked by plants most of the time. Apparently even villagers
themselves didn’t use this trail much, and this was the point we started to get
lost.
It wasn’t until close to 6pm when we
saw farms and fields with burned tree stems again. This was a good sign
that a village was nearby. We caught up to an Ahka woman with a basket
filled with wood. Kampoon asked her for directions. We all
were so relieved to hear Changtern was just right around the
corner.
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Entrance to Changtern village
|
3 bamboo poles set up in a teepee shape marked the entrance
to what looked like a 30-house village. Kampoon explained they
would put a swing on this structure during Ahka’s New Year
rituals. That was the only thing we noticed in the dim sunlight. Kampoon informed us that we wouldn’t get electricity here.
He led us to the village’s chief’s house where we could ask for food and
beds.
At the house, more like a big room built on the soil
ground, dinner was being slowly cooked above a bonfire. On one side near the
wall, there was a long elevated platform lined up with blankets and
pillows. Chatting noises from surrounding houses was easily heard.
The houses were so close that the roofs rubbed together. Flashes from torch
lights came through the walls of plaited bamboo strips. Needless to say,
privacy wasn’t a strongly valued concept here.
The houses in the village had no toilets and when I asked
Kampoon what we were supposed to do, he pointed into bushes. He explained that
that’s the way the villagers themselves did it. I was surprised as I did not
see any disposals left even in the bush when I went myself, but then I left the
bush and headed towards the home, and two big boars rushed into that bush. It
all made sense now. I swore to myself I would never touch a dish cooked with
boars.
In the chief’s house we sat on the
soil ground at a low bamboo table lit by candles. There were
various vegetable dishes placed on the table. We each had a shot
glass in front of us in which the chief poured a light green liquor.
He urged us to bottom up. Kampoon said guests were supposed to drink
at least 2 shots of rice whisky before meals. After feeling the
alcohol burning our insides, we ate
with the chief and his sons. His wife and their daughters
waited to clean up after us before they started eating
themselves.
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Rice whiskey, more powerful with a centipede
|
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The village head's wife preparing dinner
|
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| A simple meal of rice, bamboo shoots, potatoes, and some green peas |
Later we slept in bedding
provided, next to the family’s five young children. The wife and their two other
daughters started pounding rice in the kitchen area late into the
night. We asked Kampoon why they didn’t do that during the
day, to which he answered their days were always too busy
farming and nights were the only time left for them to finish up with less
tiring work. We were exhausted from the 11-hour trek and the 20
degree cold air, so the rhythmic pounding sounds that could now be
heard from all over the village actually lulled us into sleep.
The next morning was heavy with
mist. While waiting for breakfast to be ready,
we explored the village.
Domesticated boars and chickens
scuffled across our path. The shy villagers, who certainly didn’t expect
foreign visitors avoided eye contact. They hid behind doors, some even walked
away when we got close. Babies cried as we approached them. They
could probably tell by our clothes that we were from an alien land. As we
tried to take pictures of women in their black tunics
with colorful embroidery and impressive silver headdresses,
but most of them ran away. Kampoon told us not to take their
picture, because they thought their soul would be stolen by the
cameras. Still, we stole a few shots of the women, who leave one breasts
bare. He said it’s a tradition for married women to do
so and sometimes they greeted each other by touching each other’s
breasts.
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| Preparing a squirrel for a meal |
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| Pounding rice |
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| The village's only school, with 30 kids |
We stopped at Sop Ngam
village for lunch. The village of Lao Sung sits in a green valley
with a river cutting through, providing the locals plenty of fish.
We asked some girls playing near the river to take us across the river on
a bamboo raft, in exchange for a small payment. We continued on the
trail passing thick and tall wild yellow Cassie flower bushes. The path
curved behind mountain, into an area that was not exposed much
to sunlight. Humidity felt stronger here and now the trail was
wet from dewy leaves continuously dripping onto it.
 |
Sop Ngam village, nestling in a valley
|
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| Lao Sung villagers |
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Cassie flower bushes
|
Then we discovered the
muddy and slippery trail wasn’t the only challenge of trekking in Phongsaly’s
forest in November, a month after the rainy season. At one point I fell a
soft but sharp poke on my foot. And when I looked down to see what it was, I
was shocked to see probably more than 10
leeches happily burrowing up and into my sneakers.
“Leechesss!,” I screamed with fright and disgust. I hurried
to take off my shoes, socks. I rolled my pants up to the knees, trying to
balance myself with one leg while pulling leeches out of the other leg off the
ground. I looked at the ground where I threw the leeches, only to see I was
surrounded by leeches, crawling and stretching their long
slimy black bodies straight up, searching for somewhere to land. They
were everywhere on the trail, near and far. I looked over my shoulder, my
friend was more or less in the same situation.
Kampoon, ran back to inspect the cause of the noise. He
started giggling once he saw two girls jumping around scared of the leeches. He
pulled out a lighter, picked up our shoes and burned one leech after another. I
noticed there were some on his pants and shoes too, but he didn’t seem to care.
Once we girls calmed down a bit, we started walking again, now faster, with the
fear that leeches could hook onto our shoes if we paced slow. We paused several
times to get leeches of our legs. At the end of the day,
we felt it was no use since they would always find a way to get
onto us. We eventually got used to the tingling feeling on our
feet. We stopped pulling them out and just wished them to enjoy the feast.
We arrived at New Pei
Yesang village about 3pm. This village was bigger and had
some of the houses equipped with solar power generators. The locals were
curious about us foreign visitors but much less than the people in Changtern. The
first thing we asked upon arrival for was a shower. The villagers
pointed down a mountain slope. We climbed down a slippery trail to an open
area below. A tiny fountain of water poured from a cliff and through
a bamboo stem that the villagers had rigged.
.jpg) |
New Pei Yesang village
|
Not prepared for an open-air and super natural bathroom, we
striped to our underwear, and wet ourselves as quick as possible before other
people arrived. To my surprise, I felt a thumb-size lump on my thigh. It
was a round and fat leech. This one d%# leech had made its way up this
far! I pulled it out and smashed it with a sharp stone, feeling
satisfied seeing my own blood splash.
 |
| Our (clean?) source of water |
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Exciting kids seeing their portraits in the camera
|
We toured the village a bit and then joined the chief’s
family for dinner. The news about us visitors had spread over the
village. Several people, mostly teenage boys, dropped by to peak at us. The
chief started serving local whisky to everyone. A small party was
launched. We retreated by 9pm, and went outside to brush our teeth in the
mountain’s cold and fresh air. It was very dark, but still we were treated to a
beautiful view: a supremely clear, moonless sky dotted with
millions of stars.
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| Sucking on a bong, a routine activity of the village's head |
After the meal, we circled around the bonfire and
chatted. The conversation ranged from our lives in Bangkok to their
daily routines in the village. They told us about the Akha people’s
favorite meals during festivals, which is uncooked animal parts and fresh
blood. They explained how they buried dead bodies of their relatives in
the bushes just behind their houses. It wasn’t nice to imagine there could
be spirits peeking over our shoulders and listening to our conversation, and
knowing about that tradition, it left us no choices as where we would go
toilet-ing: the bushes in the front.
The next morning, it took us 4 hours walking down the
mountain before we eventually saw Nam Ou river snaking at the
base. At first I felt a rush of happiness and comfort knowing
the hard beds, cold weather, and leeches were going to end, but I also
realized how grateful I was, and how privileged I had been to get to
experience pristine forest, fresh air, and the generosity of the villagers
during our trek. It made me feel a bit sad, not knowing when I would
be able to experience an adventure like that again.
At the trail’s end, there was a sandy beach where passing
boats picked up passengers. We got on a long-tail boat heading downstream
to Hat Sa, where we could catch a public pick-up truck back to Phongsaly
town. At one part of the river, men were building a dam.
A huge sign in Chinese advertised the construction company. Kampoon
said in the next 3 years the villages around the area would all have
electricity. He said they would spend much less time traveling to Hat Sa,
on a smooth concrete road. While enjoying the scenery on both sides of the
river, I started to picture these Ahka ladies back in the villages wearing
T-shirts and sin (sarongs) just like flat land Laotian women did,
and had their traditional black tunics folded away.
...
..
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