The 4th and 5th were perhaps the best days of this trip yet. I've been rolling with two fellow travellers for about six days now: an English gentleman (Tom) in his 50's and I emphasize gentleman because he's the real proper cautious type, an aristocrat even; and an Italian bird (Claudia) in her thirties who only just started learning English on this trip. We've made an odd triumvarite so far but its made for some great times and shared laughs.
One of those times was the Kuang Xi waterfall on the 4th - the second best waterfall I've been to (Niagara gets top spot). The short trek begins with a conservation of Asiatic black bears and sun bears (another Asian type) which are kept safe from poachers. These bears look similar to our black bears but have the hilarious ability to stand upright as well as humans. It's very strange to see how well balanced and straight they stand, you'd swear it was a man in a furry bear suit. Pics to come.
Following the river for the waterfall you pass pools of water that are a perfect pastel blue. If the urge to swim wasn't strong enough in me already one pool featured a rope swing and mini-cliffs for diving, but that was for later we decided. The falls are amazing. Beginning at the top are smaller water falls that cascade down, left and right, finally merging into one great 25 metre or so fall. Gave it great depth that I'm not sure if my camera caught. We decided to climb up to the summit - a treacherous journey that required all four limbs at times. Tom was typically cautious about it all would have turned back had I not egged him on continually. It was worth it in the end and we saw some great views from the top.
Next we joined the many other sight-seers for a swim. The rope swing was precarious to climb up to but a blast every time. Tom saw it all as a young person's thing and initially was not going to swim. Then he changed his mind and, amazingly, even did the rope swing. The bugger cussed the whole way but pulled off a quality swing. Claudia and I were overjoyed and proud - it was the cherry on top.
Next up Claudia and I left Tom to go on a "homestay" - living with a local Lao family. Signing up for it we were both nervous about how authentic it would be. We travelled by van (another fellow joined us - Martin, an englishman who lives in Switzerland) and stopped in two villages along the way for a quick sight-see. The first was a Hmong village (Chinese who emigrated to Northern Indochina in the 19th century) and as I feared it felt hoakey. These Hmong had been displaced from their original village in the Lao highlands because of the construction of a dam. The Lao government offered to help build a new village here and be apart of a state-sponsored program to let tourists glimpse Hmong village life. Thus it felt somewhat like a Disney-land mock-up. Worse it was full of vendors hawking the same goods as back in the city, but now sold by children as young as 6. The creepy thing was that the children were taught to sing this song, in english, to entice visiters: "You can buy something baaa-by, you can buy something fooor me". Usually two kids singing in unison - just weird.
Fortunately the village where we were staying for two days was the real deal. No roads led into it so that we had to take a boat along the Mekong to reach it. Before entering the village Claudia, Martin and learned how to farm peanuts (a simple task that I was able to make difficult) and to roto-till the land. I had a try on the roto-tiller (a beast of a machine) and the locals all laughed at my struggles. My back was sore for an hour.
We were greeted in the village by children who would peer at us from a distance and laugh and giggle. We were told that this village started getting electricity only three months ago and that we were the first to do a homestay here. Probably these children had never seen a falang (Lao for foreigner - you hear yourself called this all the time in Laos) before in their short lives. The children's laughter was music to our ears. Most of the men were out working in the fields or fishing at the time. After a lunch of sticky rice, and broth with bok choi and spinach, we headed out to try fishing ourselves. This involved stringing a net across a nook in the river, then taking the boat around and slapping the water with a long bamboo pool in the hope of driving the fish into the net. On two attempts we caught a grand total of zero fish - too late in the day we were told.
That night things got especially festive. After dinner curious locals began to trickle in and join us. Only our guide spoke English and he translated what he could. The locals expressed that they wished they could speak to us but they knew no english. Nevertheless they were very friendly and instead of words we traded warm smiles. The three of us ordered some BeerLao and shared it with our company, who gratiously accepted. Things began to loosen up and we developed some body language and simple words to get our thoughts across. Soon someone pulled out a pop bottle full of homemade moonshine - the Laos staple of rice whiskey. After a few drinks we somehow came upon the agreement that for every Western song we sang they would sing a Lao one. Everyone clapped along to our Yellow Submarine and Jingle Bells and we clapped to theirs. We couldn't have asked for a better welcome.
The next morning we were invited to a ceremonial breakfast. Because we were new to the village (and leaving for good) the locals would perform a ritual which would rid of us of our evil spirits and provide us good luck on the rest of our journeys. From my understanding its a fusion of Buddhist and Animist beliefs. We sit in a circle around a platter of offerings to the spirits. The offerings include sticky rice, cookies, a beer, a whole chicken and so on. We all place a hand on the table and in unison they go through a chant. Next they light candles and incense. Finally each and every one of the locals ties a white string around each of our wrists and gives us a sort of blessing. By wearing these we are supposed to have good fortune for the next few days. The twenty or so of us then shared breakfast, which mind you is a communal affair i.e. a basket of rice, a bowl of fish soup etc are each shared by 3 or 4 people. This was my favourite part of village life. Eating out of the same dish made you feel like you were a family and it seemed silly to think of back home where our obsession with germs keeps everyone at arms length from eachother.
I've only skimmed over it here, but the ceremony was a very moving experience, and i'm not even a very spiritual person myself. The homestay was a fantastic experience that we were incredibly glad we decided to go on. 80% of the Lao population live in villages so we felt good to have seen the real side of Laos even if only for a couple days.
Excellent pics to come.
One of those times was the Kuang Xi waterfall on the 4th - the second best waterfall I've been to (Niagara gets top spot). The short trek begins with a conservation of Asiatic black bears and sun bears (another Asian type) which are kept safe from poachers. These bears look similar to our black bears but have the hilarious ability to stand upright as well as humans. It's very strange to see how well balanced and straight they stand, you'd swear it was a man in a furry bear suit. Pics to come.
Following the river for the waterfall you pass pools of water that are a perfect pastel blue. If the urge to swim wasn't strong enough in me already one pool featured a rope swing and mini-cliffs for diving, but that was for later we decided. The falls are amazing. Beginning at the top are smaller water falls that cascade down, left and right, finally merging into one great 25 metre or so fall. Gave it great depth that I'm not sure if my camera caught. We decided to climb up to the summit - a treacherous journey that required all four limbs at times. Tom was typically cautious about it all would have turned back had I not egged him on continually. It was worth it in the end and we saw some great views from the top.
Next we joined the many other sight-seers for a swim. The rope swing was precarious to climb up to but a blast every time. Tom saw it all as a young person's thing and initially was not going to swim. Then he changed his mind and, amazingly, even did the rope swing. The bugger cussed the whole way but pulled off a quality swing. Claudia and I were overjoyed and proud - it was the cherry on top.
Next up Claudia and I left Tom to go on a "homestay" - living with a local Lao family. Signing up for it we were both nervous about how authentic it would be. We travelled by van (another fellow joined us - Martin, an englishman who lives in Switzerland) and stopped in two villages along the way for a quick sight-see. The first was a Hmong village (Chinese who emigrated to Northern Indochina in the 19th century) and as I feared it felt hoakey. These Hmong had been displaced from their original village in the Lao highlands because of the construction of a dam. The Lao government offered to help build a new village here and be apart of a state-sponsored program to let tourists glimpse Hmong village life. Thus it felt somewhat like a Disney-land mock-up. Worse it was full of vendors hawking the same goods as back in the city, but now sold by children as young as 6. The creepy thing was that the children were taught to sing this song, in english, to entice visiters: "You can buy something baaa-by, you can buy something fooor me". Usually two kids singing in unison - just weird.
Fortunately the village where we were staying for two days was the real deal. No roads led into it so that we had to take a boat along the Mekong to reach it. Before entering the village Claudia, Martin and learned how to farm peanuts (a simple task that I was able to make difficult) and to roto-till the land. I had a try on the roto-tiller (a beast of a machine) and the locals all laughed at my struggles. My back was sore for an hour.
We were greeted in the village by children who would peer at us from a distance and laugh and giggle. We were told that this village started getting electricity only three months ago and that we were the first to do a homestay here. Probably these children had never seen a falang (Lao for foreigner - you hear yourself called this all the time in Laos) before in their short lives. The children's laughter was music to our ears. Most of the men were out working in the fields or fishing at the time. After a lunch of sticky rice, and broth with bok choi and spinach, we headed out to try fishing ourselves. This involved stringing a net across a nook in the river, then taking the boat around and slapping the water with a long bamboo pool in the hope of driving the fish into the net. On two attempts we caught a grand total of zero fish - too late in the day we were told.
That night things got especially festive. After dinner curious locals began to trickle in and join us. Only our guide spoke English and he translated what he could. The locals expressed that they wished they could speak to us but they knew no english. Nevertheless they were very friendly and instead of words we traded warm smiles. The three of us ordered some BeerLao and shared it with our company, who gratiously accepted. Things began to loosen up and we developed some body language and simple words to get our thoughts across. Soon someone pulled out a pop bottle full of homemade moonshine - the Laos staple of rice whiskey. After a few drinks we somehow came upon the agreement that for every Western song we sang they would sing a Lao one. Everyone clapped along to our Yellow Submarine and Jingle Bells and we clapped to theirs. We couldn't have asked for a better welcome.
The next morning we were invited to a ceremonial breakfast. Because we were new to the village (and leaving for good) the locals would perform a ritual which would rid of us of our evil spirits and provide us good luck on the rest of our journeys. From my understanding its a fusion of Buddhist and Animist beliefs. We sit in a circle around a platter of offerings to the spirits. The offerings include sticky rice, cookies, a beer, a whole chicken and so on. We all place a hand on the table and in unison they go through a chant. Next they light candles and incense. Finally each and every one of the locals ties a white string around each of our wrists and gives us a sort of blessing. By wearing these we are supposed to have good fortune for the next few days. The twenty or so of us then shared breakfast, which mind you is a communal affair i.e. a basket of rice, a bowl of fish soup etc are each shared by 3 or 4 people. This was my favourite part of village life. Eating out of the same dish made you feel like you were a family and it seemed silly to think of back home where our obsession with germs keeps everyone at arms length from eachother.
I've only skimmed over it here, but the ceremony was a very moving experience, and i'm not even a very spiritual person myself. The homestay was a fantastic experience that we were incredibly glad we decided to go on. 80% of the Lao population live in villages so we felt good to have seen the real side of Laos even if only for a couple days.
Excellent pics to come.
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