The Mong Village

I had managed to persuade Tish and Katie to come on a two day trek. Although they had already mentioned it wasn't really their thing I thought if it was anything like my trek in Chaing Mai how could you not love it! Hmm Well the day didn't start that well, due to last nights bowling alley shenanigans we overslept and had to run for the minibus, it turned out we had only gained one extra explorer though, a old-er dutch woman, but she had done a fair few treks in her time and she was probably the only one feeling fresh and up for walking miles, Andy had already confessed to me it was touch and go whether he was going to chuck up in the minivan. Once we got going though our bodies managed to sweat out the remaining toxins. The journey to the hilltribe was to be honest a bit underwhelming, literally just a dirt road, the distant views were great, hills like you would draw when you're a kid, but this wasn't jungle, just mountainous farmland. Our guide Kai was a laugh though, he kept singing Beiber and westlife songs. He wore an oversized jumper and a big hat to prevent the sun getting to him, It looked unbearable but to him this is winter! he had abnormally long thumb nails, although apparently this is fashionable because it shows people you don't do manual labour. At the summit with the Mong Tribe things picked up, we had far more time to explore this village than in Chaing Mai but the Dutch woman had to depart pretty as soon as she had arrived, how hardcore! Well the rest of us went to a school where the children were again fascinated by their faces captured on my camera. We spent a good few hours at the school and not once did I see any bullying or fighting, the older kids mentor the young.

The village structure consists of one leader (the best educated man) Village tasks are disproportional divided between men and woman, the men spend most of their time in the farms and working the fields while the woman cook, look after the children and work in the fields! There is no currency here but you share what you have for favors or trade animal and rice stocks. They do have some Laos Kip but this is solely for the purpose of buying provisions from the towns. The average life expectancy here is just 55 which maybe due in part to the locals relying on a witch doctor who gives ointments and speaks to the tribes ancestors. Although this way of life is in such contrast to our own lifestyles, none of the villagers want to go to the cities or towns if they can help it, just like the Thai tribe they are content here and happy. Maybe it is because they still have such a strong sense of community and they have time to spend with each other, two things I think we have lost in the West. This village is like a petting zoo, goats, pig, pigeon, dogs, chickens, geese, moles. and basically they eat everything here even the dogs! Before they get eaten though I guess they do have a good life, pigs and dogs chasing each other and lounging about.

Later on Tish and I helped Kai prepare our dinner, We made a traditional Lao dish with sticky rice and vegetables, we made it extra spicy and in my impartial opinion it tasted incredible, the sentiments weren't exactly shared by everyone round the table as Katie thought "it looks like shit" oh well there is no pleasing some people. One of the woman from the tribe came out while we were cooking and treated us to some mashed stickyrice with caramelised coconut inside, Kai kept refuring to her as 'Mama' because even if they aren't your parents you refer to your elders as mother and father to show respect. When evening fell the girls had a early night while me and Andy attempted to learn Lao songs round the fire with Kai and a villager who wasn't to shabby on a 4 string guitar. Kai slept in the same hut as us and started telling ghost stories about spirits possessing people in the north of the country. He even said he had seen his friend under a spirits spell.

The trek down in the morning was so much quicker than the way up, and together we managed to teach Kai a Tenacious D song, the one that starts with "this is a song for the ladies" hopefully he will sing it to future backpackers. I also managed to hunt down and catch a lizard and also my eagle eyes spotted a big scorpion scuttling along the path felt like bear grills! He was fairly safe to play with too because everyone knows the bigger the scorpion the less painful the sting, below he is dancing with a flower.

We walked down to the riverbed where we helped Kai set up the Kayaks and we paddled down The Mekong River, Along the way we had waterfights, drag races, passed slowboats, tried punting and swapped kayaks mid river a few times, the most dodgy bit was getting pass the whirlpool which the girls opt out of for a safer slower route. We were treated to a view of a gargantuan sheer limestone cliff face that at water level had been carved into small echoing caves. Soon after we hit the shore at a much larger Pak Ou caves that Buddhist monks had discovered during times of unrest. Since reading a book called 'born to run' that preaches barefoot whenever possible this may not have been the best time because while I ventured into the depths of the cave with only my camera's Infrared light to show the way I came across a massive spiny centipede like bug. After calling the others over not even Kai knew what it was but said I should stay away from it. Travelling a little further down the river (25km journey in total) we were offered free Lao Lao, a lot of the bottles had scorpions and snakes inside because its meant to give strength and vitality. After a shaky start this was a great couple of days.