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A TWO DAY
HIKE (Phongsali - Lao Ko Village - Phongsali)
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 Phongsali
city isn't much to look at, a down at heel dust swept city. It's
1,600 meters above sea level and is more of a farm town come China-Lao
crossroads. It didn' t have the same feel as the other towns we'd
visited and I imagined that we'd somehow slipped across the border
and were really in China. The streets were broad but empty with
lots of wooden slat frontings all closed from the dust and windowless.
We got a bed at another uninspiring guesthouse and Tua set off
to meet someone to organise our trek for the next two days.
We were up and out early the next morning to get to the market
to stock up on food for the trip, the morning market was alot
more colourful than the scene that greeted us the night before
with lots of villagers heading into town and so we soon got a
bit distracted wandering around taking photos and trying out the
coffee and noodle stalls leaving Tua to get the provisions..
Our local guide for the trek was Wan Souk, a quiet older man who
looked more like he knew what he was doing. Not unlike most of
the people we'd met in Laos, was quiet, gently spoken but often
grinning and having a laugh. He set us off out of town and gradually
down a dusty road leading towards a nearby village. This was only
and hour from the city and so we stopped by to meet up with a
friend of his who was concocting some rice whiskey moonshine in
his yard. The smell was a dead givaway, like old pub carpets,
and the process seemed simple enough. He had a few sample bottles
close to hand, an evil looking clear green beverage, we gave it
a miss.
So this was the start of our trek, looking out from the top of
this mountain ridge the entire view was of green forested mountains
rolling away into the distance. In the early morning the valleys
in between were still full of white mist and cloud, Wan Souk pointed
down into the valley and said "we'll hike down there and
then," now pointing past a few lesser peaks to the first
major ridge of mountain in the distance and "and we climb
up there and stay for the night."
The whole hike was on a much grander scale than the one we'd done
previously, hiking down hill was steep but cool under the canopy
in the morning. It took us three to four hours to reach the narrow
valley floor, a beautiful shaded pebble bank alongside the river
cutting through. We settled down for lunch. Tou pulled out a small
bunch of bread rolls and asked us if we wanted honey, "Yes
please" and then he handed me a can of condensed milk. Thinking
he'd made a mistake I asked for the honey and he said "That's
it."
Condensed milk sandwhiches!..for lunch!! We munched through one
feeling ravenous and ready to give anything a try, pretty uninspiring
dry mulch like an oversweet bun. He then pulled out the lunch
he'd brought for himslef and Wan Souk, a block of sticky rice,
a strip of grilled pork and a little pouch containing spicy dip
to add flavour. I told him the bread was shit and he said it was
okay as he'd also bought a few apples and oranges for everyone
so we could have some of these instead.
I had a sudden flashback to being in hospital in Japan years ago
when the only thing they fed me on was bread and jam three times
a day while everyone else was getting steaming trays of soup,
fish, rice and noodles. It's an inexplicable Japanese perception
that all westerners live on bread alone though for sure this was
the first time I'd come across it travelling through South East
Asia. We were now well on our way to suspecting that Tua was a
bit clueless and couldn't actually have any experience guiding
foreigners at all.
We put the bread aside and shared half their lunch, which was
very tasty but not quite enough to fill everyone. Wan Touk munched
away and told us that he'd recently retired from the Laos Army,
he'd joined in '68 during the height of the American war and served
throughout the Indochina conflict. When I asked him where he'd
fought he mentioned a few places to the east on Laos that we'd
never heard of. The Ho Chi Minh trail then?
Yes, and also inside Vietnam, then back to Udomxai and down to
Vientiane for the final victory of the Pathet Lao. We were impressed
and wanted to hear more but he just chuckled and stretched his
legs. Then he stipped down to his undies, washed all his clothes
in the river, hung them to dry on some rocks and jumped in to
take a midday bath. We sat on some boulders in the shade enjoying
the rest. Within fifteen minutes he was washed, kitted out in
his newly cleaned and dried clothes and ready to head on. We looked
over at Tua, who was fidgeting with his mobile phone and using
his fleece jacket as shade, he hadn't even brought a hat. What
was the point of him being there? Tua could speak Lao and English.
Wan Souk had no english but could speak Phou Noy and Lao Ko which
are the main indiginous languages of the region. (Laos has nearly
seventy different ethnic groups and languages) So we'd leave the
village etiquette and hiking to Wan Souk and the translating into
English and..er, cooking to Tua.
The ascent up the mountain was murder, steep to the point of nearly
climbing at times and it just went on and on. Wan Souk took up
a steady slow pace but we were soon lagging far behind him as
Tua was second in line and was clearly exhausted and dragging
us behind. The heat was getting intense on top of all the relentless
uphill climbing. We finally made it to some less steep ground
and took regular breaks. The hours rolled by and the sun was beginning
to make its exit when we finally arrived at Ban Chan Tean village.
The people who live there are Lao Ko, similar to Black Hmong in
dress but speaking there own language. The village was well isolated
but only the first of many that could be reached if you hiked
on and on for weeks towards the Yunnan border. Being a whole days
walk away from anywhere and not having electricity let alone telephones,
we weren't expected and created a bit of a stir as we dragged
our selves down the final hill. Standing on that hill on the outskirt
of the village was a large wooden frame, pyramid shaped which,
we found out later, was a ceremonial site, recently used to usher
in the new year by slaughtering a pig.
It looked like most of the men of the village we're there to ponder
our arrival as they we're building a new house and climbing up
the frame of the roof to get a look. Lots of shouts and laughter,
quizzical faces and more than a few blank or unreadable stares
came our way. Wan Souk went ahead making greetings and introductions
to the men and the village chief. He also had a very old friend
from the Army living in Ban Chan Tean which was probably the main
reason why it was possible for us to visit. He said that no tourists
ever get there.
After a bit of confusion and me and Aya putting our excellent
Laos greetings to use, "sabaidi...sabaidi..."two things
happened simultaneously. It seemed settled that we could stay
(god knows what we'd have done if they said no), the chief's house
would put us up and so Tua, at the edge of the crowd ushered me
away and down the hill towards our lodgings. At the same time
Aya saw the chief pull out four chairs into the middle of the
crowd while he was chatting to Wan Souk so she obviously thought
we'd be invited to sit and have a more formal introduction. However
seeing me and Tua walking away she came with us and it was only
later that we figured Tua might have helped us commit a bit of
a social faux pas.
The village was made up of simple wooden huts with thatched roofs,
on our way in groups of women and children gathered at a distance
surprised and sometimes shocked at our arrival. I saw a young
girl pick up a baby and run away glancing in horror over her shoulder.
Lots of women kind of half hid in doorways. They were dressed
in black with silver jewelry, wearing tall hats adorned with coins
and chains. Alot of the kids were wearing similar clothes with
little skull caps on.
 Well
we were creating bit of a stir in the lanes so maybe that was
why Tua thought it best to hide us in the chief's hut. His wife
was inside with four kids, granny and a baby, both the women wore
traditional clothes but it was so dark inside we suddenly couldn't
see much of anything. We were sat in front of a fire on little
wooden stools on the dirt floor and, well, left there for a bit.
We sat there knackered from the hike, but alert to the sudden
change in situation, pondering Tuas possible faux pas. The kids
stared from the shadows in the corner and, even in such a small
space, we only made out glimpses of what the silent woman of the
house actually looked like, a glint of silver here, an exposed
breast hanging out there but no sign of her face as she always
seemed to have her head bowed.
Well, there was nothing to do but sit and breath in the smoke
fumes. the hut didn't have a chimney and gradually became more
and more suffocating. Granny came back in with a pile of wood,
stoked up the fire pit a bit more and seemed more disposed towards
us, sitting on a stool close by with baby in her lap. She made
cooing noises, smiled and showed us the little treasure. For a
minute I was horrified we'd have to play 'pass the baby' but luckily
that didn't happen.
The chief reappeared briefly, he sat opposite and had a brief
halting exchange with Tua which ended with a long silence after
which he kind of shrugged, groaned and walked out. Tua started
explaining to us the importance of 'the door'. This wasn't the
main door we'd come through, but the back door, through which
the only light and air was spilling in. Apparently it was taboo
to do a lot of things associated with this door, like walk through
it if you were the wife, or take food inside through it, or wood
outside...it was all very confusing and the only certainty was
that when a visitor wants to propose marriage you enter through
it and when someone dies they use it for their final exit from
the house. At the current rate of monoxide poisoning this didn't
seem far off but luckily we could make use it as long as there
was no food or wood involved.
Thank god, we said we needed to go pee so we could go outside
and breath. We wandered around smelling like we'd been camping
for a week and headed off for the hill overlooking the village
to take some pics. Some kids followed us and when I put my hand
to the camera they ran away screaming. We passed a woman in her
yard and when we said "sadaidi" she burst into a cackling
laugh showing us her red teeth, shaking her head. We stood for
a while pretending to admire a hairy black pig while a crowd gathered.
We could hear people chatting behind and when we turned around
there were about twenty women and kids standing there. With the
dying light of the day and dressed in their charcoal grays, blacks
and dark blues they looked amazing. We said hello and they laughed,
nodded said hello, shrieked at each other generally fell about
a bit We almost always ask peoples permission to take a photo,
usually by half holding up the camera and pointing at it. As soon
as Aya reached for her camera to do this the whole group dispersed,
kids legged it, women shouted and covered their faces, babies
started crying. We'd never come across anything like it. So, obviously
no pictures then. The groups formed again and being without guides
and utterly ignorant of Lao Ko we all stood about smiling and
nodding and laughing at each other.
Back at the hut, dinner was being prepared, we felt for Tua trying
to cook in the near total darkness but he managed to knock together
some fried greens, a kind of flower stem that tastes bitter, and
rice. As the guests we got to eat first while all five kids stared
on absorbed by the spectacle.Then granny and Tua got to eat Then
dad arrived, who wasn't actually the chief, his son perhaps..and
he ate and finally mum and the kids got their meal. Between dishes
we decide to use our 'magic mini cinema' routine to try and break
the ice, showing mum and the kids all the pics we'd taken that
day on the viewing screen of the digicam. They were absobed by
the little electric glow of the camera looking at pictures of
mountains and streams, us, Wan Sauk and Tua. Mum chatted a soft
running commentary for the kids though she was directly behind
us and we still hadn't caught a glimpse of her face.
We were suffocating in the smoke again, the lack of a chimney
meant the smoke wafted across the full length of the room to escape
through 'the door'. We made another excuse to go pee, (must've
thought we had weak bladders) and as we left heard the house explode
into noise as Mum lauched into a terrade of shouting, obviously
giving her husband a serious piece of her mind. We snuck around
the side of the hut towards the hill again, shocked by the sudden
change of gear in the house. We laughed trying to imagine what
she was saying, "Who the are these people? What the hell
are they doing in my house you useless sod!!!Weren't you gonna
paint the bathroom tonight?"
It was good to get some fresh air and the canopy of stars from
up on the hill was increadibly clear. All over Laos, the total
absence of light pollution lets the whole night sky shine through.
We carried on admiring this until we thought it best to return.
At first we thought the arguement was still gong on but realised
that there was a whole new bunch of people in the hut. A group
of eight or so men had settled in around the small fire smoking
bongs and cigerettes and shouting loudly. We recognised a couple
of faces from the building site that afternoon.
The room was now full of woodsmoke and fumes, one guy sitting
right on the fires edge getting shrouded in the stuff. The women
and kids had moved to the little entrance space and we found Tua
sat at the back from the group, he seemed nervous. More salutations
and greetings, the men seemed to be questioning Tua and he was
reluctant to say much. I thought some sounded a bit confrontational
but it was hard to tell. He told us that these villagers we're
all like the Chinese, loud and gruff and that he could barely
understand what they we're saying. Theres no schools in the village
etc etc...It was difficult to chat for sure, they we're shouting
and laughing and high as kites. The chief popped in for a bit
but just kind of slunked over his stool holding his head like
he'd just taken a bit hit of something. Green rice whiskey? Opium?
Some more young lads came in and sat around the edges of the room
looking on and laughing. There was one guy sat to my right who
got everyone laughing everytime he spoke. It was frustrating not
being able to communicate, we could have done with Wan Souk.
 I
reached over to get some water but couldn't reach it so said to
Aya "Pass us some water." The guy next to me goes, "pazuzsumwo'a"
and we all fell about laughing."Thanks alot","phankalo"...the
kids were loving it and suddenly the ice was broken. This went
on for ages, with him mimicking almost everything we said and
us getting him to tell us the Lao Ko for things. I'd point to
a glass of tea and he'd say "Sa", I'd say "Tea"
and he'd go 'ti" and everyone was laughing, "kai...teapot,
Pa..fire". So then he could make a mimed sentence, "tea...teapot...fire"
as in, put the tea in the pot and stick it on the fire. He was
very funny and got everyone in hysterics. Not least of all cause
he was in tears of laughter himslef half the time.
"Pai...Bong" so he passed it over to us. A thick tube
of bamboo with water in the bottom and a small snout to burn and
feed the smoke through. We had a go and now everyone was fully
enjoying each others company. It was a great night and the first
in a Lao village where we could meet up with the people like this.
We managed to pick up the Lao Ko greeting, which might be written
something like 'Jun Myun Byola' but I couldn't pronounce it for
the life of me and made it sound more like 'me umbrella'.
Finally things wound down, Tua seemed anxious to call it a night
and anyway we were dead tired from the trek. Apparently we'd hiked
over thirty kilometers of mountains that day so settled in for
the night on a raised platform alongside the main room. We'd all
be sleeping in there and luckily 'pazuzsumwoa' had hung around
long enough to warn Tua that he was in the wrong spot and was
actually settling himself into the chief's bed. I found a small
crack in between the wooden paneling of the wall where fresh air
was pouring in so spent the night with my head tilted back trying
escaping the fumes of the long burning fire.
I was woken up at some point to see Wan Souk standing over us
trying to wake Tua, there was a very old man stood beside him,
all wrinkly features and heavy shadows in the fire light. They
got Tua up, sat him by the fire and talked to him for hours. I
imagined them giving him a lecture on proper village etiquette
and wondering what a city boy like him thought he was doing pretending
to be a guide and taking tourists to villages in distant provinces
of the country visiting places he'd never been before, meeting
people he didn't know and generally not know shit from shite.
But then it was just my imagination as they spoke Lao and so I
obviously couldn't understand a word they said.
 The
next morning we woke just after dawn, the hut coming to life with
the rising sun. We sat round the ever burning fire and ate a breakfast
of instant roodles. We were offered a bowl to wash in and luckily
didn't take it outside throught 'the door' to wash in the yard.
Tua only told us afterwards it was taboo for guests to take water
outside and the family would have had to slaughter a buffalo.
We decide to wander around the village and try a new tactic to
get some pics. There were more kids around and so we decided to
hand the cameras over to them to have a go. A few of them really
got into it and before long they were taking pictures of each
other and laughing over the results. Most of the villagers still
hid at the sight of a lens but "pazusdawo'a" and a friend
came by to get their pictures taken and even the family we'd stayed
with alowed us one shot. I think they really wanted to see what
they looked like and all (except mum, whose face we finaly got
a glimpse of) laughed at the results.
Soon enough Wan Souk came by and after many thanks it was time
to head off on the long trek back to Pongsali. Originally we were
meant to spend three days on the hike but the extra day on the
river had eaten into our time. We got a warm send off from the
Lao Ko people, back working on the new house they waved us off
shouting good luck.
We trekked back was much the same way only in reverse, we felt
stronger already in our legs and got down to the river quickly,
then taking a different route on the way back up from their. We
headed up a very steep open area that some villagers had cleared
for dry rice planting. Finally this trail took us high up onto
the valley ridge and could walk back to Pongasali along this scenic
open land of Green Tea Plantions.
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bravenet.com
After
taking the overnight bus from Bangkok to the Lao border, we found
ourselves in Vientiane early in the morning. As capital cities
go Vientiane should be famous for being the least likely capital
on earth. Small and sleepy it sits along the bank of the Mekong
looking back across towards Thailand. 
Now, things inevitably go wrong on a long trip at some point and
luckily up till now nothing really had, in fact we'd been lucky
to get a safe landing in Hanoi and not to have been on the west
coast of Thailand on boxing day morning. 
Luang Phabang is a quiet and sleepy ex-colonial town, world heratage
site and darling location for generations of travellers and aid
workers who know a good spot when they find it. 
We visited the main temples and sites in Luang Phabang in a couple
of days and were starting to feel a bit underawed. Probably more
a reflection of the fact that we'd been traveling for eight months
than on the town itself but after two days we were scratching our
heads working out what to do next. We'd lost our guide book along
with the camera back in Vientiane (no big loss as the Lonely Planet
to Laos really isn't up to much at all). 
We
planned a three day hike that took us first on a short tuk-tuk
journey to a far bank of the Khan river, which feeds into the
Mekong, about half an hour from Luang Phabang. Even at such a
short distance from the city we found ourselves walking through
beautiful teak forests and crossing rice fields now dried yellow
and over grown with weeds and wild flowers. 
Outside one of the houses we stumbled across a bomb casing, one
of the many left dotted all over Laos from Americas unofficial
war and bombing campaign during the height of the Vietnam war.
Called 'Operation Sideshow', they tried unsuccessfully to disrupt
the Vietnamese and Pathet Laos forces by dropping more bombs on
the small rural country than were dropped in the entirity of the
second world war, making Laos the most heavily bombed country
in the world. 
The next part of our hike was a steep four hour hike, traversing
first up then down the side of a huge mountain. The whole path
was narrow and crowded with tall grass and palm plants. Van called
this section the 'Tiger Trail' probably due to the fact that it
was a bit wild and you'd have to be the height of a tiger to fit
through it. On the descent I imagined it should have been called
the 'midget trail' as I was permanently bent double with knees
trembling and grass constantly wacking me in the face as I half
crawled my way down the mountain slope.
The
village shower was a stream channeled through half bamboo gutters
and it was open to all on the side of the village. We were pondering
the logisitics of getting a wash without creating any embarrassment
but everytime I headed to the stream there were already a group
of women washing their clothes and themselves. Being a Brit I
stood around at a distance waiting my turn which of cause meant
nothing to the Khmu, more people came and went happliy washing
together and I figured it would be prudish to shy away so just
stripped down to my boxers and joined in, swearing that on the
next trip I'd take a knee length towel or sarong and my flip-flops
like the locals do.
The late hour, the total silence of the villagers and lack of
lighting got me thinking that this was some kind of propaganda
braodcast that everyone had to endure everynight, (we came upon
this a few times in Vietnam too). The whole village nodding off
in the dark to some droning instructions that sounded like they
were being broadcast from Mars or somewhere. We couldn't sleep
so ventured out to find a spot to use as a toilet. Van had been
very vague about that arrangement and just gestured around the
village saying "go anywhere". Didn't seem right to pee
in front of someones house so we wandered through the empty village
in the moonlight, with The Voice still banging on and echoing
off the surrounding hills, and found some trees on the edge of
the huts.
Vans
sister in law invited us in for a rest in the midday heat and
we prepared for the zigzaging uphill-downhill trail to our stopover
for the night. Hiking in asia is rarely flat, the paths that the
villagers had created to get from A to B have to negotiate their
way along the edges on constantly creased and buckling mountain
slopes so it was a bit intimidating at times when we'd reach a
high point and Van would point to the third huge hill in the distance
and say, "We're heading for the valley just behind there."
and you'd be squinting into the distance and looking at the drops
of each fold in the mountains wondering how the hell we we're
gonna do it.
We
set of first for Phonsali Province in the far North East corner,
bordering Yunnan Province, China. We planned on a two day trip up
the Ou River but it eventually turned into three. First two we're
on the slow, narrow taxi boats everyone uses to get around but of
course they only leave when full and make plenty of stops along
the way. On the second day it looked like we'd have to charter a
whole boat for ourselves but managed to get upriver the slow and
cheaper way by hanging around till midday when their were enough
passengers to set off. The five to six hour trips we're a great
way to get through Laos, with stunning landscapes and relatively
peaceful (besides our boat engine) river valleys.
We'd seen and definately heard a few of these lunatic devices over
the past two days. A small long boat sat deep in the water with
a huge engine stuck to the back, the driver operates a long pole
with a propellar whiring at the end. He dips this in the water,
turning left to right for direction..and these things fly. The noise
they make coming down the river canyons is enourmous, we often heard
them from a distance and when they go past everyone stops and stares,
half in awe and half amazement at the idiots travelling so fast
and recklessly over the shallow waters. All the passengers are equipped
with crash helmets as, with all the seperating channels, exposed
rocks and flotsam in the water, they have a notorious reputation
for upending and presuamably killing half the occupants. I met someone
who'd ridden one and his description of what it was like was tensing
up his whole body, burying his neck in his sholders, gritting his
teeth and shaking violently up and down! Great, we had little choice
but we're beginning to question Tua's judgement.
We
sat in the speed boat early in the morning with that feeling you
get when you're at the beginning of a rollercoaster ride. Again
Tua let us down by sitting us (but not himself) in the front of
the thing, the worst place possible, all the Laos on board spent
the next two and a half hours huddled behind us as we took the full
force of the wind and serious chill factor. The boat flew into action
and in seconds the scerene forrested landscape we'd got used to
contemplating became a green blur. Five minutes later we we're frozen
with tears coming out of our eyes...after ten minutes we began to
get used to seeing the river split into three channels by huge boulders
and then narrowly scraping past one as the pilot swerved us into
the only channel slightly deep enough to get through, gunning the
engine up the chuning slope of foam before settling in to the next
clear stretch. 
We followed the original plan, trying to get across to Luang Nam
Tha in the northwest for another three day trek. It took us another
two days by bus to get there.(not the one Tua originally said).
Ten hours on the road from Pongsali to Udomxai, then another five
hour minibus ride to Luang Nam Tha the followig day. During the
breaks in travel we began to question Tua about his spending on
food and guides. We were paying all cost on top of his basic "guide
fee". He'd increased the costs from the original and claimed
to have spent all the money we'd given him although we couldn't
work out how it was possible. He claimed to have spent fifteen
dollars on the bread, noodles etc for the two day hike! Of course
we knew he was lying, but this added a new dimension to our growing
distrust of him. Up till then he was just a bit incompetant and
had seriuos exagerated his experience as a guide.