Tuesday 26th February
The night had been a reasonably comfortable one for me and I got up at 07.00 feeling refreshed and looking forward to the day ahead. However, it seemed that I was the only one to have had a decent sleep: the others had been kept awake throughout the night by the sound of rats scurrying and screaming in the floorboards between the rooms on either floor of the building. Once again, my magic earplugs had done a sterling job (particularly given my serious aversion to rats). Unfortunately, the others were visibly affected by the lack of sleep, and so it wasn't ideal preparation for them before going off on a long, hot walk.
After a breakfast of what seemed like a five egg omelette and a bowl of sticky rice, we set off to meet the guides and driver who would bring us to the starting point for our trek. We were to be accompanied on the trip by two guides: Boolean and Sombat. Before leaving, we bought some exercise books and pens as a gift for the children in the villages in which we were to stay (an idea suggested by John but one I felt comfortable with given the slight pangs of guilt I felt at our turning up in these remote villages, and which involved a certain degree of voyeurism or our part).
From Vieng Poukha, a drive of about an hour through the hills and fields took us to a small village populated by Khmu and Lahu tribes, and we got an insight into how these people lived, and heard about some of their traditions. For example, we found out that the girls in the village, when they reach the age of fourteen, must move out of the family home and live in small, stilted huts, after which time they can start to look for a partner; once married, they can then move back into the home of the girls family. There were loads of kids running around, playing games, and obviously excited by the presence of foreign people (or falang as they are known in Lao) in their town. After meeting the chief of the village, we moved on and were soon dropped off at a small clearing at the edge of the forest, from where we started our walk.
The going was fairly easy to begin with, with a few steep inclines leading us to the first village that we walked into. It was set on a hillside, an area cleared completely of trees and other vegetation, exposing the dry red soil that lay beneath. Huts made from wood and bamboo dotted the hillside. The town itself was quite deserted, with only a small group of women and small children being left behind by the rest of the village, who themselves were out working in the fields.
After about twenty minutes, we moved on and, on the outskirts of the village, came across a small structure made of bamboo and what looked like something furry dangling from it. On closer inspection, we could see that this was the severed head of a puppy, with it's four paws forming an 'X' above it. The guides explained to us that this was a 'spirit gate' and it was designed as a sacrificial offering to the village spirirts who, it was believed, would help protect the people from a bout of illness that had recently spread amongst the village population. The gate and the sacrifice were intended to prevent any further people from becoming sick. It was very interesting to see this very real form of ritual up close. We came across several of these spirit gates on our trek, and it is clearly something that is fundamental to the beliefs of the Akha people. Shame about the puppy dog, though, such a waste of a young life.
After a few more hours walk, we came to another Akha village, and it was here that we were to spend the first night. A bamboo lodge had been built on the edge of the village, and intended purely for tourists (it was financed by the EU, who provide funding for many projects in Laos, including many of the schools in these small settlements). Therefore, it was set apart enough from the village so as not to impinge too much on the lives of the local people. Boolean and Somat prepared a lunch of sticky rice (a staple in Laos, and which you have in almost every meal); fried lotus (which is like eating thin broccoli stalks); turkey laab (minced and seasoned meat); rice donuts; and some unrecognisable chicken dish that had been cooked in a banana leaf and looked like the kind of thing that you see splashed over the pavement on a Sunday morning at home.
After this break, we walked to another location which had several large waterfalls around it. This forest area was really cool and sufficiently off the beaten path to make it feel like we were trekking somewhere reasonably remote (and, I guess, that was one of the main attractions in this particular trek). This was to be our bathing spot for the day, and the girls had the opportunity to act out their very own shampoo commercial (where the chick washes her hair under the waterfall). The water wasn't too cold, and I felt very refreshed after working up a decent sweat to get there.
When we returned to the village, we had dinner, and it was pretty much the same as what we had for lunch: rice, lotus, pumpkin, and beef (which had been left to dry and then fried, and tasted similar to beef jerky but better). As the sun set, some of the guys settled down for the evening. This was about 19.30, so it was clear that the nights were going to be early ones on this trip. I stayed up for a while and chatted to Paul & Karine, only heading to bed (a mattress and a duvet on the floor of the hut) in order to keep as warm as I could, not out of any real feeling of tiredness. At this time, the village was still very much alive, with the kids running out and playing until well after dark, so I stuck in my faithful pair of earplugs and settled down for the night myself.
