Way off the beaten path

We just finished our last week in Laos in the northern providence of Phongsaly. The city of Phongsaly is not a very popular tourist destination, mainly because you have to take an 8 hour crazy bumpy windy local bus to get there and then once you are there, you can't really continue on, you just have to go back south. But, we were crazy enough to make the journey and were rewarded with a very unique experience. We saw a lot of crazy things during this part of the trip and I will do my best to recall them without turning this post into a novel.


We headed to Phongsaly because we wanted to do a trek to some of the remote hill tribe villages in the area. We had heard it is some of the best trekking in southeast Asia if you want to have an authentic experience with the minority tribes. The town of Phongsaly isn't much. It's up in the mountains with some nice views and produces a lot of green tea. There are just a few guesthouse options (none very good) and a few restaurants. There is also a fair amount of Chinese and Vietnamese influence since it is near both borders. We saw a few tourists, but we were still unique enough to receive lots of stares from the locals. We were pleasantly surprised to find that they had re-opened the airport about an hour away in the next town and that if we waited until Saturday we could fly out instead of taking the 30+ hour boat/bus ride into Vietnam. Overall that was great news, but it did mean that we had an extra day or 2 to kill in town.


The real excitement of Phongsaly though was our 3 day trek into the Ahka villages north of the town. We booked a trip with a local guide named Si. It was just going to be the 2 of us. We took a bus for about an hour to the tiny town of Hat Sa where we then boarded a boat heading up the Nam Ou river for another hour or so. From there we arrived at our first village. This village was right on the river and was a Pu Noi tribal village of about 370 people. We had a quick snack and our guide told us about some of the opium addiction issues in this area. Northern Laos used to be a major opium production area until the government cracked down on its production. However, there are still many elderly villagers with bad opium addictions so the government allows them to grow a small amount each year.


From here we began our real trek up into the mountains. The area has been repeatedly cleared in a patch work through the years and used for agriculture so it wasn't quite forest, but it was still very lush. The trail was pretty steep and involved lots of up and downs. After a few hours we reached our first Ahka village. It was small about 20 bamboo houses. We were first greeted by some kids that has made some sweet little skateboard bikes out of wood. They all gathered around us and stared. Then the adults came. Soon we had about 40 people standing around us. One guy ran over and started talking to our guide. He had a cut on his hand that had become infected and his entire hand was swelling badly. He asked us if we had any medicine. Not having more than a basic first aid kit we gave him some neosporine and ibuprofen, but that was really all we could do. Then another guy kept showing me his wheezing baby and wanting help. It started getting a little overwhelming as more and more people wanted our help. The poverty and isolation of the village became very apparent. After a little time we needed to continue onto our next village where we were going to spend the night. We made it there just before dark.


This village was high on the mountain with a beautiful view. We first went to the chiefs house where we were going to be spending the night. We were greeted by the chief who had just gotten back from hunting where he shot a monkey with his super old school powder gun. Guess what was on the menu for dinner! Again we were the interest of the village and had many people especially children coming to check us out. Monkey is also a real rarity (they hadn't shot one in the last 3 years) so that added to the excitement. Then our guide took a machete and started hacking at the monkeys scull. He soon exposed the brain and began eating a little. He then took out the brain and put it into a bottle of Lao Lao (this home made terrible tasting corn and rice alcohol). He said drinking monkey brain infused Lao Lao makes you smarter. We had a sip and that was plenty. From there the monkey burning and butchering and cooking began. We headed into the house. It  was kind of like an old wood barn. Maybe about 20 feet long. On one end was the cooking area where the women began to cook the monkey over an indoor fire. The house had a dirt floor with a few chairs and 2 little sleeping areas that were divided off by curtains (one for the men and one for the women). The house also stored a large collection of pumpkins that had been recently harvested. There were a lot of people in and out of the house, but I think around 12 people actually lived there.


Ahka culture has not changed much over the decades. They still mostly live in simple villages with fairly traditional bamboo houses. There is no water or plumbing, but some houses do have small generators or water wheels that can power a few light bulbs for special occasions. There are also a lot of farm animals in the villages-dogs, water buffalo, pigs, chickens, and ducks (many of which run in and out of the houses). The men (who are usually more educated) often speak Laos in addition to their native language and they have also adapted to more western style trousers and shirts. The women on the other had still wear their traditional indigo robes with very elaborate head dresses. They grow the cotton which they weave into their fabric and they die it with a local root. It quickly became apparent that being a woman in Ahka society is really hard work. We've noticed all over Laos that the women are often engaged in lots of manual labor while the men seem to have it a little easier, but this was even more amplified in the villages. Most of the time we were around the villages the men were sitting around, drinking, smoking, and talking. The women on the other hand were working the fields, cooking all the meals, cleaning and spinning cotton, gathering water from the stream, feeding the animals, and slugging around little babies on their backs. You could even see the difference in the children. The boys played while the girls spent more time helping with chores. At one point we observed a very pregnant woman hard at work while her husband sat and talked with a friend. We also met a woman who was hiking out to her rice field with a tiny baby on her back. Our guide talked to her and found out she had just given birth 10 days ago. Life as an Ahka woman is pretty crazy.


So that night we ate dinner with the men (the women eat separately usually after everyone else has eaten). Our meal consisted of a monkey stew, monkey liver (which I thought was pretty tasty), boiled pumpkin, boiled bamboo shoots, some scrambled eggs, sticky rice, and little glasses of Lao Lao. The dinner is served on a little round table about 1 foot off the ground and we all sat on tiny wooden stools. After dinner we hung out with the family a little. The men were really interested in Derrick's size and kept comparing their little skinny legs to his calves and arms. After a bit we headed to bed on our simple mats in the sleeping room with the men (in Ahka society, I count more as a man, than a woman).


The next morning we had breakfast (left over monkey, eggs, and rice) and headed back on the trail. We briefly visited one more village then we had lunch at a second and eventually made it to our third village where we would spend the second night. This village was similar as the others, but had even more stunning scenery. We arrived in the late afternoon so we had more time to spend with the locals. We again stayed at the house of the chief. In this village we also got to meet the Shaman because there had recently been a death and he was involved in the funeral planning. It was hard to interact too much with the villagers with the language barriers. The women were especially challenging because they stayed busy with chores. The kids were usually the easiest. The were usually scared of us (especially Derrick), but after a bit they would warm up. Our guide shared tons of information with us about the communities and some of the things happening within the Lao government. There are plans to relocate many of the villages to places with better water access and nearer to a new road they are planning to build in the area (there are no roads to any villages currently). There is also plans to create several hydroelectric dams which will flood several of the villages near the river.


After it got dark we had dinner. It was similar but this time just a little bit of fried pork skin for the meat and we ate by flashlight. This house was slightly smaller than the first and had 14 people living in it. Our sleeping area shared a wall with the pig sty and had a pretty terrible smell. They mentioned there were rats in the ceiling which we kept hearing as we tried to fall asleep and Derrick swears he felt a rat scurry over him in the middle of the night. It wasn't a comfortable experience for a lot of reasons, but it was a good one. It is startling how incredibly different life can be depending where you live and it's hard to believe a place so remote and different exists. We had a lot of processing to do once we got back to Phongsaly the next afternoon and it was absolutely crazy to get on a plane the next day and land in Hanoi a super busy, super crowded city. Our hotel (which is one of the nicer we've stayed in, in Asia) seems over the top luxurious compared to where we just were. I think things are going to change a lot in the next ten years for some of the Ahka tribes and its hard to know how these changes will affect them. There is a fine balance between alleviating some of the poverty and destroying a unique culture and way of life.        

The monkey getting butchered

Monkey brains going into a bottle of
Lao Lao

Derrick showing the kids his game

Around the villge

Water Buffalo

And the men hang out

Women's sleeping area

kitchen area

One of the women from our first night

The women eating seperately

The villages do have small schools (mostly for boys)

Little girl with her machete

One of the villages along the way

A woman and her kids at our second night

One of the older girls and her sister