The Rocket, a movie trailer

I'm not sure where this is made but I caught the fact that it dealt with forced relocation for hydro, which is kinda controversial I'd think.

Also infanticide of twins per Akha culture. Never heard an Akha granny speak such perfect Lao before.

I'd be interested to see the movie. I know of a couple villages getting relocated and I don't talk about it.

Nam Fa means Sky River

I have no doubt as to where I am when I wake up to the sound of the saht hitting the koak-tam-kao. The foot powered pestle falling into the large mortar carved from a log is such a low solid sound it reverberates through the hard packed earth and up the posts the house is built on and into beams supporting the floor and the sleeping platform I lie on.

Usually I wake up when the eldest wife starts the fire. Today the sun is fully up and the wife of the eldest son is dehusking the rice under the house. There’s a slight creek as one end of the long pole attached to the saht is pushed down with the foot, then a hesitation as the saht at the other end tops it’s arc then that moment that hangs in time as saht falls through the air and hits the coak.

The chickens are eager to get any fallen grains, the husks will be collected to be mixed with the boiled hearts of banana trees to feed the pigs, and the family has rice for one more day of the year, one of many years, in many generations, of the people called Akha.

Koak tam kao, and in her hand the cotton she is twisting into thread, notice the rice bag that is actually an old fertilizer bag bought from town, it still has the markings 18-20-0 representing how much NPK.

I rub the sleep from my eyes, grab my camera and duck underneath the house to take a photo. I know at the time it’s just a cornball tourist photo. Gotta have a picture of the foot powered saht. I’m accompanied by a couple kids and a dog, the woman is spinning cotton fibers into thread at the same time as she pushes the saht with her foot.

I saw a video shot in Vientiane by some sort of cultural preservation arm of the government, they were taking kids to see a foot powered sat tam kao. Kids in the capital can now grow up never having seen rice de husked except by machine. Gone the way of the water buffalo I guess.


This post is part of a series of posts about a long walk I did mostly in Muang Long district of Luang Namtha Province Laos in the winter of 08/09. Below are the links to the other posts.
Long Time Traveler Muang Long
One Day Treks in the Vicinity of Muang Long
Lahu NIght Out
The Trail To Nambo
Hmong House
Further Into the Forest
Ban Nam Hee
Lost in Laos

On the left the Naiban of ban Huay Poong, on the right the local guide from Ban Nam Hee

Inside breakfast is busy with lots of people. We had rice and a jeao made of toasted peanuts, hot peppers, pig oil, and enough salt to cause stroke. The headman pulled an SKS out of the roof above where I’d been sleeping, opened the magazine dropping six cartridges onto the blankets, worked the action to extract the one left in the chamber, and handed it over to one of the guys that had come to breakfast.

Young hunter with SKS

Tui translated. The young men had chased a large boar the day before. The wounded pig was too tough and they hadn’t been able to kill the it. One of the dogs was hurt so badly it might well die. I could picture scene in my head, young guys running around in the bushes, dogs whirling about, pig snorting and screaming, dogs barking and biting, thick brush and trees, muffled explosion of black powder muskets with lots of smoke that lingers in the slow air of the deep forest.

The hunter was borrowing the center fire rifle to finish the job today. Cartridges are expensive, probably around a dollar a piece, the headman is fine loaning out the rifle but not the ammo. The rifle is called the same thing in Laos as in the US except using mangled french consonants that come out something like Sik Kuh Say. It’s a soviet block semi auto, uses the same rounds as the AK, might well be half a century old.

A new local guide is hired. Tui, and the guides discuss the route, our old guide will return to his village and a new one will take us to Jakune Mai. I was beginning to lose track of how long we’d been out, it had only been three days and nights. This house and other houses and other cook fires in other villages in other trips seem to meld into the fires of the juggies up on the Greys river and on into the Androscoggin of my young teens.

The headman told of his difficulty kicking his addiction to opium, and his re acceptance by the people of the village. I listen with ambivalence. Opium is as much a part of their culture as the saht to dehusk the rice, it’s up to them to refrain from liking it too much.  There’s more talk, of the division of the village, of the route to Jakune, of the other villages of the area.

Soon enough we were walking again. Walking was becoming the thing we do. First the local guide I called uncle, then me, and then Tui. The blister on the ball of my left foot had been hurting for a couple hours each morning, either the feeling would go away or I would stop noticing.

The walking goes easy, down hill but not steep.

Not a the biggest by any means but that root flare is greater than two meters. This just happened to be where we took a break. Purple back pack on left of photo

By late morning were in the very large trees of the Nam Fa Valley. (nam means water or in this case river, fa is sky, so “sky river”. I’m used to very large trees and uncut forests, but the soil at the bottom of the valley is so rich the trees grow very high and the trunks are very large, some of the largest trees I’ve ever seen anywhere. The roots flare out widely to support such weight. What light filters through seems green.

I read a while ago on one of those online forums for scientific NGO workers that a Malaysian lumber company would like to build a hydro dam on the Nam Fa. The fact that the company up to this time only deals in wood is enough to make you wonder. The valley is a long long way from anyone that needs large amounts of electricity.

We took a break at a trail junction. To our left was the path to Mongla an unknown number of kilometers downstream on the south bank of the river. At least here was a route to somewhere I’d been before. I remember Mongla as it was when I left it over two years before, the morning mists so thick and heavy everything was dripping, the soft spoken Naiban and his very pretty young second wife not yet with a child.

I put on my flip flops to protect me from stones bruising my feet and used a couple of poles to steady myself. The Nam Fa was as I remember, knee to mid thigh deep, very fast, and fifty meters wide. In this land of deep forest the river is open to the sky and reflects blue. There is the musty wet smell of a big river.

Nam Fa means Sky River

From the water marks on the bank it looks as if the common high water in the wet season is four feet deeper. With six feet of water coursing through, the river would be impossible to cross for many months of the year. In a place where all travel is by foot an impassable river would create a long barrier.

For a while we just look at the river. The Nam Fa is only navigable in portions, it provides no access as a transportation route. The place where it enters the Mekong is difficult to see, it joins in the middle of a set of rapids, the sandbar pushed up by the confluence is high. I have looked for the entrance a couple of times, it hides itself well. The Fa joins the Mekong just below Xiengkok, someone had to point to it for me to see.

Across the river we walk to a village high above the flood plain. I’m not real happy. We still aren’t close to Jakune, the village is another one neither Tui nor I have ever heard of. It’s called Ban Jungah Mai, the Naiban is only 22yrs old, and he also is named Tui. I don’t know which is more unusual that a small village had such a young headman or that an Akha guy had a Lao name.

I headed under the shade of the house and watched a woman weaving while Tui made arrangements for us to continue on towards Jakune. It’s always a problem with a guide, they want to return to their village, the further they walked the more they want to ditch you and head back.

Weaving Ban Jungah Mai

We headed back downhill towards the river but at right angles to the direction we’d come up. After an hour in the mid afternoon hot sun we reach a tributary just before if joins the main river and miraculously two boats.

It’s difficult to describe how startling it was to see boats. The valley we were in is remote in large part due to the impassable rapids up and downstream. The peoples are Akha, Hmong, Lahu, yet here were some Lu with boats.

The Lu are a type of “Tai” peoples, sharing a similar language to the Thai, Lao, Thai Nua, Dai, etc., and also sharing a similar Teravada Bhudism, similar writing systems, etc. These young guys were River Lu. The kind of Lu who live along rivers and are specialists with boats and fishing. Never before had any Lu lived along the middle portions of the Nam Fa.

Boat on the middle portion of the Nam Fa

Our new guide and a few of his friends and their wives and children had hiked in carrying their tools and built the boats on site where they used them in the few miles with navigable rapids. They also built a water wheel to power their sat tam kao to relieve the women of one daily chore.

Very quickly the boats are down the four kilometers to the landing for the trail to Jakune Mai. Tui and our new guide know each other. Tui used to teach high school and the guide was one of his students.

As we walk up the hill and Tui and the guide talk, I notice that the long muzzle loader our guide is casually carrying over his shoulder is pointed straight backwards and into my face. Interrupting I start to ask Tui if there isn’t some sort of safer walking arrangement and with a couple quick words they put me in the front of our little band. Tui explains the locals have never had any training.  I’d guess all that would be needed would be for the hammer to catch on a twig. Call my a nervous Nellie if you will.

Local Lu Guide

We head uphill. The grade is fairly steep and continuous. Afternoon turns to dusk and the guide leaves us to jog back to the river while there is light. The trail is well used and obvious. Dusk lingers in twilight then it’s dark. I turn on my headlamp and Tui switches on his flashlight which flickers for a while before dying. I figure now is as good a time as any to start talking about snakes.

I don’t like walking at nights, I much prefer sitting, or sleeping. We got to Jakune Mai before it was very late, I doubt it was much past seven or eight. Walked right on through the village without people noticing much, there are no lights, we’re just a couple more people wandering around in the dark. Dogs didn’t even bark. Maybe we smelled like everyone else.

Despite the dark, finding our way to Law Pao’s house was obvious, the village lies on a grade and the house is situated at a certain angle. For the first time in a few days I was in a place I’d been before.

Village Swing in the Morning Fog

Ban Nam Hee

I don't know exactly what's up with the gates, one thing I do know is that it's a big deal and one should pay attention and not mess up. Outside the gate is the outside world, inside is the village of the Akha. The double track is from the feet coming and  going, there are no roads for many kilometers.

I asked my guide Tui if I could take a photo, then I asked the local guide too and waited for his reaction. I ask every time, who knows, maybe it's ok at one time but not another. I do know not to touch. There are a couple gates per village and they have a lot to do with keeping bad stuff from entering and good stuff staying. There is a whole rigmarole about when and how to build them. Seems like they build gates just outside of the old gates every once in a while, like two feet further out. I've seen village gates too that you aren't supposed to walk through. I kid you not, the trail abruptly turns and if you look beside it uphill there is that gate without a worn trail through it, why I don't know, but I'm careful to do as others do and walk the correct trail.

Into nature these Akha folks are, there are rules about sticks inside the village, can't throw them or can't break them or something. To be safe I don't break or throw. They leave the trees all around the village too. They only live in close proximity to big trees. The forests are diverse with hundreds of different plant and animal species, every child learns the names and uses and habits of every one of them. The use of and relations with all things is codified in the set of rules known as The Akha Way. If all this sounds like a big pain it's really not.

Many of the symbols on the gate have to do with animals, probably hoping to ensure a good hunt for the food of the forest that feeds them. On one gate Tui pointed out some sticks that actually if you looked close were a symbol of two humans doing the wild thing. It was the trunk of two small saplings with enough branches and roots in the right places to resemble human limbs, someone had carved them to add realism. Probably some sort of fertility symbol. To a people who can recite their lineage by rote memory back through the generations, having progeny is important. 

Often you see little AK-47s carved out of wood attached to the gate. Maybe to scare away evil or to show the power of the village. There is no more powerful symbol than the AK.

I've never made a study of the various rules and traditions of the Akha, I only learn what I pick up here and there over the years. I do try to be watchful of those around me to make sure I'm not missing any disaproving glances. I'd hate to be the one to enter a closed village or unknowingly break some other tradition, not only because there would have to be some sort of effort made to offset the badness but also because I know that bad luck is something that no amount of ritual can wash away. Even though many of their laws and rules might seem superstitious to westerners it's not up to me to pick and choose which rules to believe or follow, by entering an Akha village I'm accepting all of their ways. 


I'm posting a long comment up here so no one will miss it


the gates are all about keeping spirits out. 
there are 2 sets, one each at the front & back of the village.
inside the gates = human world. beyond the gates = spirit world.
Akha believe that spirits do not have reproductive organs, hence the wooden carvings of a pair of male & female humans to drive home the point that the village is not a place for spirits.

'asterisk-like' daa leow on the gate & sometimes on nearby trees too = 'do not touch' sign.
bird carvings = birds are able to warn of danger approaching.
apart fom AK47 some villages have airplane & helicopter carvings too.
new gate is built every Akha New Year (or when someone has touched it, causing it to lose its 'power' to keep spirits out) directly behind the previous year's gate.

during the H1N1 scare my friends' village in Thailand put up an additional, much taller 'gate' at the road access to their village with a dog carcass on top - this they believed would help to keep the disease out.

& just learnt a few bits more last last weekend:

the bamboo ladder leading up to the rice storage shed (& also houses) - apparently the side of the bamboo used for the rungs matters...one side is for humans to walk on, the other is used by spirits, so if you construct it with the 'wrong' (concave) side up you're inviting spirits to climb up.

same for banana leaves when spreading them on the floor/ground as 'table mats' - underside of the leaves facing up for human use...reverse way for spirits' use. all along i thought it was just because the upper side of the leaves gets all the bird poop & dust :P

& that Akha believe that cats are the children of princes/princesses - & so they are allowed into houses & are not to be eaten :)

- straycat"


and now a plug for Ms. Straycat's two blogs, which are my two favorite blogs about Lao/Thai, travel culture etc. they are over on the right called Lao Miao and The Wandering Straycat. Take a look and you'll see what I mean.

Ban Nam Hee (backwards it's Hee River Village) is a village that seemed to be doing very well for itself. Quite a few metal roofs to be seen, a sure sign of prosperity. Situated at the confluence of the Nam Hee and the Nam Fa (Hee and Blue or Sky River) the word for blue and the word for sky sound the same to me, you don't need to know what "hee" translates as. (I've been informed the "fa" in nam fa means sky and the hee in Nam Hee means not what I was thinking, my accent was off) The valley bottom widens out large enough for rice paddies and regular rice cultivation. They have water buffalo. I guess it has to be the most well to do upland village I've yet seen. 

Ban Nam Hee on Google Earth. Note the bright reflection of the newer metal roofs. Also notice the different texture and colors indicating different growth. The rough texture surrounding the village is caused by large old growth trees rising above the canopy. The Akha never cut the trees around the village, many of those trees were there before Vietnam was a colony. 

Further behind and uphill the telltale yellow of a recently harvested upland rice field. More subtly north of the village the uniform velvet of regrown swidden agriculture. Fields are rotated on a very long schedule. After growing rice or corn for a couple of years a field might well lay fallow for twelve to twenty years, each year providing habitat for different species of animals and plants until once again it is slashed and burnt. The rotation of crop lands and the circle of life continues much as it has for centuries uncounted.

Good luck with any plans  the Lao Government might have to relocate these folks, they're doing just fine right where they are. I'm sure they'd never trade their lands for some spot beside the road perched on the side of a hill.

Above the terraced wet rice fields. It's as if there were a tiny enclave of lowland agriculture plunked down amidst this land of mountain rice and slash and burn. I think these fields are the key to the prosperity of the village. Wet rice has very high yields per acre or rai which is the local measurement. One rai can support one family with high calorie sticky rice for one year.

On the way out the next morning we walked past the graineries above the rice fields. There was so much rice that the extra was stored outside in old rice sacks where the animals could get at it. There was just no more room to store the rice they had. Above you can see a new storage shed being built past the one with the sacks. Rice is stored away from the village, if there is fire there is still rice to eat.

Ban Nam Hee even had water buffaloes. You see less photos of water buffs in Asia now that the iron buffalo is everywhere, but in an upland village? Five of them! There seemed to be no one there to mind the animals, maybe a youngster heard us coming and hid. There was no second season rice to guard against them eating. Still, there are tigers and leopards in the forest, perhaps no carnivores around, or the buffalo are too big and with horns.

The village was the first one I'd seen with an electric generator. Other places had LED bulbs hooked to batteries, Ban Nam Hee had a satellite TV. In the evenings they'd turn on the generator for a couple of hours and women would have light to cook with. A dim electric bulb is a handy thing to have.

Though it took us two full days to walk to Ban Nam Hee, during the wet season the navigable portion of the Nam Fa is only three hours walk away. (six hours our walking speed). So the village floated a diesel engine and generator down the river and then using many people with slings and poles carried the heavy engine, over many days, over the mountains to their village. 

Compact Fluorescent light bulb and the view from the Naiban's porch.

In the photo above you can see that though the roof is metal, very little other things in the village are manufactured products. You never see empty plastic bags or water bottles on the ground. The fence is of sticks, the baskets of bamboo, water is carried in long tubes made from bamboo, snacks are carried in folded pieces of banana leaf, things are tied with a long splinter from bamboo. Children's and often men's clothes are store bought, but the older men wear at least a coat of the comfortable and beautiful cotton dyed black and woven on looms under the houses. Almost all clothes of the women are home made.

mixing gunpowder

Tui pointed out a guy working with a saht and coke in the photo above. I'm not sure which ingredients he's mixing together to make gunpowder but I'd be willing to bet he isn't mixing all three of them at the same time. Saltpeter is probably readily available from manure, and charcoal is of course easy, I'm not sure where they get the sulfur. 

Usually when arriving at a village I don't do much. It's already late afternoon,  and when the sun goes down it's very night. My guide points me to my place usually furthest from the center of the sleeping platform, and I swallow my daily blood pressure and cholesterol pills, chased with a couple ibuprofen and lots of warm water from the kettle.  The fatigue of walking is cumulative and I know that I'll need all the rest I can get. I mostly eat only the rice offered to me, leaving the meat. I can digest the rice easiest it provides me with the energy to burn the excess fuel I have in the form of fat. I'm positive any meat will be eaten by someone.

my photo

Left of me in the photo is one of the old style muskets with a pistol grip, they hold them far away from their face so as not to get singed from the flash of the powder. 

The naiban was as Tui had promised charming. His wife gave me a gift of an embroidered pocket which I carry to this day. I have to say I've never met a naiban that didn't seem like a very decent man. The translation of naiban as "village chief" doesn't really do the title justice. The naiban isn't appointed, he's elected by everyone in the village. The naiban is the responsible person of final resort, for every single human being in the village, every one of which he has known his entire life. I'm not sure what other duties a naiban performs. Sometimes the Naiban is the same man for years, other times it changes, lately maybe the government has some influence.

family photo

Above the naiban of Ban Nam Hee. On the left his oldest son and daughter in law, on the right his wife and youngest child, peeking from behind his back either his or his son's child. The naiban carried that kid constantly the whole time I was there. Notice the coat the naiban wears. The  oldest wife has one breast bare as is the custom, it's also convenient for suckling the youngest son. Married women have bared breasts, a tradition which dies away after much contact with staring, photo taking, outsiders. 

Notice the boards forming the walls behind the family, they are cut with a "pah-ee-toe", the long knife that is used for everything, yet they are very flat and fit together tightly. The structural parts of the house are post and beam, the floor split bamboo. There is an open fire on a hearth of dirt and ashes, the smoke filters up and out the high roof. 

Being naiban isn't all heavy responsibilities. From every wild deer or pig killed one front leg goes to the naiban and one leg goes to the house of the oldest man in the village. Also it seems of late the government gives one center fire rifle (SKS)to each head of the village. Maybe it's because the head of the village is also part of the government. 

As I drifted in the minutes before sleep that evening listening to the low murmer of the talk in the household, in my mind I reviewed where we'd come from and where we were headed. The village is on no map, the river that bears the same name isn't either. I figured we were not too far from the hard surface banked road used by trucks headed from Thailand to China, maybe twenty kilometers or less as the crow flies. The next day somehow we'd turn towards the south and somewhere cross the Nam Fa on our way to Ban Jakune Mai.

Early morning fog in the valley burning off with the sun below Ban Nam Hee. The village is still in shadow.

Further Into the Forest

The morning began as most mornings. The eldest wife pushing the coals together and blowing on them to start the morning fire and cook the rice. Everyone else still fast asleep in the dark. I got up but kept my distance, waiting for some water to boil to make instant coffee in my steel cup. I wasn't sure of the etiquette in Hmong houses, I couldn't see a clear demarcation of women's side from men's side as with the Akha. I do know that no woman wants a foreigner underfoot early in the morning, so after getting a nod of approval to get some water from the boiling kettle I returned to the edge of the sleeping platform and re bandaged a blister on my foot.

Morning fire Ban Nambo 20 54 25.70N 100 53 50.10

This post is a continuation of similar posts about a walk in NE Laos in the winter of 07 and 08.

1. http://laobumpkins.blogspot.com/2010/07/trail-to-nambo.html
2. http://laobumpkins.blogspot.com/2010/04/lahu-night-out.html
3. http://laobumpkins.blogspot.com/2010/03/one-day-treks-in-vicinity-of-muang-long.html
4. http://laobumpkins.blogspot.com/2010/02/long-time-traveler-muang-long.html

With way over a thousand kilometers of roadless and mostly mapless area the Nam Fa drainage has plenty of places to go for a walk. None the less Tui had one particular town he wanted to revisit, Ban Nam Hee. I think as much as anything the village headman had been welcoming and Tui wanted to go back and say hi. Also last time he'd been there the villagers had told him that it was only one day's walk futher to Jakune Mai where we both have friends.

Tui'd taken an Italian there during the preceding year. That walk with the Italian had been the only foreigner at all in these woods during the two years since i'd been here in early 2007. One of the soldiers with an AK had accompanied them. Tui made jokes about the gun. I've seen hunters stash thier rifle in the bushes before entering an unfamiliar village. Good to enter a place with an empty hand. I don't think the escort was appreciated.

Black Powder Rifle from hunters we met at stream crossing

My guide Tui was the son of the military comander of Lao communist forces in the region throughout the war, afterwards his was head of the district capital past the turn of the century. Like many Lao Tui's dad got his military training in Hanoi, where they taught him all kinds of things best forgotten. Tui taught English in the high school, he usually knows former students in every village, and most people have heard of his father. The connections are helpfull when entering a new village.

That said, upland peoples are an independent self assured bunch. Tui's liniage though known, affords him no special status other than his normal station as guide and teacher and my being a falang is nothing more special than any other stranger. Often the people we are talking to are elders and current and former headmen of their often large old villages. I mostly listen quietly trying to understand what's going on, I go easy with the camera.

After an early breakfast of wai wai we left with our local guide. Hiring a local guide accomplishes a few things, most of them good. The local guide is a hunter and knows all of the trails and his way around the hills. It puts the equivalent of skilled labor wages into the pocket of a subsistence farmer. Three people, one of them a local woodsman, is much safer than two strangers. The guide usually has a much greater depth of knowledge of local flora and fauna, more than likely he knows any strangers we are apt to meet, if not personally, then through kinship ties.

Looking back at Ali's house, the Lahu headman whom I'd stayed with back in 06. Notice the Lahu houses are up on stilts. Stopped to take photo of Nambo 20 53 56.41N 100.54 03.22E

The trail was good and after the first long big hill the terrain eased up. We seemed to be headed in a generaly south easterly direction similar to the way we'd walked the day before.

Despite a lack of accurate maps I have a rough idea of where we are all the time. Far to the south east is the new hard surface road from Huay Xai on the Thai border that goes up to Boten on the border of China. West is the Mekong, behind me the dirt road from Sing to Xiengkok. 

They pushed me hard for the first part of the morning. We had a good sized hill to go up. Afterwards the elevation changes were more moderate.

Break at the top of the first large hill. Hunters had been using a white tree for target practice. (six inch goups at 30 meters) Top of Hill on trail to Nambo Gao 20 52 59.50N 100 54 17E

At around noon we passed the site of the old village of Nambo. A guy I talked to the night before said he'd spent his entire life in old Nambo and he figured he was around eighty years old. On the old topo maps from the war there's a red dot in about  the same place as Old Nambo and a label LS125, "Lima Site 125" which is military jargon for landing site. Someone probably landed a helicopter there and made contact with the villagers.

 Besides Lima Site 125 at Old Nambo you can also see Muang Long in the upper left and the present day Mongla labeled Lima Site 358. Click for larger scale.

Old Nambo gone to weeds.  20 50 53.50N 100 54 29.20E

Heading down towards a creek we heard a shot, and at the crossing met a couple of hunters. We stopped there for lunch. While one of the hunters started a fire the other chased some small fish into the shallows and scooped them up on the bank. Combined with the bird they'd shot, the kilo of rice they'd brought, and some of my favorite flavor enhancer, they had a pretty good lunch for themselves. Certainly a lot better than plain rice. The bird was simply plucked then cleaned by splitting it open with a thumb and discarding some of the guts, stuffing others back in the bird. Similarly with the fish. All had bang nua and salt rubbed into them then were quickly barbecued.

Fish and fowl

Prepping Lunch

Kao Neao, Ping gai, Ping Pa, Bang Nuah, Gua, a perfect lunch.

They say the Akha might get half their protein from the wild. I can't think of many other societies today where every single male is a hunter. Their bullets are made in molds of lead and propeled with home made black powder. The newer longer rifled barrels made in Thailand are a big improvement over the older smooth bores. I'd guess the long barrels are to get as much speed out of the slow burning powder as possible.

Notice the powder horn in the forground? Except for the barrel, most of this rifle is homeade, looks really good. What next Monte Carlo combs?

The Akha often hunt with dogs. The dogs sniff out the pig or deer and bark to alert the hunters that they are chasing the animal. No carnivore is too big to fear the dogs of the Akha and there is a feeling of safety in walking the woods where carnivores still fear man.  The only animal people  have problems with surprisingly is the mild mannered black bear. Mostly meek sometimes the bear mauls someone unprovoked. I figure it's a reaction to the fact that  they live in a bad neighborhood. Tigers and leopards prey on black bears, sometimes even after the bear is full grown, the only defence the bear has is it's strength and ferocity.

Asian Black Bear from camera trap by WCS. Notice how thin the fur is, you can see the skin through it especially along the belly. Still, built stronger than a brick shite house as they say.

We were reaching a point where it is closer to the new hard surface road to China than it is behind us to the road at Muang Long. Close to the road is a demand for market bush meat. The Chinese built a large hotel casino on the Lao side of the border at Boten and the entire town and market surrounding it runs on Chinese currency and speaks Mandarin. (I'm repeating what I've heard, haven't really been to Boten in about a few million years, certainly long before the casino)

The road also drives a demand for all the nutty animal based medicines. for export to China. I'm sure the customs house has been upgraded since I passed by, but the Boten entrance has to be one of the more obscure entries to China. I wouldn't think the customs has much familiarity with CITES . http://www.cites.org/ 

The Akha claim the Kahmu are poaching on thier land, pushed further inland than normal. Maybe by the demand of the market? The Kahmu are actually the original inhabitors of the land, as far back as legend survives. 


It's not just the Chinese at Boten that drive the market, Lao people still enjoy eating civet, porkupine, pig, deer, snake, bat, and bamboo rat if they can afford it. The many varieties of insects, frogs, tiny birds, and fish are still comonly eaten even among the small amount of the population that reside in towns.

I read in a report once that even citizens of the capital can name 300 local species. When I think of doing the same around here I'm afraid I'd run out somewhere around 100. Very recently almost every person in Laos was familiar with gathering fish, frogs, insects, and all of the wild growing plants. It's hard to tell someone that has been eating wild food all thier lives that it's now bad to buy civet in exchange for the money they earn by working.

The afternoon fades from my memory, more hills, more trees and finally the Nam Hee, a major tributary of the Nam Fa. We stopped and washed ourselves in the creek, the water bone chillingly cold. The first bath in a couple days, I felt downright clean and presentable until our local guide unrolled his jacket. 

Blurry photo of local guide all dressed up --Nam Hee Crsng way to ban Nam Hee 20 49 50.90N 100 55 20.70

Less well known, the upland men also wear distinctive clothes that identify them as belonging to one ethnicity or another. In this case our guide was a Hmong fellow. He reminded me of the young cowboys of Wyoming getting duded up in preparation to go to the barn dance. 

The hilltribes have devised ways of both enlarging their gene pool and guarding against inbreeding. In other instances I'd felt as if Lu woodcutters had been taking advantage of fairly young upland girls. In reading I now realize that more accurately they were taking advantage of the social norms that allowed them to get lucky at the same time as the villagers perhaps diversified their genes. It seems as if every time I jump to make moral judgments, I later find I didn't fully understand the situation.

It helps me to realize that the villagers are basically the same human as am I. True I come from a much more developed society technologicaly, but with human interactions, I'd think we're about the same. 

We wander through life mostly as strangers to each other, behind our steel firesafe doors, at the end of our anonymous suburban culdesac. The Akha can recite their lineage back for scores of generations. They not only know their relationship to every living soul in their own village but the connections via  marriage and lineage to every other village of their people from before the time they imigrated out of the north hundreds of years ago. Imagine living next door to your best friends and all your relatives for your entire life?

Shortly the trail became worn, we smelled wood smoke, and heard chickens.

After passing through the village gate, Ban Nam Hee itself became visible, initialy it was strangely silent, and empty. Nothing moved except chickens, no dogs, no people. Then a wild cheer, and singing or chanting to drums and some unusual musical instrument. Except for the music all was again quiet, then a most horrible anguished cry, silence again, then a shout of triumph, cheers.

I'm used to having packs of dogs nipping at my heels or old grannies giving me the evil eye. I understand that until we are accepted by someone we can be viewed with suspicion. There are also instances of villages being absolutely closed to all outsiders. I'd no idea what the heck was going on. Some kind of human sacrifice was the first thing that came to mind.

Halfway into the village we came upon the game of tops. The entire village was cheering the contestants. The tops are spun off a stick with a rope. I'm not sure of the rules, I believe someone can lose their lead by having their top knocked out of the way. The music was a CD of Akha music imported from China. The village had a generator and batteries to power a sound system.

Ban Nam Hee 20 49 04.00N 100 56 06.80E