1. Rat features more prominently on the menu along with small birds, served whole. And there were more comments of how someone so tall could have such a small appetite!
2. Traditional crafts are alive and well, bamboo, wood, leaves are all used for everyday items to carry, store, sit, eat. So good not to see cheap plastic from China and instead beautiful, working pieces of art usually made by village elders.
3. There are fewer toilets, one village had none but the pigs roamed freely acting as the sewage system and they appeared to be the healthiest things around.
4. Gobbing is loud, frequent and acceptable inside and outside the home. But the wood fires are inside so now I understand why there is so much phlegm in Laos.
5. Poverty and malnutrition was more obvious and in villages where sugar has arrived the children's teeth was suffering. One child was eating a bag of white sugar, I tried to save his teeth but when he started to scream and cry I couldn't confiscate his sugar bag.
6. Laolao is offered at every meal, a wee dram at breaky set me up for the day.
We stayed with the village chief, there were 3 generations living together who welcomed us warmly. There was a primary school in the village but only 20% of children attended, most boys prefered to go hunting from the age of 5 or 6 and the girls to help with childcare.
The villagers were surprised that 'modern people could walk this high in the mountains'.
The village gate was fascinating, it had bamboo symbols to protect the village from bad spirits, and when a dog acts strangely or barks too much the villagers believe the spirits have inhabited it. So the dog is sacrificed and his decapitated head attached to the village gate to keep the bad spirit out.
Life seemed pretty tough, the water supply was a 30 minute walk away and then a back breaking 30 minutes back, the men went there by motorbike for their evening wash. The villagers walked to their fields, again quite a distant, slash and burn nomadic farming is practiced. The community was close-knit, everything was shared and there was a great deal of humour. I asked our guide if people were leaving to move to towns and he informed me the population was growing, people prefered the freedom of this life. People decided each day if they'd go to the field or instead to relax with the family and friends. People loved the traditions and living with and understanding the nature around them.
It was a fascinating insight into life and it would be great to come and spend more time here. I'd really like to see if people were interested in learning more about nutrition and sanitation, the vegetables are grown mainly to feed the pigs! And I would love to learn some farming, hunting and crafting skills and to understand the culture more deeply.
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