Is it Medically Possible to get Addicted to Sticky Rice?

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July 29th 2008

Published: August 7th 2008

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Couchies

Creatures of the Night

Taken at sunset from a bar on the Mekong

A VERY Long way To Go

Nong Khiaw is miles from anywhere. Well, not so much miles, as hours. What is the difference we hear you cry? Well....we are sure the helpful distance marker showed it was less than 250kms from Xam Nua to Nong Khiaw, a mere 4 hours journey on any normal road, but this was no ordinary road. It was sealed in parts and in others had a very hard concrete kind of surface. In other areas it was just dirt. Strangely the sealed parts were worse than the dirt because they had big holes all over them. And of course there was the other minor factor. A mountain range. Now this might not be the Himalayas, but it was high enough to have Tracey's ears popping left right and centre as we made our way along the route. It is also steep enough to require a very large amount of twisting, turning and switching-back on the road.

For all the crazy driving and dodgy forms of transport they have, it seems Laotians don't have very strong stomachs. We have watched many a woman and child go from happy and chatty to head in one of

Tending the rice

On the mountain side near Muang Sing

the handy bags they give you at the beginning of the journey, in a matter of seconds! All these factors combined meant that our 8.30 departure resulted in a sunset arrival around 7pm. Not that we're complaining. The journey was amazing. All those switchbacks we mentioned provided some of the most beautiful views over valleys and mountains in the distance while the twists and curves made space for tiny villages to balance on the edge of slopes. We passed through dozens of similar little patches of life with bamboo homes on stilts, children in ragged faded clothes and women carrying huge baskets of firewood on their backs and heads. What was remarkable about all of them was the way people seemed to be surviving so far away from anyone else or any kind of infrastructure, let alone a hospital, school or supermarket.

Is Metal Really Progress?

In some of the bigger villages charities had clearly been to work. Some homes had corrugated metal roofs instead of straw ones and there was evidence of new structures like schools and toilets being built. Also present in some areas were satellite dishes. These villages get power from a generator but

Typical Village House

One of many we passed

we wondered whether TV is really a good way for charities to be spending money. On one hand we suppose television could be great for education and entertainment, but on the other, isn't it giving people a glimpse of a life they do not have? What effect is this going to have on the future? Will it result in children growing up and wanting to leave the home where their family has lived for generations in search of something "better"? What if they can't afford to do that, or their help is needed to grow enough food for the family to survive? Would it be better to know or not know about these 'other' ways of living? We can't decide.

It Seems to be Bamboo Shoot Season

During our epic journey we stopped at one of the afore mentioned villages, clinging to the side of the mountain with all its might. We couldn't work out why we'd stopped until almost all the locals on the bus (that means everyone except us) poured off and started poking the thick ends of what looked like conical rolls of cabbage leaves. We eventually worked out these were bamboo shoots. They

View from the bus

On the way to Nong Khiaw

were about 20cms in diameter and we had no idea what the locals were feeling for when making their purchasing decision! We later bought some cooked shoots and they were actually very tasty despite their insipid yellowish colour. On this trip we also discovered black sticky rice. This is even nicer than the regular white stuff because it is naturally sweeter. It comes in a bamboo tube and we guiltily nibbled our way through two tubes, even though we had just eaten lunch.

The Red Cliffs of Nong Khiaw

After 10 hours of bumping and some very dodgy moments where we almost got stuck in deep muddy puddles, the huge red cliffs of Nong Khiaw came in to view. We were slightly relieved because the instances of landslide had been getting more and more frequent (this could be due to the fact it now rains at least once every day). It seems the worldwide need to grow more food has even reached Laos, and as all the valleys are already cultivated with paddy fields and maize, villagers are resorting to slash and burn farming on the hillsides. They burn the trees, cut them down and plant rice

Worth the Detour

The Bridge over the Nam Ou River in Nong Khiaw

instead. Now we all know what happens when you cut down trees on muddy hills, but it seems they do not, or perhaps they do, but can't afford NOT to cut down the trees because they need to grow food. Either way, huge chunks of mountainside are crashing down into the valleys below and across all the roads that are in their path. Luckily all the landslides we passed had happened at least a few days ago because a path just about big enough for a bus to get through had been cleared. We tried not to imagine what would happen if one decided to avalanche itself onto us as we passed in our little tin can cage.

Nong Khiaw itself is as beautiful as the scenery around it. It is set in a valley with towering red cliffs, which seem to appear out of nowhere as all the other rock faces around are white or grey. The Nam Ou river was swollen and brown and moving VERY fast. On both sides of a bridge are small collections of homes and a growing number of guest houses. We only stayed one night, in a kind of barn converted into

The religious capital of Laos

Monks are as common as tourists here

rooms. As usual we were woken up by cockerels at 4.30am and then again by locals sweeping and doing that horrible growling hock-up to clear their throats.

We couldn't find a boat to take us down river to Luang Prabang so we jumbled into the local bus instead and spent the next 5 hours fighting with a teenage girl behind us for a few inches of open window. She'd decided she wanted the whole of her area open, which meant ours was totally shut. Despite the fact everyone sitting around us was sweltering she refused to relent and every time Tracey got the window open slightly on our side she would force it shut. This resulted in one bruised finger for Tracey, one bruised arm for Tracey then one bruised ego for the girl when Tracey showed her red arm to the bus, stuck a pen in the window to stop the girl from pushing it closed and rode the rest of the journey with a small breeze!

More Monks than Tourists

Our goal in Luang Prabang was to get some sleep, or at least sleep past 5am so we spent some time finding somewhere quiet

Where's Wally?

Spot the odd-Buddha-out?

to stay. A hard task in Luang Prabang because it seems like every available space is being turned into a guest house meaning there is construction going on everywhere! We did find somewhere very peaceful in the end and did manage a few lie-ins too. Luang Prabang is the religious capital of Laos. It is also not really a town but a closely packed collection of little villages, each centred around a Buddhist temple. So Luang Prabang literally has a temple around every corner. Some are more spectacular than others, but we found ourselves rather liking the little run-down back street ones just as much as the grand, main road tourist attractions.

Luang Prabang is Laos' most popular tourist destination so the change between this town and the surrounding villages was very noticeable. There were some very smart buildings and well paved roads and so many people. If you wanted to, you could easily pay a few hundred dollars a night in some of the luxury hotels and we saw an increase in the number of families who were visiting, instead of groups of friends or pairs of travellers.

Aside from shopping at the great night market and

Rain...what rain?

Tracey waits to get in the boat after getting stuck on the front during an aquatic traffic jam at Pak Ou

enjoying some lovely meals along the river we didn't do too much here, except a trip to a bizarre cave system a few hours up stream. The Pak Ou caves are home to hundreds of Buddha statues. Some are just a few inches high others are a few feet or even several metres tall. They have been put there because they have been replaced by new or more venerated models in the temples where they once lived. It is like some kind of spooky Buddha graveyard. Now though, people come and leave offerings at the caves instead, so the images have all had a new lease of life.

The second cave up a slippery (it was raining again) stairway, was very deep and dark so we spent a few minutes testing out a few settings on the camera. David is very proud of being be able to spell his name in reverse for the benefit of the lens! The one problem here was all the trips to the caves leave at the same time so everyone arrives at roughly the same time. We also all arrived at the "whiskey village" all at the same time. "All" was not so

Playing with Fire

Fun with torches in the upper buddha cave at Pak Ou

many as it is low season, but in high season it must be a nightmare! The whiskey village is a local riverside village that used to be a weaving village but now makes Lao Lao instead. They sell it to Laotians but have set up a handy side-earner flogging off small overpriced bottles in bamboo wrapping to tourists when the boats stop. We weren't confident the corks would do a good enough job at keeping the Lao Lao in the bottle so to avoid the risk of it leaking and melting all our clothes we left empty handed!

There's no Opium Here Anymore...Honest!

From Luang Prabang we made our way north to Luang Namtha where it is possible to go trekking into the hills to see villagers living as they have for centuries. When we arrived there were quite a lot of tourists around so we decided to carry on another few hours northwest to Muang Sing instead. In Muang Sing there definitely were not a lot of people around. In fact as far as we could see, along with another David on our bus, we were the only tourists in town. This made us even more

Contender for the Yellow jersey?

David on our way back from the Chinese border near Muang Sing

obvious to the Akha hill tribe woman who pounced with their bracelets and hats for sale... and when we said no... moved on to Opium and Cannabis instead. We signed up for a trip with David and the three of us crossed our fingers that at least two other people might turn up and make a group of 5 which would make the whole thing much cheaper.

To pass the afternoon we eventually hired bicyles after visiting every office in town to find some. Our bikes were pretty crap, had no brakes and Tracey's had 2 flat tyres. A local guy in the first village we came to sorted the tyre problem with his bike pump, but we were stuck with the brake issue. We cycled to the border with China, which was just 12 kms away... but uphill. We didn't realise quite how uphill until the way back when the lack of brakes made for an interesting/terrifying torpedo run all the way home. Tracey would like to point out that flip-flops are not a good choice of footwear when needing to use your feet as emergency brakes!

Two other people did turn up to trek so the

Akha Tribe woman during our trek from Muang Sing

Be a good boy and give Granny a kiss

following morning we set off with David 2, Dorabela and Paulo and Tracey's toes well bandaged. All of us had our fingers crossed that it would not rain.

Slash and Burn or Starve and Die

The scenery was lovely but we passed through a lot of slash and burn fields. Our guide explained that villagers are having to do this to try and make enough money to survive. They used to earn a lot more money by growing and selling opium but since that has been outlawed they have had to find other ways to make their cash. The northwestern corner of Laos, the far south of Myanmar and the northeastern corner of Thailand make up what is known at the Golden Triangle - the main opium growing area in Asia. Officially it is not allowed at all. Officially all growing has stopped. Unofficially we suspected our guide doth protest too much and plenty of the stuff is still being grown. It's just that these days it is a bit further away from the main roads and any paths that anyone who really matters can be bothered to walk along. This suspicion was re-enforced by our guide

On the Trail

Somewhere not too far from Muang Sing!

letting his guard drop for a moment and telling us three tourists have died from smoking opium in Muang Sing in the last few years. Apparently they all got caught out trying to keep up with the hard-core mountain living, smoked-it-all-their-lives tribesmen and were found in their beds by hotel staff wondering why their guests hadn't checked-out or paid.

We passed through two villages on our way to our stop for the night and were met with vague curiosity from the families living there. We had chosen out-of-the-way Muang Sing to try and avoid the kind of villages where tourists traipse through every day, disturbing regular life. We think for the most part we managed this as the villagers were very shy and the children were curious but scared of cameras and found David's size a little overwhelming. Both villages were home to Akha people who build their homes on stilts from wood and bamboo. They survive on what they can grow and what they can trade with other villages, or buy with money they get from selling produce at market. Therefore with little money about, especially in the rainy season, this means prioritising, so we saw children with

Gourmet Lunch

Our first trekking meal, eaten in a farmer's shelter in a rice field

little unmatching wellies or plastic shoes on and nothing else.

With so much rain about and houses that leak we wondered just how these villagers manage to wash and dry their clothes. They have a well or water pump that is used by everybody for everything including showering, cooking and drinking so it is probably used for clothes too. But as for drying them, it's a bit of a mystery. Most homes have an open wood fire in the one room that they eat, sleep, cook and live in so we suppose clothes must dry inside, with that smoky smell as a fabric conditioner.

We stopped for lunch in a farmer's hut on the side of a hill where rice was being grown. It was just starting to rain so we were glad for the shelter. We were amazed when our guide and his trainee assistant whipped out an amazing meal from their bags. They had little parcels of meat and vegetables and omelette all wrapped in banana leaves. And sticky rice. It would be fair to say we love sticky rice. It is a different grain to steamed rice and therefore binds together. You eat it by

Home for the Night

"The Akha Gest House, Wel Come" was scratched in coal on the inner bamboo wall of our hut.

squeezing a little bit into a ball in your hand then dipping it in whatever you are eating and using it to scoop up some meat/veg etc. It is the staple diet in Northern Laos and is normally served in a bamboo basket. In our shelter it came in banana leaf parcels.

For the evening we stayed in a third Akha village inhabited by 12 families. Our "Akha Gest House (sic)" as it said on the wall was a wood and bamboo hut, just like all the other huts in the village. We slept on thin matresses on the floor with mosquito nets for protection from all the bugs. Before bed we had the fun of washing at the village pump. For the men this was not too bad. Dave simply stripped down to his boxers and splashed the icy water over himself until a small percentage of the dirt had washed off. Tracey, however, was expected to keep covered, while washing. This is done by wearing a sarong and splashing water anywhere you can without being considered impolite. We thought this was especially funny as all the married women of the village walked around topless.

'Showering' out

Hmong Villager

A different look to their Akha neighbours

of the way we got back to our hut just in time to escape the daily downpour, which continued in epic proportions for several hours. Tracey didn't mind though because we were all given steaming mugs of freshly picked and dried Akha tea! The guides cooked us up an amazing meal with produce they had bought from various families. This was quite a feat in itself as the village did not know we were coming and basically keeps enough food to feed its own people every day. We had bamboo shoots, steamed rice, green beans and buffalo, which was delicious. This was all cooked on a wood fire inside our bamboo hut. It sounds dangerous, but was actually very cozy!

A Cracking Welcome

It is apparently Akha tradition to welcome guests with a massage, so we were all given one as an after-dinner treat. The 'treat' was a bone cracking, body squashing, joint snapping 20 minutes of pain and pleasure. But the next day we found we could all walk just fine, so it must have done some good. We were lucky with the rain for the rest of our trip and made it down the mountain

No Expense Spared

This was the only sign directing us to the Laos / Thailand border!

to the final villages without a downpour. The final village was Hmong and it was noticeably different to the Akha villages because the houses are built on the ground, not on stilts. The vegetables are all grown within the village because livestock like pigs and goats are kept in pens instead of roaming free. This gave the village a more tidy, organised feel, but the children were still just as raggedly dressed and the colours were still faded.

Blisters and crushed toes aside it was a great trip and to celebrate we all met up for food in the only restaurant that seemed to stay open past 7pm in Muang Sing. We were craving sticky rice after two days off, so quickly ordered a few baskets of the stuff. Poor Dorabela and Paulo got stuck in another downpour and a power cut and by the time they arrived the waitress had run out of sticky rice... and then steamed rice too.

The following morning we watched all the hill tribe women come down to market to sell their fruit, veg and chickens and cockerels. David hatched a brilliant plan to ensure a silent night's sleep by buying up

Working the Rice

Separating the husks from the grain under her house.

and doing away with every single cockerel he could find, but in the end he settled for a chicken soup and a coffee and with that we were off to Luang Namtha and then the border with Thailand.

We made it to Houyaxi just in time to get to the world's most laid back immigration post, down a little alleyway, off a side street. We paid the 'overtime' fee the staff collect for anyone wanting to leave between 4 and 6 and hopped into a little boat to cross the Mekong back to Thailand...and just like that our wonderful time in Laos was over.

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