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Published: April 7th 2009
Village life
one of the ladies in the villageI have had a crazy few days. like seriously crazy. ok so it started out like this...
After the night of not sleeping in Pakse because I was paranoid about critters, the next night, I slept super soundly (thanks to the eye mask, ear plugs and Nyquil-I started to get a cold). We woke up in the morning to head out on our trek and had grabbed our ziplocked bag of food to find a hole in the bag. Oh gross. Oddly, the actual food bag didnt have any markings, but something made a whole in the zip lock. I convinced myself it was some really eager mosquitos, dropped the bag and left the lodge immediately.
We were met by our guide and were excited about our trek. We had to be brought to the beginning of it in a tuk tuk for about an hour drive. We arrived at our starting point and realized that our 'trek' was truely a walk through the woods. beautiful woods, but definitely just a walk. We had our main guide and then we had a local guide from each village that we visited. The surroundings were amazing. Lots of giant limestone cliffs
Gross!!!
some villagers with a dead buffalo. ew. and everything was pretty green considering it is dry season. I am pretty sure our guide was sort of lazy becuase he kept stopping us to 'relax' when we really didn't need to. We opted out of swimming at the first 'relaxing' spot because the water was kind of stagnant and gross and we weren't all that hot. We then were brought to a cave that had much clearer water in it so we swam there. We were also told that it would be our last chance to get clean becasue the village we would stay in that night did not have a 'liver' (Laos people cannot prounounce 'r's...kind of like me pre speech class!). It was pretty cool to swim in a cave, although the water was freezing. We spent quite a bit of time there before heading into the village. Along the way we had stopped for some lunch that the guides cooked for us which was pretty gross. Apparently the fish wasn't bad, but they did not give me anything special even though they knew i was a veggie girl. I realized I would be living on mostly rice again!
We got to the village and
Cave
one of the many caves we saw decided to explore around. We got to playing with some of the kids who had a blast having us take pictures of them. They then took my camera and wanted to take more pics. I was very happy my camera is shatterproof! We had a fun time until the kids started getting greedy with who got to use the cameras and we decided that time needed to end. We went back to our little home in the village where the guides and little old ladies were making us dinner.
One of the local guys started playing dominoes with us and it was a really lame version of it. We kept winning but then realized we were accidently cheating. We figured out the rules and realized it was the most boring game ever. We couldnt stop playing so we were stuck until it was dinner time. I did love the little old man that we were playing with though.
After dinner, it was time for the traditional Baci Ceremony. Apparently these take place whenever welcoming someone into a village. Our guide lives far away from his family so when he returns home, they perform this ceremony for him. I
another cave
this one we swam in guess its like when I go back to NJ and insist on white pizza with spinach from Ringwood pizza. Same same but different.
The centerpiece for the ceremony was brought out and we were a little surprised to see that the food to be involved were small bananas and packaged chocolate rice crispie treats! what? so strange! we did our best to not crack up as this is a very traditional thing we were taking part in. One of the elders performed the ceremony and our guide translated. Pretty much it went something like "good health, good luck...." each time we would hold a banana and rice crispie treat, get a white string bracelet tied on our wrists and then have to drink a glass of beer. this went on for 5 bracelets each. we then had to perform it back to them. I ofcourse wanted to say something scandolous instead of just good luck, but pretty much stuck with good luck, happiness blah blah blah. The ceremony was over and we had to eat the treats. We were getting pretty pumped up to eat the chocolate rice crispie treats and were shocked when we opened them and they
Village
the kids are such great photographers! were actually more like the taste of captain crunch in a tube form. very strange especially considering the wrapping had the right picture on it. This was too much for us to handle and we completely cracked up. I have not laughed that hard in awhile. I felt so bad and wanted to stop, but neither of us could. Imagine the entire village just wondering what these 2 girls were laughing at. We were laughing so hard that we were crying. They kind of laughed a little at us but didn't find it all that weird.
After that, we hung around with the villagers for a little while and then it was time for everyone to go to sleep. We were up early the next morning and had some breakfast before heading out to trek. This time we were joined by some more local guides and it was a bit more like actual trekking. It wasn't very difficult but it was good to feel like we were getting a bit more of a work out. We trekked for awhile and then were met by this crazy tractor thing that would take us to the next village. It was a
Village kids
intrigued by the camera! super bumpy journey...I ended up with bruises on my butt! We made it to the village and then headed to the blue lagoon.
The Blue Lagoon was a little lake that was so unbelievably blue and clear. It was amazing! The water was chilly, but it was so nice to swim in! There were lots of big fish...it is illegal to fish in there. We swam for a bit and then headed back to the village for some lunch. This was another meal that wasn't super Kim friendly. I ate a ton of rice. We were given bread except unfortunately the bread was filled with some nasty coleslaw type thing. i ate around it and got some peanuts so I would survive. We then headed back onto the tractor for a little, trekked a bit more and then got the tuk tuk back into town.
We arrived at the guesthouse we had been staying at, grabbed our bags, chatted with a lady I had met weeks ago in 'Nam and then jumped back on the tuk tuk to get to the bus station. We arrived at the bus station and had about 20 minutes until the next bus
Dominoes
Pretending I love dominoes...but I don't! to Vientiene would leave. Perfect! We washed (aka baby wipes), grabbed some snacks and jumped on the bus. It was a local bus, but was a pretty nice big coach so I was pretty startled to see a chicken just chilling in the luggage area. I was hoping it would stay there and leave my luggage alone.
The bus was pretty empty so I was able to lie down qhich was nice. At one point, I was lying in my seat, Jen was lying in a seat across from me and we both looked up and there was a crab running around on the ground! what? it was so strange. One of the guys on the bus grabbed it and let it out when we were stopped. About 20 minutes later 2 more crabs came for a visit! It was the strangest thing! We don't know how they got on the bus and never got to see what happened when the crabs met the chicken.
We arrived in Vientiene around 11pm and asked a tuk tuk to take us to a specific guest house. He had his own places in mind (meaning...where he gets commision) and we kept
Baci ceremony
this was all very serious trying to get him to take us elsewhere. Strangely enough, everywhere seemed to be full. We finally just started walking around and found a place with a horrible room that was way overpriced but decided to stay. We then wondered around to find some food, ate and went to sleep. We woke up knowing that we would just hang around and then hop on a bus to go to Vang Vieng.
That morning I got some bad news from home and just kind of took it easy, made some calls and hung around until our bus. Things like this definitely make it a bit hard to be so far away and feel like there is nothing you can do to help. I am having a fabulous time here but am glad that when I am done I will get to spend my summer on the east coast and be with my friends and family who I have been far away from for so long.
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katie
non-member comment
a tractor!
I'm very proud that you found a tractor :) Love you!