Red Eggs

---

So, I've just got back from a little village in the middle of the mountains. It's under an hour from the city centre, yet somehow manages to be very remote at the same time. I stayed with Lek, one of the Akha girls who was staying at AFECT for the last couple of weeks. Two of my fellow phalangs (western foreigner sorts), Zoja and Suzie, spent three nights sleeping on the floor of her house. Lek and her parents slept in the room next to us. The house was on stilts, my I add. I still don't know why the Akha build them like that. It was quite difficult to sleep at night, what with the dogs, pigs, cockerals, lizards and giant maybugs making noise, but nevertheless I had a fine time. We gathered a small, fern-like plant from the riverbank, which Lek's mother then stewed up for our dinner (I believe the plant was called a dalek, but I may have heard wrong). We showered under a waterfall. We played with the local Akha kids - in fact, we semed to be used as some kind of cheap child-minding service. But it's great - the kids just wander free in this little village of about a hundred people, barely touched by society. They're safe there (except the little girl who was playing with her father's machete, but we got it off her befoer anything happened). They've got virtually nothing there, but they're happy. It did my jaded old heart good.

So, red eggs. Yesterday was some kind of Akha festival. Communication was limited, so I never quite worked out what the festival was for, but the tribespeople boil eggs in red dye, then either eat them or wear them. So I've eaten more eggs than is surely healthy, and now I have an egg hanging round my neck from some wool. At least I didn't have to judge the egg contest. That was Suzie's job. How do you distinguish between thirty identical eggs?

So, I'm halfway through my trip, give or take a day. Just a week and a half left in Thailand, then onwards...

---