An Akha village wedding

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I spent a couple of days trekking in northern Laos from Luang Nam Tha to a hill tribe village, Ban Nam Lai, where we spent the night. There were no roads at all to the village, so not even a motorbike there, and other than the odd Man Utd item, life there seemed to our European eyes to be unchanged from what it must have been like hundreds of years ago (although the villagers may well feel differently). The hill tribe was Akha, and fortunately for us we arrived on night 1 of a 3 day wedding celebration, which we were invited to. This involved us, out of politeness, having to down shots of lao-lao, the rice whiskey here, which the groom then rewarded with a handful of sweeties and a fag. First time I've experienced an incentive scheme for alcohol consumption. Downing beer from a shot glass was also a first for most of us. We started off inside the house, where the bride was in her last hour of a 5 hour stint of praying facing the wall, and then moved to a banquet outside, where the party was in full swing. The time came, of course, for the 'falang song' request on the solar panel fuelled karaoke microphone, which was answered with a bit of a mumbling rendition of Champagne Supernova, the only song we all, kind of, knew the words to. Us women went back to our bamboo sleeping quarters, as it was all men at the table and we were starting to feel we were maybe pushing the welcome to its limits, but the guys in the group stayed on, and we heard gems such as "We will rock you" and "Jingle Bells" drifting across the valley, mixed in with the Akha and Lao sing song.

It was a great experience, and we got a welcome massage before the wedding by a crack squad of shouting and screaming 15 year old girls, probably the noisiest and most boisterous massage experience you could possibly have, they found everything about us hilarious and all our items of jewellry, clothes etc were up for general and loud discussion. (Similar to Thai massage, although they were even more serious about popping your knuckles and toe joints, it's not so good when someone is pulling your pinky toe with her foot on your other leg to hold you down). The next morning they presented us with bags that they had made, as they wanted to welcome tourists to their village. We went with a company that has got an ethical policy and they actually tell you how much of the trek money goes to the village, so the villagers seemed genuinely happy to have us there, and we were definitely happy to be there, especially after so much lao lao! Going to print off some photos of them to send to them while I'm in Luang Prabang, this journal is photos that I took, check the next journal for photos that the kids took using my camera. I can now count to 5 in Akha, which doesn't make for great conversation, but at least I can let the groom at future Akha weddings know how many sweeties I want after I've downed my lao-lao.

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Photos

Sunset over Thailand
From the Laos side of the Mekong at Huay Xai

Moon in Laos
Much like the moon back home, except it's upside down or back to front or something

Woman returning with firewood
Chewing the bark that makes their mouth go red.

Meet the bride
She is sitting with her back to everyone, just to the left of the woman on the left, in the middle of her prayers. I got toured round everyone by a drunken uncle who insisted that everyone wanted their photo taken, from these women, I'm not so sure

Seen a lot of weddings
The older guys know how to pace themselves for a 3 day wedding

The groom
With Mr Nu, one of our guides

Girls at wedding
Couldn't work out why picture was all blurry till I realised the lense was totally covered in fingerprints from everyone passing my camera round to look at the photos

Banquet table
Minimum of plates, food is piled onto banana leaves on the table

Comments

[The Travel Camel]

Absolutely Stunning!
This must be the best moon photo appearing on Travelblog.