Trekking in Savannakhet

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I did a three day trek around Dong Phu Vieng NP. I had a fantastic time. There were ten of us on the trip plus our two guides. There were two french couples, two Australian girls, an Israeli couple, an American girl and myself.

DAY ONE

We travelled in a sawngthaew for two hours, picking up locals and dropping them off in different places. Savannakhet is well known for dinosaur footprints so we saw a few near a small river. They were quite small, with three claws. I was expecting bigger and more impressive prints. Then we travelled two more hours in the sawngthaew. It was a really pretty road, passing rice fields and there were plenty of mountain ranges in the distance. Once we got off the main road, it was 21km of dirt road. We had to buy face masks at the markets and I was glad we did because there was dust everywhere and we felt like we were breathing in dust.

We had lunch in the forest. Our guides laid big leaves from the forest on the ground and put the food on the leaves. We had local food and most of it was tasty. We had bamboo cooked in four different ways, Laap laap (Lao food, mince with a few finely chopped vegetables with lots of chilli), fish, beef jerky, pork sausages, papaya salad, fried chicken, and sticky rice. It was fascinating that they could use plants for food and it could taste quite good.

Then we walked 8km to our village for the night. Before we got to the village, we were told the things we could not do there otherwise a water buffalo would be sacrificed (keep the spirits at bay). The taboo things were:
1. Remove your hat and shoes before entering a house
2. Do not clap your hands in the house without permission
3. When women are sitting, they must not point their feet towards a male
4. Women must sit closer to the door of the house, and must keep a distance from the men.
5. When sleeping, men can sleep pointing their feet at a womans head but not visa versa.
6. Do not bang on the walls of the house
7. Ask permission before taking a photo.
What did the women do wrong to deseve this? If I came back in my next life born into one of these villages I would want to be a male!

After hearing this, we were all worried that we would forget a taboo and a buffalo would be sacrificed on our behalf. Considering that these villages rely a lot on the buffalo for meat and transport, it seemed like an outdated belief.

When we arrived at the village, the kids ran around us and wanted their picture taken. They wanted to see the photos too and were pointing at each other in the photo. We had dinner in a hut. We all sat on the floor of the hut that was covered in a thin woven mat. For dinner we had corn, sweet potato, bananas, chicken soup and rice. It was delicious. After dinner, the chief of the village welcomed us and answered any of our questions. There were 555 people in the village and there is one local doctor. They don't celebrate birthdays, and don't know the day they were born. Girls get married between the ages of 17-20. After 15 days of meeting, the couple decide they want to get married and the parents meet and decide if it is a good match or not. There is no electrical power in the villages. The locals want power but it is up to the Government when power is connected. The men rule the village and I noticed that the women work a lot harder than the men. The women are always working, whether it be weaving, cooking or crushing rice and the men watch. It is interesting that the females accept this way of life but I guess that is all they know.

DAY TWO

We woke up at 6.30am the next morning. Around the village the women and children were pounding rice in a massive wooden mortar and pistal. Women were weaving cloth and it was fascinating to watch. There is definitely an art to it and I failed to see how they could create a beautiful pattern out of a weaving loom. We also saw silkworms in a big wooden bowl. How they get the silk out of them is when they get as fat as caterpillars, they are boiled and disected and the silk is taken from them. Before breakfast we went for a two hour walk in the sacred forest which is next to the village to see some monkeys if we were lucky. We didn't see any because of three reasons:
1. We got there too late in the morning
2. We were too big a group and made too much noise
3. It was too cold for the monkeys.
We walked all around the forest. Some parts of the forest were so dense we had to brush aside shrubs to get past.

Breakfast was noodle soup. Before we left the village, we saw two baby goats that had just been born. The mother was passing the placenta and the two kids were trying to stand up. Just before we left, one of the kids was standing and drinking milk from its mother and the other one was having trouble standing.

We walked 18km that day. We didn't have to walk with our backpacks, which was lucky, because mine weighed around 5kg. On the way through the forest we were shown a white insect that looked like a spider. It will turn into a butterfly. We also saw an ants nest in the leaves of trees. Buffalo dung is carried to the leaf and that is their home. We were shown a plant with long thin leaves. Before a man gets married, he has to make 20 mattresses out of this leaf. If he cannot do this, he can't marry his girl. Imagine if that was in Western society! We stopped by a coffin cave too. In the old days when a person dies, their clothes are put in a tree and the body placed in a tree too (I'm not sure how they do this). When the body disintegrates and only bones are left, the bones are placed in a coffin and the coffin is placed in the hollow of a cave. Nowadays when a person dies they a buried.

When we were ten minutes walk from the village, we were shown a tree that produces oil. They cut a hollow space out of the tree, set it alight and come back in five days (the tree does not go on fire, just the hollow). When they come back, there is oil in the hollow. The locals get a certain leaf and wrap it so there is a hollow in the middle. They place oil in the hollow and light the leaf. They use this as a lantern. A lot of trees in the area had this hollow space with oil.

To get to the village we had to cross a small and shallow river. This village seemed a lot nicer and more relaxing. The villagers were attempting to grow grass and there was a clean toilet. The first thing we did at the village was have a bath at the river. We got taken to the river by a tractor cart. We felt like we were cursing the village because two children hurt themselves in a space of ten minutes. One kid put his finger in the engine of the tractor and was screaming. The kids ran alongside us to the the river and one kid was trying to climb the cart and managed to get his foot stuck in the top of the wheel. He lost a lot of skin on the top of his foot. Luckily amongst us was a doctor and a nurse so after the swim they patched him up again.

The river we swam in was very wide and clean. It felt funny to be swimming in a sarong but we felt refreshed and clean afterwards. Dinner was the same as the last village. After dinner we had a Basi Ceremony (welcoming ceremony). Each of us took it in turns to hold a plate containing leaves and a nip of local whisky. We hold the plate in our left hand and our right hand covers our right ear. Four elders each put a bit of silk string around our left wrist and gave us blessings. Then we drink the whisky. It was very strong. After the ceremony we had singing and dancing. One elder played an instrument made out of bamboo. It was sort of like a pan flute but more longer than wide. The villagers sang one of their songs then wanted us to sing a song from the countries we came from. Us three aussies sang 'We come from a land down under' by Men at Work, and also sang 'Cats in the cradle'. A few of us showed them a dance. The american girl danced the Makerina and an Australian did the 'City limits' dance sung by Tina Turner. I think she was having more fun than the locals. It was a great night enjoyed by all with lots of laughing. We were pretty stuffed so we all went to bed early.

DAY THREE

We found out in the morning that whilst we were having a swim in the river the afternoon before, a woman had a baby in the village.We walked 5km to a river, then went on a boat for an hour to meet the sawngthaew that would take us back to Savannakhet. The dirt road going back to the main road was even more dusty than the road on the first day. We got back to Savannakhet at 7pm and were covered head to foot in dust. At eight we met up for dinner with our guides and had a chinese meal. It was so great to be having normal food again. It was a great end to a perfect three days. I would recommend this to anybody because it was great to visit the locals villages to see how they live.

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Photos

ant nest
they carry up buffalo dung and that is their home

white insects
They look like spiders but eventually turn into butterflies

lantern for villagers.
Oil is from the tree