Trek to hilltribe villages

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On the way to the start of the trek we had a couple of sight seeing stops. The first stop was at an orchid nursery. It is not the season for orchids in the wild, that is early spring. In the nursery the orchids are grown commercially and they were all flowering. The second stop was to visit a cave combined with lunch. This was a more touristy cave than the caves near Vang Vieng, but Dong told stories relating to the temple in the cave and pointed out the rock shapes. When the trek got going it was good. It is not at all like trekking in a mountain alpine area. It is the vegetation that is the overwhelming impression,bamboo, wild banana, mosses, ferns and everything that likes hot and damp. We had two two scouts and one went ahead with a machete. The route is walked, but not by the locals. They use motorbikes on different tracks. The scouts looked for bamboo worms. These are a delicacy when cooked. On the second day of the trek they found some, but unfortunately not enough for us to sample. Our accommodation was a simple house sleeping on bamboo mats with mosquito nets. The villages we stayed at were both new. They were created by the migration of Burmese people fleeing from the oppression in Burma about twenty five years ago. Most of the women in the village continue to wear traditional dress. This is a red skirt with a border and a purple jacket decorated with silver. Dong, our guide, gave us information about customs in the village including education, religion, marriage and polygamy. In the first village we were privileged to see a Bhuddist ceremony in the temple. This ceremony takes place at the same time each lunar month. This takes place in the evening and it is mainly attended by the women. A monk reads from the "bible" and some of the women use their prayer beads. We shared in the food inside the temple. This was a desert made with coconut milk. In the first village we also saw a woman weaving using a traditional back loom. I had seen one of these looms in the museum in Luang Prubang. On the second day of the trek I was up early and so were the women in the village. They were busy setting up their small handicraft stalls to make money from us. This is obviously something they do regularly as the groups pass through. The second day of the trek was also mostly in the jungle. There were a few fungi easy to spot including magic mushrooms (they were left in the wild). At the second village some of the children came to the campfire after dinner and gave us their singing and dancing show. The last morning of the trek was through farming country including a wide range of tropical fruits including mango, passion fruit and dragon fruit. The main crops are rice and maize. We also experimented with the bubble plant. You take the stem of the plant, snap it enough to get through to thedap. You can then blow bubbles with the sap!

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