Luang Nam Tha December 8th.....

In Luang Nam Tha we hire push bikes and ride to a nearby village. It’s a Hmong village and they are celebrating their new year. The Hmong ethnic group are the most recent immigrants, having come from Burma Tibet and southern China in the last 150 years.

Traditional costumes abound and beautiful faces peek out shyly from underneath exquisite headwear. The village ‘square’ is set up with food stalls and a ‘side show alley”. The amusements consist of several “pop the balloon with a dart” games, of course Reece tries his luck...laughter abounds. There is also a small merry go round operated by a motor, with a fan which blows to propel it forward, assisted by a man powered push! Gorgeous children adorned in exquisite outfits line up for a ride on their favourite rusty steed.

Lines of children stand opposite one another and throw and catch a handmade material ball one handed. Their ages range from about 6 to 16....the older children tend to stand opposite their opposite sex...perhaps a bit of a courting and flirting gong on!

love those chicken feet!

 But ball games are the same all over the world and so are painful boys!! Here just like at home, if the young girls drop the ball there will be a group of boys ready and waiting to steal it and run off throwing it to friends whilst the girls run around trying to get it back!!....universal theme!

A tuk-tuk tour” takes us to several villages in the region. There are numerous ethnic groups in Laos and each village we visit is of a different ethnicity. We walk around and observe their lives, I feel somewhat uncomfortable with this approach, however as time goes on we involve ourselves with questions and interact with the help of our guide. The women are shy and we respect their space. We visit a school in each of the villages, classes where eager children sit taking in all there is on offer. The windows are wooden bars, no glass in any of these villages and the walls are of timber or bamboo. Unlike throughout Indonesia, uniform is not compulsory, so perhaps education is more accessible to many as they don’t have to afford a uniform. Most children go to school in primary school, after that some go on...I haven’t found out percentages. Its miles to the nearest high schools and up until 4 years ago there was only one university in Laos...no there’s three!

 

 High on top of a mountain, a road cut in by the government, we visit a hmong village so remote that I feel we are in Mongolia or something. Orange dust/dirt covers everything, filling every crack and crevice. The houses are raw, built from basic materials, they stand elevated from the dirt. There is a single well where people gather their water from.

It’s a very traditional life, Clothes, cooking building. They grow a bit of food although are subsidised from the government, who bring them rice once a month. Life is basic.

  

 

 Children roam around playing with one another and the ages of the tiny tots out playing on their own astounds me. We come across a group of 5, perhaps 3 year olds, at the top of a dusty mound, everything is dust...not a green bit in sight. They are poking and patting a buffalo who lies oblivious to their games. They seem so tiny...they look after each other....if one is crying a 4 or 5 year old comes to pick them up and comfort them. Young school age boys play spinning top, battling it out to try and knock off the others’ top.

Further along as we wend our way through the dusty ‘streets’, (there are no cars up here) we come across three women and a man sitting around a fire with the ‘kettle’ on. It’s the staff room of the school. We sit and have tea together. The ramshackle building behind is the school. The teachers here are brought in to teach the children. They talk of the difficulties teaching here because of language and cultural differences. It’s a challenging job. They sleep in a small hut together, they rarely go home....

.......A xx

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