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Today I went on my hike up to the mountains.  A day-long hike was kind of a disappointment for me.  I had really wanted to go on a hike for several days in the mountains, but I was just too worried about my health.  I’ve been feeling run down ever since the vertigo I had during the bar.  I still feel dizzy sometimes and I can’t imagine what I’d do if I started to get really sick in the middle of the jungle somewhere. 

Anyway, some Canadian girls had organized a day trip into the mountains to see some villages, so I joined in with them.  But, the day of, the Canadians dropped out because they were sick, so, once again, it was just me and the guide.  As luck would have it, once we started walking, I discovered I was also sick - with traveler's diarrhea.  I really have amazingly bad luck with sicknesses!  Fortunately, it didn't ruin my trip.

The guide was a really fun, easy-going guy - 25 years old, studying for his masters in finance and making money for school over his summer vacation by leading hikes.  He was Hmong.  Laos basically has 3 ethnic groups.  The majority of Laotions are Lao.  They traditionally live on the big rivers and in towns.  The Khamu live on smaller rivers in the hills in stilt houses.  The Hmong live at the highest elevations in dirt-floor houses.  The three have completely different languages, traditions and religions, but their villages are often within sight of each other.  It seemed very weird to me!

khamu baby in a hanging basket

Khamu village

Hmong girls in their house

Chua (the guide) pretty much talked nonstop the entire trip, so I learned a lot about Laos (well, what I understood.  His English left a lot to be desired).  It was really interesting to learn about the Hmong religion.  The most charming thing to me was the 'soul-calling ceremony'.  On the first day of the New Year, you put an egg on the doorstep of your house and then sing for 3 hours to 3 days to entice your soul to come back.  Your soul isn't completely gone, but over the year parts of it have flown away.  Soul parts leave any time you are scared, injured, very worried, or you fight.  I told Chua that we actually believe something a little similar - that when you get stressed, you get sick.  He nodded enthusiastically, which I think meant that he was humoring me.

Otherwise, the basic rule seems to be that when you want something you sacrifice a chicken.  When you really want something you sacrifice a pig.  And when you're rich and you want something, you sacrifice a water buffalo.  Fortunately, the spirits only eat the spirit of the sacrificed animal; you and your family get to eat what's left. If you're sick, it usually means that you've offended a spirit.  Then, the shaman is 'verr useful' as Chua put it.  The Shaman can go to the spirit world and find out not only what you did wrong, but how to fix it.  I really wanted to see the tools the Shaman uses to do all this, but when we got to the Hmong village, the village Shaman was out.

We ran into the Shaman later though.  He and his wife and their 5 beautiful daughters were just finishing lunch in a shelter by a rice field.  These little bamboo shelters were everywhere. 

The people use them to rest and eat out of the sun while working in the fields.  The Shaman looked quite old, but otherwise not particularly different than other Hmong men.  Of course, he was in his work clothes, not his Shaman outfit.  Not just anyone can be a Shaman.  Shamans choose and train their successors (women too).  Chua's Dad is a Shaman too, and he told me some impressive stories about his father's cures – even curing relatives living in American long distance.

The Shaman and his daughters went back to work in the field as we were leaving, but the Shaman's wife stayed in the shelter to watch an adorable little baby.  The babies never seem to have diapers here.  In fact, they wear nothing on bottom.  I kept wondering how that is managed.

Throughout the hike, we passed through 2 Khamu villages and 1 Hmong village.  They were definitely picturesque, especially with the jungle and mountain background.  They almost look like they're in the stone age - all bamboo and teak - and no plastic, barely even any metal to be seen.  But, I could see why people would want to leave them.  Many of the villages are days away from hospitals, even schools.  As Chua said, it's nice to own your own land, but people die all the time without medicine.  I was reminded of some French people who had been talking with me very worriedly about the loss of the country-side life and the village crafts - just like the loss of the countryside life in France!  It would definitely be a pity to lose the traditions and way of life, but clearly village life is not idyllic.

Since the working age people were in the fields, the villages were populated with children under 10 and very old people.  There were so many children!  Chua said that families had at least 6 children on average because the more children, the more people to take care of you when you are old.  I wondered about the infant mortality rate. Perhaps part of the reason parents have so many children (besides no birth control I imagine) is that many of them might not survive.  It was a very sad thought when I looked at the children - they were so curious, friendly and adorable!  Just like Ian and Ava, they loved seeing their foto in my digital camera after I had taken their picture (None of these groups minded having their foto taken).  It was particularly cute to see the older ones (boys and girls) carrying the babies in slings.  I guess they were the babysitters.

It was a long day (at least for out of shape me).  We walked on muddy, mountainous, jungly trails from 9am when the tuk-tuk dropped us off until 4pm when we reached the waterfall.  Fortunately, we were lucky with the weather.  It was cloudy almost all day, which kept the temperature down, but it didn't rain. The landscape was really impressive.  Peaks rose abruptly from the hills, sometimes with sheer limestone cliffs hundreds of feet high. We often had great views because we walked through a lot of land cleared for dry rice fields (rice growing on hillsides, not in rice paddies)

The waterfall was disappointing because there wasn't much water.  I did get a quick swim though.  Even better, I got to see several elephants go in for a dip: