{"id":544,"date":"2009-11-05T19:54:52","date_gmt":"2009-11-06T00:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/?p=544"},"modified":"2014-04-05T20:02:09","modified_gmt":"2014-04-06T01:02:09","slug":"trekking-with-tui-by-zall-age-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"Trekking with Tui, by Zall (age 13)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trekking with Tui, by Zall (age 13)<\/b><\/h1>\n
\"Zall<\/a>

Zall with a large friend.<\/p><\/div>\n

Way up in northwest Laos, our family decided to go off the tourist track to a tiny town called Muang Long, only accessible on a single-lane dirt road.\u00a0 When we got off the ramshackle bus, we found the only place to stay in town and went to a little restaurant fifty feet away, where we ate a late lunch of fried rice and vegetables.\u00a0 Soon after our\u00a0 meal, a gentleman came by the restaurant and said he worked for the local \u201ctourism office\u201d and he wondered what we might like to do.\u00a0 We decided it was a good time to do a trek, so the guy in charge set us up with a local man named Tui, who spoke pretty-good English and knew the area well.\u00a0 We told Tui we wanted a three-day two-night trek to some outlying villages that had no roads.\u00a0 Tui said he would be ready early the next morning and that he would meet us at our guesthouse.\u00a0 He\u00a0 met us with a small backpack at 7:00 the next morning.\u00a0 All we had to bring were changes of clothing, our med kit, and a jacket for the cool evenings.<\/p>\n

\"Tui,<\/a>

Tui, Zall, Tui\u2019s friend, and Ari eating lunch by the side of the trail on a tablecloth of banana leaves.<\/p><\/div>\n

Heading through the morning market area and between two stilted houses was a tiny trail snaking up a mountain.\u00a0 I looked at the beautiful scenery in awe.\u00a0 Dozens of steep, rolling green hills blanketed the vast landscape.\u00a0 The steep trail\u00a0wove through banana trees, strange ferns, dry-farmed rice fields, and bamboo forests.\u00a0 Much of the forest had been cut down in previous years due to local \u201cslash-and-burn\u201d practices.\u00a0 Down the trail, a small river ran through the foliage, and over the river was a rickety, bamboo bridge that would carry us to the other side.\u00a0 Tui continued walking without paying any notice to the structure.\u00a0 I hesitated, and then gingerly tiptoed across the wobbly bridge and heaved a huge sigh when I got to the other side.\u00a0 Along the way, Tui told us about the uses of the plants; this large-leafed plant was cut into strips for baskets; the root of this tall plant was used to cure headaches.\u00a0 He carved a spinning toy for me using a potato-like root he dug up and carved into a disk and some hemp twine he carried.\u00a0 He also showed us some cool big bugs.\u00a0 After about three hours of hiking up and down mountains, we stopped for lunch.\u00a0 Tui had a tiny backpack in which he carried our lunch.\u00a0 I was skeptical that he had enough food, but Tui kept pulling things out of his small pack: vegetables cooked with clear noodles, banana-flower and meat in a spicy sauce, globs of sticky rice.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe how much food he pulled out of his pack!\u00a0 We ate until we were stuffed.<\/p>\n

We started down a long steep hill, and then met up with a wet jungle area.\u00a0 I looked down and spotted a small worm.\u00a0 When I asked Tui what it was, he said very calmly, \u201cOh, leech, hurry, let\u2019s run.\u201d\u00a0 At the time, I was freaked out about leeches and sprinted as fast as I could.\u00a0 It seemed like forever until we got out of the dank tropical region and back onto the dryer hillside.\u00a0 A minute later I heard Ari, my older brother, scream at the top of his lungs.\u00a0 I hurried forward and saw that a leech had suctioned to his lower leg.\u00a0 Tui very easily pulled it off and sarcastically stated that it was only a small one.\u00a0 Ari needed a quick band-aid to stop the bit of bleeding and protect the puncture wound.<\/p>\n

\"School<\/a>

School let out in this Akha village to greet a novel visiting group \u2013 us!<\/p><\/div>\n

We passed through a couple of small Akha villages on the way to our destination.\u00a0 At every village, we would walk through the spirit gate that protected the village from the jungle spirits.\u00a0 Once in town, all the people would gather around to watch us.\u00a0 In one place, the entire school of maybe 50 kids were let out to come down and stare at the four white people stomping through their village.\u00a0 We\u2019d wave and say hello, and they would act shy or just plain stare at us.\u00a0 Every time the whole town would follow us to the edge of the village where we would walk again through a spirit gate.\u00a0 We would all wave goodbye.<\/p>\n

Finally at around 5 PM we arrived at our first destination, a Kwi village.\u00a0 As we entered the town (no spirit gates are needed in a Kwi village) a crowd of about 100 people \u2013 the entire town \u2013 swarmed around us and guided us to the chief\u2019s hut.\u00a0 Tui told us that Ari and I were the first white children this village had ever seen, and the first \u201cfarang\u201d faces seen at all in many months.\u00a0 We were directed up a bamboo ladder to a bamboo platform \u2013 the chief\u2019s front \u201cdeck\u201d \u2013 and told to take off our shoes. Ari accidentally put his foot through deck, breaking one of the bamboo slats.\u00a0\u00a0 The villagers all laughed very loudly and Ari blushed and smiled sheepishly.\u00a0 For two hours we sat on the deck while dozens of people crowded around us in a semi-circle.\u00a0 Mostly we all stared at each other.<\/p>\n

\"Zall,<\/a>

Zall, Tui, and Ari in front of an Akha village spirit gate.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tui cooked an excellent dinner of stir-fried meat, vegetables, and sticky (glutinous) rice which the village provided (Tui had sent word earlier we would be there that night).\u00a0 The \u201cstove\u201d was a fire-pit right in the middle of the two-room bamboo hut, set on large flat stones.\u00a0 It turns out Tui is an excellent cook as well as guide!\u00a0 As soon as the sun set we went to bed.\u00a0 The chief offered us quarter-inch thick bamboo mats as hard as a rock and thick slightly mildewy quilts to keep us warm.\u00a0 He made sure we tucked our mosquito nets in at the corners to avoid getting bit at night and possible getting malaria or dengue fever.\u00a0 That night I slept like a baby, at least until the roosters starting crowing at about 4:30.<\/p>\n

We got up before the sun, put on our jackets to fend off the cool morning fog, and had a breakfast of Mekong seaweed (an algae that grows in the river and really is quite delicious) wrapped around sticky rice. Another day\u2019s adventure awaited us as we set off into the jungle enroute to a village of the Katu people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trekking with Tui, by Zall (age 13) Way up in northwest Laos, our family decided to go off the tourist track to a tiny town called Muang Long, only accessible on a single-lane dirt road.\u00a0 When we got off the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hilltribeart.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}