View from my house
I climbed downstairs to use the toilet ... and then proceeded to walk around the village.
The houses
It was all quiet in the morning
The village school
Wind was really strong
And some houses had big openings for window ...
A typical village house
Big and spacious house
A typical toilet
This was our house, where we stayed the night
The lovely little girl
At 7.00 am., the group gathered and exchanged stories. We found out that our dinner was better compared to the others'. Most of our friends only got a dish of fried egg to eat with khao niaw, while we could help ourselves with 3 different dishes! But of course, came another exciting story of having field rats for dinner! When they were served the dish, our friends asked whether it was "moo" or pork. It wasn't. It wasn't chicken or beef or venison either. But it was "noo". So after a few guesses, they deducted that "noo" was rat. Heh. Our friends said the meat tasted like rabbit ... hmn .... if I were served rats, I think I would freak out too. So thankful for my vegetarian meal last night!
Cows in a shed
So beautiful here!
So serene, peaceful and quiet
We visited the tobacco farm ...
We walked back to the village ...
The school came alive with students
We then went back to our houses to collect our bags.
Where we slept for the night ...
Our house was very spacious
We gathered at the village chieftain's house - this house was fully concrete ....
The hearth
Food was being prepared for the Baci ceremony
Free range chicken being boiled
Baci celebrates important occasions, like births and marriages. In our case, it was both a welcoming and a blessing ceremony.
The ritual involves tying strings around our wrist to preserve good luck
While waiting for the ceremony to begin, the hosts brought out a jar filled with laohai -
Laohai - "hai" means jar ... so Laohai means rice wine brewed in a jar
Water is added into the jar to maintain the alcohol level, while the wine is sipped from 2 straws. Often 2 persons will "compete" to sip from the jar. The person who stops sipping first loses.
So we all took turns to drink laohai. Really, there was no escaping. The hosts will make sure that everyone drinks. It's just their culture there - to celebrate by drinking A LOT. I was reluctant to drink on empty stomach ... so when it came my turn, I drank a little more than a cup. And I did liked the wine which was really light and sweet. Yums.
After the baci ceremony, I was handed a piece of boiled chicken and a string was tied around my wrist. We were all given a piece of handwoven scarf, which was draped around our shoulders.
Finally! Breakfast was served!
2 plates of boiled chicken, a vegetable and a dip
We rode under the hot sun to get to the pier ...
While eating, the hosts came round and made sure everyone had more drinks. I drank 2 glasses of beer and a shot of lao lao or locally brewed whisky. I made sure I wasn't served more drinks after that because I knew I had reached my limit. Any more, and I would get drunk.
A few of our group members got sick just before we took our leaf. Our tour leader herself vomitted all the way to the pier ... 2 of our youngest members were also unwell.
Our transport to the pier
A lovely lady selling handwoven textiles ..
Beautiful Laotian children at the pier
Soon, our longboats arrived .... and we rode back to Kong Lor Cave, and exited at the other end of the cave, where our vans were waiting. We were brought to lunch, and then it was a long drive back to Vientiane. We checked into the same hotel, Duoang Dueane Hotel. This time, we got a room on the third floor - and this room was seemingly better - newer and cleaner - than the room that we stayed in 3 nights ago. We dumped our bags and went to the night market to buy some food. And then quickly came back to wash ourselves clean. We hadn't washed since Ban Nahin!! And that was 2 days ago!
that's a very kampong lifestyle!
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