Muong Sing

Well, first I'm quite angry or sad right now: I somehow lost a lot of pics. I lost all the pics from Hanoi as well as most of the pics from Muong Koua, that is to say one the places I prefered so far...

Whatever, appart from this I just had two really good days.
As I planned I went to Muong Sing, quite a small city, and cheap again. Once I got there I met again an American girl with who I had share dinner a couple of days before. Since we were two, it was enough to book on of this trek organized by eco-tourism association that are so popular here. I was a bit afraid it would turn out like the trek I did in Vietnam, but actually not at all. We did quite a long walk through the jungle first, like 5 hours at a serious rythme. There weren't any snakes there, but I wan tell you that the leeches (sangsues) where quite of a good company up there. We went pass by a couple of villages from different ethnic groups, and we reached an Akha village in the afternoon where we spent the night. First the people were shy, like went to villages on my own before, but then we could really got in touch with them, it was reaaally nice. They killed a chicken that we shared with them for a very good dinner, drank home made whisky, talk a little bit (almost all of them spoke Lao as well, and so they could speak to our guide who translated for us), they made us try their traditional costume (that they don't wear on the everyday life), and the top of this they gave us an Akha massage (strong!). Then we spent the evening together, we sang western songs and they replyed by singing very nice Akha songs... etc etc, in short it was a really magic moment up there, in the middle of these beautiful Lao mountains!
The american girl has got great pics of everything, but she'll send them to me later, so here are two pics I got. You can see at least of the children were happy to play with us, and the view we had from our bamboo house.




I really think that this eco-tourism is the best way to discover and meet these people. It's a bit expensive but it's probably the best compromise between low impact, money that goes to the village without making them dependent, conservation of the traditions without holding from progress, interesting meeting and discovery, etc etc etc so I'm happy to have supported it.

Tonight I'm back in Louang NamTha, but I think I'll leave tomorrow for a place that I can't find on google map right now, but that's next to Pak Bak, I think it's called Nam Khiew.