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Holiday in the Highlands
- Subject: Holiday in the Highlands
- From: Rangoonp@xxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:29:00
DESTINATION: LAOS
Holiday in the Highlands
Tagging along on a photography tour to a hill tribes
festival on the Chinese border
By ELLEN CLARK - Freelance Write for LA Times
VIENTIANE, Laos--How could I resist? Ten
days with my Nikon and the tutelage of a pro
photographer in hard-to-reach Laotian hill
country.
. . . Be still, my heart.
I maxed out my credit card, packed up my
camera gear and hopped on a plane. The whole
trip was 16 days (the remainder in southern Laos),
and by the time air fare and incidentals were
added, it cost me almost $6,000. There were 10 of
us along--nine adventurers and photographer
Nevada Wier. She has traveled extensively in Asia
and is well versed in how to charm all sorts of
people who might otherwise shy away from a
camera.
Laos would put all our skills to the test.
Landlocked and bordered by Myanmar (Burma),
Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and China, it is a
country of diversity. A dizzying conglomeration of
tribes, languages and beliefs is represented,
particularly in the hilly north.
That's where we were headed, for the hills.
The
accommodations and food would be basic at best;
the transportation, local, marginally comfortable
and probably unreliable. And forget
air-conditioning, hot water and flush toilets, but
so
what? I'd been on a similar trip with Wier two
years
before in Central Asia, and I felt sure the
discoveries, artistic and otherwise, would be
worth
the discomfort.
Jit, our Lao guide, met us at the airport
in
Vientiane, Laos' capital. He was only in his 20s,
but
he was a seasoned worrier. When we all agreed
that noodle soup in the airport cafe would be fine
for lunch, he was appalled. It wasn't good enough
for Americans; we must go to a "real" restaurant
for
a proper meal. We tried to set him straight: We
were here for photography, not five-star hotels
and
haute cuisine.
After the hotly contested noodle lunch, we
boarded a Lao Aviation turboprop for Luang Nam
Tha.
There are 39 ethnicities among the population
of
115,000 in Luang Nam Tha province, which is
bordered by Myanmar and China. Most of the
people live in small communities off narrow,
rutted
dirt lanes some distance from the main roads;
many still wear traditional clothing and have had
little if any contact with Westerners.
Opium poppies had long been an important
crop in northern Laos. After the French quit Laos
as a colony, the combination of international drug
trading and political chaos drew Americans into
the
region, clandestinely. In 1975 the communists took
over the new Lao People's Democratic Republic,
and the country went through some long, dark
years of hardship and repression. Only in the past
two years or so has the government really opened
up to the Western tourist trade.
Immediately on landing at the airport in the
provincial capital, we learned what "provincial"
means here. The landing strip was in a brown,
grassy field. Our "tour bus" was parked nearby. We
walked over to it, then stood to watch for our
baggage. A truck parked next to the plane's open
cargo door, but nothing happened, and no one
could explain the delay. One of our group
discovered a little snack bar nearby and came back
with a beer, which he generously passed around. It
was after noon, and the humidity was rising. After
almost an hour, our bags emerged, were loaded
into the truck and were driven the 200 yards to
the
bus, where they were dumped at our feet.
The young bus driver got everything aboard,
and off we went.
Our wait in the sun, sharing one warm beer,
made for quick bonding. The 10 of us were all
Americans, all photography buffs but of varied
backgrounds. One woman was a homemaker, one
man an investment executive based in Hong Kong.
On the map, the distance from Luang Nam Tha
to Muang Sing looks like 30 miles. It took almost
three hours to cover on a road that was paved
(well, mostly) but heavily rutted, especially
where it
snaked up hills--not a ride for anyone prone to
carsickness.
On the way, Jit told us about Muang Sing, an
old trading village nestled on the border with
China. Its people are largely Thai Lu, he said,
and
they keep many of the customs of their ethnic
cousins in today's Thailand. The festival we would
attend, called That Muang Sing, occurs during the
full moon of the 12th lunar month--in our case,
mid-November 1997.
Before we reached Muang Sing, the bus
stopped at a crossroads hamlet. Our "assignment"
for the afternoon was to get a feel for the place,
and we split up, trying our best not to look like
an
invading army of shutterbugs. To see a bus stop
and a bunch of Americans get out, loaded with
camera gear--goodness knows what the villagers
thought. But they seemed to enjoy the diversion
and took our intrusion with grace.
As at all our rural stops, Jit explained what
we
were doing and asked the elders' permission.
Except for one Akha village, we were welcomed.
Still, we never pushed if an individual didn't
want to
be photographed.
My eye was drawn to a woman making
paper-thin sheets of rice dough and hanging them
on a line. She and a surrounding gaggle of
neighborhood children giggled as I took pictures
of
the proceedings from every angle. They must have
thought I was a little nuts to be interested in
such a
mundane activity. But there was much hand
signaling and good humor displayed throughout.
And when I left, I was given a sample of the
sticky
dough to taste. It was predictably starchy, gluey
and bland.
As night closed in, we were taken to a guest
house in Muang Sing, where the "spirit of
adventure and a positive attitude" mentioned in
the
trip's brochure was about to be tested: There were
a mere three rooms for the 10 of us. Jit looked
worried, but we were adaptable. We worked out
joint bunking arrangements quickly and repaired to
the inn's open-air restaurant for a beer. Dinner
was
the regional staple, laat, a salad of vegetables
and
minced meat or fish, flavored with lime juice,
garlic
and chile, served with sticky rice. Breakfast
usually
was egg with rice, and lunch--more rice.
The bathrooms in these out-of-the-way locales
can be the biggest test of one's attitude; I
choose
to be amused. Here, the facilities were out back.
Traditional hole-in-the-floor toilets were to be
expected, but I hadn't come across this particular
"shower" setup before. It amounted to a separate
room with a deep concrete tub full of cold water,
a
drain in the floor and a pan. It took a little
coordination, and it could be bracing, but it was
efficient.
The next morning, our bus took us to the
festival
at the Thai Lu That, a stupa (shrine) on a hill
outside of town. It had rained during the night,
so
the steep road was a gooey mass of red mud. But
this didn't deter the steady stream of people
slipping and sliding up the hill to sell their
goods or
join in the festivities.
Even from a distance, the stupa was
impressive. The central tower was golden, about
30 feet high, atop a stepped, whitewashed
octagonal base.
That morning, Buddhist monks had gathered
from around the province for taak baat, the
collection of alms-food from the laity. Then the
devout began parading around the stupa, carrying
lighted incense sticks and placing offerings of
candles, flowers, incense and money around the
base.
Women selling fresh fruit and sticky rice
scrambled for the best locations. Carnival games
entranced the children. Food vendors set up
makeshift kitchens. A tower of loudspeakers blared
contemporary Lao music.
So much activity would seem to be a
photographer's dream, but festivals are difficult
to
shoot, particularly one as crowded as this one.
Someone or something was always getting in the
way of my attempts to frame the perfect scene.
Though this is essentially a Thai Lu
festival,
virtually all the ethnic groups in the area
participate, if only for the social and
entertainment
value.
The variety of costumes and adornments was
dazzling, a pastiche of ethnic and historical
influences. Akhas wore mostly black outfits with
brightly embroidered trim and headdresses loaded
with coins, including French francs and U.S.
quarters. The Yao women were easy to spot
because their outfits featured red pom-poms.
Young Thai Lu women were dressed in long,
woven silk skirts with silk blouses in contrasting
colors. And sprinkled through the crowd were
saffron-robed monks.
Though the festival gave us an overall view
of
northern Laos' many tribes, our visits to
individual
villages allowed a much more personal experience.
Getting to them sometimes meant walking down
dirt roads for up to two hours, in brutal sun,
lugging
our camera gear. But the results were worth it.
We stopped in villages all the way from Muang
Sing to the Mekong River town of Pakbeng, two
very long days of riding the bouncing bus over
roads riddled with potholes and ruts.
It was after dark when we reached the
accommodations booked for us in Pakbeng.
Actually, "accommodations" is too grand a word to
describe the guest house on the town's main drag.
As one of our group put it, "This could be a
three-sleeping-pill night."
Jit looked worried, but just a little. It
seemed
we'd almost convinced him that we were game for
anything, but Pakbeng hit a new low in the "rustic
accommodations" department.
Up a narrow, rickety and steep wooden
staircase there was a room with a bare wooden
floor around which doors opened to other rooms.
Each room contained two to four wooden platforms
with mattresses draped in hanging mosquito nets.
Thin wooden walls that stopped about 18 inches
short of the ceiling separated the rooms. Between
buzzing mosquitoes, crowing roosters and snoring
travelers, it was a sleepless night.
Next morning, after a trip to the outside
toilet in
a driving rain, we walked down to the river and
climbed aboard a boat bound for Luang Prabang.
Luang Prabang was judged in 1994 to be "the
best preserved city in Southeast Asia" by the
United Nations' cultural arm, and the title is
well
deserved. This jewel of a city sits at the
junction of
the Mekong and Khan rivers. Buildings on the main
streets reflect the city's French-occupied past,
while the town's many temples display ornate Asian
Buddhist decorations and sparkle with gold leaf.
Every morning saffron-clad monks pour onto
the
streets with their begging bowls, accepting
offerings of sticky rice from the devout. Long,
low,
brightly colored boats shoot along the Mekong.
The pace is relaxed, the atmosphere enticing in
this still-unspoiled Asian city.
We stayed in a comfortable French
colonial-era
hotel, Villa Santi. When we learned on arrival hat
there were enough vacancies for each of us to
have a private room and bath, and for only $45, we
jumped at the chance.
We rose at daybreak to photograph the monks.
We photographed a blacksmith village, a weaving
village and a handmade-paper business. And we
took pictures of the sun setting over the Mekong.
To us, Luang Prabang meant photo opportunities,
but to Jit, it meant something else: Finally we
had
air-conditioning, semi-warm showers and American
toilets, and he could stop worrying.