Village People

We went trekking in Northern Laos, to a place called LUANG NAM THA.
The only way to get there was by bus....a journey in itself!
Anyway, we went from our hotel in the middle of nowhere by truck and drove for a couple of hours to the
foot of a mountain.
From there, we hiked for about eight hours until we reached the village we would be staying at.
The eight hours were real difficult - climbing straight up and clinging onto trees, rocks, whatever was
available. Climbing down was more difficult (I fell twice), so there were few chances to enjoy the scenery as our eyes were always directed at our feet.
The village we visited is BAN NAM GOY and the people are of the LENTEN tribe.
They are farmers, hunters, and weavers.
I will include more photographs of the village as it was the highlight of our trip, but I'll just focus on the
people today.
Like other minority villages throughout SE Asia, tribes can be identified by the colours and patterns of the
clothes, especially the women, worn. In this tribe, navy blue seems to be thr predominant colour.
The women also braid their hair in an interesting manner.
My friend brought a bag from Canada and gave it to the chief of the village.
The chief is elected in a democratic fashion - residents vote and the chief stays in power for five years. The current chief is in his second term. He is the only one in the village that can read/write and is the only one who has ever visited a city (town, by Japanese standards).
He didn't like it.

[kayopihime]

Did it take eight hours to go to there? wow!! The first phote is so nice, because the face child is laughting is so cute.

It seems it was all worth the difficult 8-hr hike. I'm just curious, since they live in a sort of a remote village, are they afraid of foreign visitors? Or are they friendly enough? You know, even in Japan, if you go deep in the coutryside where locals don't normally get visitors, people are more cautious and distant. Or they are totally used to tourists? Either way, giving a little souvenir is really a nice gesture.

[gtg*eng**sh]

They're not really used to outsiders, so most of the people kept away from us. They were friendly, but not really welcoming, if you know what I mean. We had dinner with the chief and gave him a bunch of small presents (like pens for the kids) at that time.

[gtg*eng**sh]

Yep, it took eight hours of difficult hiking to get there. We're in pretty decent shape, but we were exhausted and relieved when we arrived.