The villagers were very welcoming and we introduced them to a great present Sue bought us for Christmas - a digital Polaroid camera and so were able to leave them with little photos - it caused a huge amount of excitement and was thrilling to do. The chief of the village heard the excitement and then asked if we would take he and his wife's photo. We then had to wait whilst they disappeared into their hut- 5 minutes later they emerged in spotless clothes that looked as if they'd come straight out of the packet - obviously they only come out for special occasions. We left them with a very formal looking photo!
Next stop was a pee stop in a little town. Phonsi had just earlier asked if we were vegetarians. No we replied we'll pretty much eat anything. Well we have now eaten deep fried witchety grubs which for those of you who've watched I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here will know exactly what these are any if you don't they're like big chrysalis like grubs - actually tastes quite good dipped in a bit of salt if you don't think too much about what you're eating!
Nong Khiaw is on the Nam Ou river and quite a bit higher than Luang Prabang with stunning scenery, or so we believe as it was very misty - in fact the weather was unusually for this time of year pretty rubbish. We were now in the area of Laos that was heavily bombed during the Vietnam war.
Unbelievably 3 million tons of bombs (more than the Second World War) were dropped by the Americans on Laos for a war that wasn't even theirs. It was a covert war i.e. The CIA were involved in recruiting some of the Lao tribes to fight the north vietnamese. The bombing was totally indiscriminate and huge bomb shells are everywhere - you see them used as troughs for animals, planters, braziers for fires or just lying about where people have found them. Many of the bombs were cluster bombs containing 670 of the explosive clusters. Clearing of the UXO's is happening but it will take years and years and years, some say 100 years. Every now and again a farmer will find one whilst ploughing hopefully without personal injury to himself or his water buffalo.
Our guide Phonsi took us into one of the large limestone caves where during the war the Laos people hid. Over 300 government officials occupied this particular one.
Other caves were used as the bank, a hospital,possibly schools although i dont think there was much teaching going on and of general living quarters for everyone. We met a lady who said she'd had 2 of her children in a cave. You just can't imagine they could have lived in caves for 6-7 years and just came out at night to work the fields so they wouldn't starve.
Next morning we woke to rain,even more mist and cold. We were a waterproof down as someone had stolen it from our luggage at one of the airports so we bought a plastic poncho and made do. Phonsi was with us but we met up with local guide Lan and off we trekked across the fields of rice paddies for around 7km. Even in the drizzle it was a brilliant walk and we managed to return without one leech!
It was pretty cold though when we returned to Nong Khiaw and unfortunately we knew we couldn't get much warming up done in our digs for the night so we went for a curry!
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