6th April, village homestay with a local ethnic minority!

the place where i stopped for lunch. lots of buses stop here for lunch everyday...

I had planned to stay for only a night but they kept offering their home and asking me to stay for a longer period and to stay for 10 days until the local Water Splashing Festival which they say is a very important event in their local culture and its a rare opportunity for me to experience it. after much persuasion, i decided to stay there and not follow according to my initial plan because i am travelling and i have got loads of time anyway! who cares about the plan... i can always go back home later loh hehe =D thats the good thing about travelling without any definite timeline, i dun have to rush for a plane or train to somewhere or get to a hotel because i dun make reservations for hotel... i jus sleep wherever i want to, anytime i want to, with whoever i want to (ok, i dun exactly sleep with other ppl...)

btw they were members of a local ethnic minority, called the 傣族, so i got to experience and get to know about their culture and practices over the next few days.

typical hole in the ground latrine in the village with some kinda bugs squirming inside. i think they are attracted to the feces and prob help to degrade it?

the typical village toilet.

what i found really interesting is that the big well/pool of greenish stuff is actually connected to a huge hole in the ground with the latrine and it actually produces gas for cooking food! so whenever you shit or pee in the latrine, it is all funneled into the huge hole and when there is enough biofuel (literally), you can use the gas to cook some dishes! (the gas pipe is linked to the huge hole in the ground)

海云(his bro) picking water melons at the field. he is really strong for his size... kinda surprised when he carried so many watermelons because he is like half my size! ok mayb not half, but he's about 60kg but prob much stronger than me

i only carried 10 watermelons but they didnt let me carry any more else after that because they knew that my leg was injured and they didnt want me to exert myself too much. so they jus asked me to carry 2 watermelons (1 in each hand) instead while they continue carrying the rest haha...

human chain to transload the watermelons.

there was a huge truck that came to buy watermelons from the family and they will subsequently drive it to other big cities to sell it at a higher price. i had a really swollen leg that day so i had to see the doc and he said i kena infection and had to rest for the next few days. sians... he said its because of the wound i got in vietnam when i fell down and i continued cycling after that so it kinda got worse. prob also because the conditions are kinda dirty hence the infection.

anyway, i couldnt go out with them to help collect watermelons because i could barely walk but the family (including the cousins, uncles etc) went to the field to collect all the watermelons to sell it to the big truck and what i found really nice is that they actually helped their cousins for the entire day even though its not their own watermelon field and they get no money at all from helping. guess its a village thing to help each other whenever somebody needs help and nobody asks for any rewards or anything like that.

when they got back, they had to offload all the watermelons into the huge truck so we formed a human chain to toss the watermelons in. the truck driver and his assistant stood at the end of the line and they were kinda like quality assessors and rejected bad watermelons because it wouldnt make sense if they buy the watermelon, transport it all the way to the big city, and cannot sell it because it is rotten.

got a little nasty when some villagers thought that the watermelon was perfectly fine but the truck drivers still rejected it. i can understand it because i carried the watermelons before and i can assure you it is no easy feat to carry it from the field out onto the road and loading it on the small tractor. i only carried 10 watermelons in 1 trip but my shoulders were alr aching... when the villagers saw so many of their watermelons being rejected, its like carrying the watermelons from the field and not getting paid for it, which can be kinda frustrating.


dropping corn seeds into the field... hope it turns out good!

went with them to the mountain where they had a plot of field which they planned to use for planting corn. i didnt have shoes with me (actually i did but i was too lazy to take it out from the bag) so i wore slippers to the field and it was damn hard to move around with it! especially because the field was literally on the hill and it was a rather steep incline and climbing up and down wasnt exactly a walk in the park. anyway, my job is to drop 2 seeds into each hole that they dug out, and then cover it lightly with some soil. not too much (or it cant grow out), and not too little (not exactly sure why haha) but its not as easy as it sounds because the holes are almost everywhere and very close to each other so i have to be careful not to step onto the holes or the seeds wun be able to grow out of it because too much soil is covering it. only got the hang of it after a few hours of "experience" haha

taking a rest on the hilly field and me eating watermelon hehe =P

4th April, first few days of china!

Laos-China border!

Had a really close shave at the china broder... for some reason, the border guards decided that i was suspicious and asked me alot of questions about my bags and what they contained inside. they randomly picked a bag to check and it happened to be the bag that contained my Tibet guidebook! shit... if they see it, they might confiscate it or mayb even ask me alot of questions about what i am doing in china.

anyways, i played it really cool and showed them my clothes inside, my toiletries bag, my dried rations inside etc. every time i took out an item to show them, i stuffed it back inside the bag and strategically placed it to cover the guidebook until eventually it was at the bottom and i think the guard was sick of seeing me pull out dirty clothes one by one and he said "ok, you can go now!" phews... close shave... now i still have my tibet guidebook so i can slowly read thru it and plan my route inside! =D

sleeping under the Mengla bridge. damn smelly at night because i think the sewage flows jus beside...

one of the few camping spots up in the tea plantation hills...

the beautiful tea plantations!

While cycling thru a place called 整董镇，i decided to stop and have lunch at a roadside stall/eatery for lunch since it was alr getting pretty late, like 2+ alr? there werent anybody there and i was the only customer there then because it was alr past lunch time! anyways, started to chat with the ppl at the shop and got along pretty well with them and they invited me to stay with them in their house to experience the local culture! he (张靖南）said he would bring me to harvest watermelons, go pick tea leaves, go farming etc haha. kinda like a village homestay except that this is a true homestay and not the commercial, touristy homestay where you pay SGD100 to have hot water, nice 7 course meals, beautiful toilets, and zero interaction with any locals at all...

hmmm... didnt really want to stay because i had planned my route and had to reach somewhere else by a certain time. but he kept asking me repeatedly every few mins when i was eating and eventually i decided to stay with them for a night!

helping to chop firewood for cooking haha... not as easy as it looks loh...

went to pick watermelons with them in their watermelon field

had dinner with them at night and got to meet the father and brother (they were out farming in the day!) dad was from sichuan and a really nice and happy guy, always smiling haha. 

1st April, 1st day into China! 6141km

LOL. this poor boy had to walk in the rain because his friend didnt shelter him! they look like they are having lots of fun though =D

no idea what the hell this is but strangely theres a photo of Sentosa (top left) and the Merlion and the city area (bottom left)

the result of slash&burn farming without proper planning... holes in the ground and half-burnt poles. luckily this half-burnt down structure didnt collapse while i was sleeping there!

some wild animals for sale at the market... didnt look like a dog nor a cat. prob some mountain cat or sth...

2 holland cyclists who came from China and just arrived in Laos. they gave me a sweater and a fur cap for me to use in Shagrila, Yunnan where its snowing! thanks dudes!

a mud brick structure. doesnt look like anybody lives inside but i have no idea what its used for. storeroom mayb?

another mud brick structure though still uncompleted

mmmmm.... i can smell the chinese soil alr! here i come china!

29th Mar, saw UXO bomb disposal teams at work! =D

Cave Tham Ting near Luang Prabang- a huge cave with a huge buddha figure and lots of miniature buddha statues as well. supposedly, everytime a local goes there, he brings a statue to place it there. it used to be a royal patronage place so the villagers taking care of this temple-cave had a rather good life and had good terms with the royal family.

Pls dun go for the ridiculous Lao elephant camps that cater to tourists... not sure about the reputation of all these camps but when i was there, i saw 2 handlers ill-treating an elephant. they were using the elephant to drag 2 huge logs and when the elephant stopped to rest, the handlers started beating the elephant and the elephant had no choice but to continue on. when they saw me taking a photo of them, they stopped beating the elephant and kinda said sth to each other but i could tell it was about me. they then went away into some private area though this time without any beating and rushing...

elephant camp near the cave

hmmmm... Unexploded Ordnance in the vicinity? guess i better take care when cycling thru then!

Saw a UXOLao vehicle and a team huddled under a huge military style command post tent, resting and having lunch when i cycled thru this part. when i cycled a little bit further, i saw an obvious area marked out with signposts and  strings on the floor with obvious "Do not enter unless you wanna die" feel. stopped to look around the area and suddenly the UXOLao vehicle that i saw previously came over!

the marked out area with signposts spread out every 50m or so...

They started unloading all their equipment and its obvious that they are looking for UXO from the equipment that they carry (metal detectors, some kits...) stayed around to look and some dude suddenly asked me to follow him and said "photo, bombie, photo". errr ok... if the expert says its safe to follow him in, i guess its safe then!

2 of the seniors/team leaders waiting here while the rest went in with all their equipment

thats a bombie (left) beside a mortar (right)! the mortar was inside the ground and he was carrying the bombie but jus dropped it inside so that i could take a photo of both of it LOL. this mortar was under a tree and the tree was marked "53" in red, and he said it was the 53rd bomb in the area. wow...

the marked out area that i was talking about and the sign reads "Detector Balancing Area" no idea what it means though... but i think it translates into Do Not Enter

decided to stop at 2pm for an early rest at this beautiful place beside the river...

28th Mar, Luang Prabang

morning market in Luang Prabang...

the daily night market with all its buzz and makeshift tents materializing out of nowhere

yummmy... i get this fantastic fruit shake almost everytime i see it. breakfast, lunch, dinner =P

a 10,000 kip "buffet" in a side street where you put as much food as you can possibly stack on a plate and tuck in!

woke up really early around 5+ to pack up and get ready to see the famous and very popular alms giving ceremony in Luang Prabang. its a daily ritual where monks will walk thru the the streets in Luang Prabang and ppl would be kneeling on the floor to give food to the monks when they pass by. they mostly travel in groups of about 10 or so depending on the size of the monk population in that particlar temple, usually with an elderly monk in front whom i think is the head abbot of that particular temple. i only see ppl giving sticky rice and bananas and nth else. wonder if there is other kinds of food that they give but didnt see any other than these 2 haha.

Heard that because the alms giving ceremony is so popular with tourists, there are some cunning locals who actually sell bad food that are leftovers from days before so as to earn more profits. this has resulted in some monks getting food poisoning and many of them want to stop this morning alms giving practice but supposedly the government ORDERS them to continue at all cost, prob because it brings in so much tourist dollars... in case you are not aware, the govt is still very much in control of everything and its not exactly very open yet...

the locals...

the farangs...

and even the monks participate in this morning routine!