7th April, evening party =D

 

 

 

the master chef at work frying a huge pot of food for tonight's party

while the men were at the riverbed killing and dissecting chickens and cow, the womenfolk were in the home preparing dinner for tonight's party! yummy =P

ok, actually its womenfolk plus 1 man who can cook very well...

dun think its easy to stir this huge pan of food

around 5-6pm, the guests started to stream in. most of the women wore their traditional costumes but almost none of the men wore their traditional clothes. i found this the same almost everywhere i went, most of the men dun really wear it often whereas the women wear it almost everyday. hmmmm...

anyway, 靖南's dad set up a table along the road jus before entering the home and guests who entered registered with him. they also have a similar practice as singaporeans where they give hongbaos except that they jus give the money directly and dun wrap it inside any red packets. there seem to be an unsaid "glass floor" and everybody paid at least 50 yuan, which also happens to be the mode (most ppl gave this amount) highest i seen is 100yuan and from the short amount of time i stayed there, it seems everybody gave either 50 or 100 haha. not much differentiation there...

anyway, 靖南's dad recorded all the names of guests and the amount of money they contributed. talked to them and from what i gather, they treat this as kinda an investment/savings account. so if i contribute 100yuan to them for their "housewarming", the next time i marry and have a wedding dinner, they will contribute 100yuan or mayb slightly more adjusted for inflation. at least thats what they told me they felt about this practice... not sure if other villagers feel the same way?

here comes the guests! the red book is the record of the guests and their hongbao amounts

cute gals in traditional costumes

the 1st floor...

even though today is the housewarming, there are still alot of things that are unfinished and still needed work eg the 2nd floor is still not completed and has not been partitioned into rooms yet so it is jus one big empty space above.

the "banquet" spilled over into the house on the right because there wasnt enough space to accomodate everybody. they invited about 400ppl but not sure what the actual turnout is...

there are about 8 dishes so there are 8 men who walk around the tables carrying pails of the food and they will scoop out the food and put it on bowls on the tables. all the men are villagers so no need to hire waiters!

the pail of food!

most of this food comes from the cow in the morning =D minced beef, intestines, beef, anything to do with cow haha

shit, i look damn greedy but its really delicious so who cares =P

the finished roof. this is what the typical 傣族 home looks like

7th April, bull slaughtering!

靖南 's 舅舅 happened to be building a new 傣族 home and the "housewarming" is on the 7th. according to chuan, every villager who builds a new home will have to invite friends, family and everybody in the village to his home for a dinner, kinda like a housewarming party...

every household in the village is supposed to contribute a person to help with the housewarming event, men will be helping to slaughter the cow, chickens or help out with any last minute touch-ups to the house etc while the women will help to prepare the food for the event.

anyway, the cow slaughtering took place in the morning at the river! there were about a dozen plus men at the river of all ages, and obviously the old were more experienced but the young were much stronger and fitter. here goes the pics of the cow slaughtering!

the pails of drained cow blood...

adding fuel and preparing the blowtorch to torch the cow

all work and no play is boring so they stopped every now and then to smoke a couple of cigarettes and to barbecue chicken meat to eat =D

the dead cow by the river bed  and the trail of blood it left behind...

they also had a huge oil barrel with water inside, and they left it on top of a fire to boil the water. the wood for the fire came from the unwanted wood/wood shavings used to build the home and it has been boiling there for quite some time. when the water is boiling hot, some dude went over to scoop a huge pail of the boiling water and poured it all over the cow's body and the other men would scrape off the fur of the cow with their knives or some sticks. the key is to quickly remove the fur once you pour the hot water over it, because if you wait too long, it will be very difficult to remove the fur so there are alot of guys crowding around the cow, removing watever fur they can get their hands on..

pouring hot water over the cow to make it easier to remove the fur/hair/hide/whatever you call it...

the experienced old man preparing the blow torch to flame the cow

at the same time, an old man was preparing the blow torch and when most of the fur is removed, he will torch the cow until the body turns brownish. at the same time, they will also scrape off any remaining fur/whatever stuff stuck on the body.

flaming and scraping...

here comes the chickens!

while they were still messing around with the cow, somebody delivered a few baskets/coops of live chickens and those not messing with the cow would grab a couple of chickens and slaughter them before proceeding to defeather the chicks, clean it, boil it, flame it, remove the organs etc...

jungle confidence course village style... grab the head and feathers, slit the throat, drain the blood, prepare for dinner =D

some guys washing the chickens in the river while a guy continued messing with the cow and others in the far end preparing the tractor to bring the cow back.

defeathering the chicken before they put it close to the flame. not sure what they do it for but they only do it for a short while. think its prob easier to remove the feathers when it is warm bah?

dunking the chicken into the huge oil barrel of boiling water...

the chicken-nator hard at work dissecting every possible part he can find...

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!