Christmas Cheer: Rice Wine in a Khmu Village
December 31st, 2006
The trek began Christmas eve from the northern Lao town of Luang Namtha. Almost immediately there was a steady climb, but it felt really good to be out on a single-track trail again. For my Alaskan friends, it was much like the Fuller Lakes trail in pitch and scenery.
The Lao government, in partnership with New Zealand, has protected this region as a park and a cultural heritage/preservation area. To visit the villages contained within, you had to go through this partnership program. The fee was minimal, and in exchange, you had 2 local guides, permission from the villages to visit, a bamboo/thatch building to sleep in, meals, and a chance to observe a way of life that hasn’t changed much for a few hundred years. Read the rest of this entry »
After a day of kickin’ back, hiking and caving I headed off to dinner and then on the walk back to the guest house came across a bar with a pool table. Well, it was really too early to go to bed and one of the guys playing was an Israeli that I had met several times in Viet Nam; the other was a Croatian guy i had met on the bus.
Ok…more about the title of this section later. You’re just going to have to read on.
With 126,000 dong in my hand…
Adventure changed to trouble when I rounded the bend of a narrow road that had long ago turned to a sloppy single track of red mud.
I’ve just returned from a 3 day visit to one of the more spectacular places I’ve seen so far – 
Most street corners in Hanoi (and most other Vietnamese towns) have Bia Ho’i, or fresh beer stands. A glass costs about 2-3 thousand dong and it’s 16 thousand dong to the dollar- a lot of beer for a buck!
I was lucky to have an entire seat to myself on the 13 hour bus ride from Hue to Ha Noi. The seats are built to the SE Asian average body size and it is quite impossible to fit my legs under the reclining back of the one in front of me. Even a bottle of Dalat’s finest wine couldn’t induce sleep however. But that’s not the fault of the bus – it’s always been difficult for me to sleep in a bus or plane. 
Sometimes I do wonder just what in the hell I am doing.
jpb