Our first moments in Xi'an

Our flight out of Beijing was pretty simple and we arrived late in the evening in the Xi'an airport. We wanted to travel overland, but given the brevity of our trip and our inability to sleep on bumpy overnight trains, we opted to fly. The flight gave us the added opportunity of meeting in the airport with our great friend Tom Stader as his flight arrived within 30 minutes of ours. He was just flying back to Xi'an, his home base in China, after giving talks at both a TED conference as well as at the Swiss Pavilion in the World Expo in Shanghai! He has been traveling quite a bit helping to support his ever-growing NGO The Library Project. We've supported them over the years, I designed that logo ;), and it is just amazing to see how well it is doing now and moreover, the great impact it has, but more on The Library Project in a few posts.



Once at the airport, Tom helped us snag a cab for a great price and we headed into town to help fill all of our hungry bellies, kick back, and relax our tired bodies with a few drinks. We grabbed some really fantastic street food cooked by a perfectly surly and shirtless grill master outside of Tom's apartment building. Our meal consisted of spicy yet deeply flavored crawdads, skewered chicken wings, skewered beef slices, pickled cucumber salad which was unreal, marinated tofu disks, and a few bottles of local brew. It was yet another moment when the Chinese street food more than delivered! It was dirt cheap, and I'm salivating just thinking about it now. You had to eat the crawdads with supplied plastic gloves. I should add though, the gloves for the crawdads were great for keeping some of the hot oil from getting all over you, but it was better in concept than practice since the hot oils would just eat through the gloves. By the time you were done cracking your crawdads and pealed off your gloves, your hands would be saturated with the savory oils. You just had to remember: DO NOT TOUCH YOUR EYES until you could really wash your hands. Not just typical China, "damp them in a bucket and then dry them with the old rag" wash them, but soak them and use hard-core soap wash them. Any less and you'd be crying for weeks. I'm sure there is no regulation in the amount of spice they put on those things. They were delicious, but that heat could really really build up.



While we were hanging out at the street stalls, we had our first of the many Xi'an encounters with expats from around the globe. Our friend Tom is very well known in the area, and given the small size of the expat community, it was very frequent that we'd run into some of his fellow compatriots. That night we ran into all sorts of folks, mostly teachers, from South Africa, England, and the US, a few were even from Chicago and Ohio which made for some funny common stories from our younger days in the Midwest.





We wondered all around the North-West corner of town visiting a few hot spots after our food. One had a rocking band with a bassist that outside of that setting would have looked very mild mannered and demure, but with her band and bass, she tore it up. In the last stop of the night we spent some time getting to reconnect with our old friend Tom and to learn more about Eugene, a teacher from South Africa, and Erica from Ohio at a very colorful bar with a rather hilarious drink menu we didn't end up testing. It was a really great way to be welcomed into our new stop in China!



Next up, with the rising of the day's sun, we get our first experience with Xi'an's "fog"!



Cheers,
Isaac

The World's Best Flea Market? It Just May Be.

Kerry and I love shopping in crazy outdoor markets when we travel. Often we don't buy anything, it's just the atmosphere that is authentic and electric and the possibility that we could find something special that makes it so cool. So when we read about Panjiayuan we knew it was a must-do for our stay in Beijing.



It was impossible to really capture how big and sprawling this place is. Over the ages it's been added to, and it shows. One section will be blanket after blanket, row after row of people hawking various wunderkammer and antiques (although most are fakes). Next to that you might find three stories of row shops housing jade sculpture, or maybe musical instruments. Then rows, and floors of furniture. Then you will find artists by the dozens if not hundreds followed by even more fields of other sundry crafts and antique-this-and-that. But it is the art I need to elaborate on. China, and Beijing more specifically, surprised and impressed us yet again. While there is a lot of calligraphy and ink painting that one would expect to find from Chinese artists in stalls, the oil painters and sculptors were as surprising as they were talented. Much of the subject matter seemed to be split between various communist themes and image studies of China's cultural past including portraits of minority figures and weathered streets. There are some famous and successful artists coming out of Beijing's art world and the most successful of them are in many cases being directly copied by some of the younger or less successful artists. While some were direct copies, others took painting styles and themes and came up with twists all their own which in some cases was absolutely brilliant. We ended up buying a few of those paintings and spent hours going through the hundreds and hundreds of amazing oils which were at prices that made you almost feel guilty of stealing. Here is a quad-shot of our four favorite artists we ran into. The older master had both booth and a shop and in his shop displayed a truly massive stretched oil painting of a Chinese ceremony of some sort which was rendered so well, and was just so beautiful it would have been a show stopper in any museum in the world. We had no idea where we would show such a painting or how to transport it for that matter, but whatever he was charging it was worth ten times more I'm sure.



One curious thing I noticed was that at several of the row end caps people were selling pairs of walnuts. I'm sure you've all seen the "Chinese Health Balls"sold in random shops in the US before. They are usually chrome or enameled with little chimes inside that you roll in your palms for some esoteric benefit. Well, here, those balls are definitely sold, but what seemed to be more popular were these walnuts. They seemed to like the ones that were really round, about the same size, and heavily pitted with very deep pores. They made a very unique grindy-slidy kind of sound as someone walked around rolling them this way and that in a palm as they perused the stalls.



That night we wondered back the 798 district for a nom-tastic dinner at a pseudo-Western cafe filled with local art figures and ex-pats from France and elsewhere. Before calling it a night we wandered with no direction through the galleries and surreal sculptures found everywhere on the grounds tucked in corners, hanging off of buildings and in some cases in your way. Many of them are large fiberglass pieces painted in a solid coat of high-gloss red.




One artist in particular that blew my mind into little bits of happy was the brilliant work from Xian Yang, a Chinese artist living in the US. The solo exhibition was made from sculptural images often including multicolored strings creating transformative outlines connecting one shape to another. The work centered around this gigantic sculpture portraying the interdependence between China and the US.

It was nice to see the 798 district at night because it really came alive. During the day it is a fairly placid place, but at night, there are concerts, art openings, and a lot more foot traffic with people milling about and sitting amongst the sculpture strewn alleys and courtyards.

Finding our Beijing

Kerry and I moved into a hotel that was adjacent to a really surprising neighborhood in Beijing that we felt right at home in. The district is called 798, and it is the epicenter of Beijing's exploding contemporary art scene. The massive district is chock full of galleries, shops, studios, cafes, and the some-still-functioning relics of the districts history as an industrial hub. You'd walk down one street full of pipes with steam leaking up in the air or on the ground, crazy machinery, and then turn the corner into a 40,000 square foot monstrosity of a loft-style gallery filled with a mix of the beautiful, experimental, subversive, and sometimes ugly. It was the subversive that surprised us the most. In a country so controlled and censored, (we haven't even been able to post to our blog, this has been done in proxy thanks to Marc and Lisa, THANKS AGAIN!), it was really surprising and refreshing to see so many artists able and willing to speak out. There was something about it that felt a bit more genuine to to Kerry and me. While you always find artists, particularly student artists, trying to speak out against a governing power in subversive ways, it just seemed more honest and brave here in China's evolving core in Beijing.

We took breaks now and again in one cafe or another soaking in the art-rich atmosphere. It was fun to see even in the walkways, there were tons of fashion photographers with their crew and models posing in front of the galleries and sculptures.



Once evening started to set in, we headed towards the day's real goal which was to go to a very highly regarded restaurant called Da Li Courtyard, a wonderful Yunnan cuisine place in a great old hutong.



With the encouragement and funding from Jon Laws to make us get out and do a really extravagant dinner while we were in China, we eventually picked this place, and we were definitely not disappointed! It would be hard to have a more romantic meal. It was just beautiful, delicious, and charming from beginning to end. There were seven courses that night, (it changes with the chef's whim), and is a prix fix menu only. Our favorite and most surprising dish turned out to be the first. It was strips of tofu skin and mint leaves covered in an utterly confounding to identify light sauce that was just mind-blowingly tasty. Each dish had a great deal of new and bold flavors for us to try often including lemon grass, small portions of some protein, and some spice.



Once we were fat and happy, we lingered for a while with their unique drinks made from Yunnan rice-based spirits, muddled mint, water, sugar, and muddled lemon chunks making for a citrusy mojito-esque glass of awesomesauce. They made for warm glows and happy moods after a nice meal.




Da Li Courtyard is located near a strip of shops and eateries. We then let ourselves float from shop to shop walking off our large meal and had a really lovely time taking in the vibrant night-life of the neighborhood.



As tended to be the case throughout the trip, we ended our day with a harrowing adventure to find a cab home. After about 3:30pm, it is near impossible to get a cab anywhere in China... In the early evening there is usually a shift change as well as a mix between drivers who don't want to pick up Westerners, (the rumor is that they are afraid we are frustrating and angry to deal with so they avoid us), and that they don't want to drive through rush hour which particularly in Beijing, is just ridiculous. Once we did find an empty+willing to work with us+willing to drive through town cab, we then had the challenge of trying to explain where we were going. Showing them an address and a map only worked a small percent of the time. It often had to be augmented with my stilted and limited Mandarin and charades. We found ourselves changing our plans over and over again to do everything we could to avoid the cab-ventures and I'll be incredibly happy to leave that part of China behind. It does get hard sometimes to remember that you must keep a smile on your face to keep from making your chances of reeling in a cab even harder. Taxi travel here is most definitely more complicated and challenging than anywhere else in the world we've visited. All of that being said, the little challenge to find our end-of-day cab did little to squash our high spirits after such a lovely day and night. With the art-district and great meal, we really found our swing in Beijing.

Summer Palace

We woke up fairly early, still feeling residual "wake up early" benefits from jet lag, and after a nice bao ze, (steamed pork bun with vinegar and chilis), we headed toward the summer palace. The summer palace has a very troubled history thanks in no small part to empress dowager Cixi. She spent gobs of China's funds on the place at a time when the money was needed for the navy to help support the nation. She played a huge roll in the downfall of China into a place of deep corruption at that time. All that being said, the place is absolutely gorgeous! :)

Kerry, Mitch, and I strolled around the lush grounds until we found a nice little gazebo with a few old men singing and played a nice leisurely game of Scrabble with the board and tiles Kerry and I had thoughtfully tucked into our packs this trip. That little slice of time, just sitting listening to the birds and singing, gentle breeze, and slow game made for perhaps the best moment in the whole trip up to that point. It was just such a peaceful place to spend time.



After we wrapped up our game, we decided to head upwards toward the "incense tower" which overlooks a nice sized lake some distance below. Along the way we passed a vast collection of older Chinese folks playing instruments and singing in pockets of shade.



Eventually, we meandered up to the summit and began exploring the shrine seated there.



The view from the top was a really nice place to see vast expanses in China's sea of new, the skyscrapers and hazy sky, as well as the clusters of shrines and classically Chinese boats peddling around the waters. Looking up the hills you'd find green on green, and tall pagodas, and in the valley spilling out to the horizon was nothing but modern high-rise after modern high-rise.



After some popsicles, and some chill time from the heat to take in the site, we headed down the slope and finished out the day with a nice boat ride to the center island which housed an informative little museum which gave a fairly detailed account of the last emperor and the above mentioned empress dowager. The summer palace was definitely the most impressive and beautiful historical site in Beijing, and made for a really nice day!

China, Day 3

Our day started with another crazy cheap, super yummy, meal for breakfast. It was a delicious, saucy, crepe-ish kind of savory thing with a sort of crunchy thing inside. It was full of yum, and a totally new flavor/texture experience which is always fun!



We decided to explore some of the hutongs and the surrounding area. The hutongs are the old-China lanes in the heart of Beijing that represent a small little slice of the historic past that "the people" have decided was worth hanging onto. In the heart of the area are two large historic structures left over from the Mongolian occupation of the city, the drum tower and bell tower. They've been updated and evolved with successive emperors. Once we ascended the kinda-epic stairway in the drum tower we were treated with a tremendous view of the city and the serendipity of a drum demonstration! The performance was pretty awe inspiring. It was five drummers on five perhaps two meter tall drum stands who played very complex rhythms and utilized very inventive techniques to make some unusual percussive sounds. I loved it! :D The pain in the butt was the fact that my loner rechargeable batteries from Mitch died moments into the performance, doh?! So I didn't get a very good audio recording of it. My memory and some of the video we took will have to suffice.



After the tower we started wondering around the hutongs. They were quiet, meandering, and full of charm. We snapped away and had a really nice time just soaking up the feel of the place.



The little lanes were full of these little peaks into even smaller little walkways that lead into the individual residences. They almost always had a bike or two, and makeshift boards and wires patching up decades if not centuries of wear and use. It was definitely, at least at that point, the most peaceful area we had explored in China.



We ended our walk at an area called ho hai which is a pretty touristy but still very cute area full of roof decks and views of roofs and the adjacent ponds. We grabbed a beer, took in the breeze pushing around lanterns, and watched the rickshaws peddle around the travelers up and down the lanes.





Our evening found for us yet another special meal, this time in the form of Chinese hot pot. Mitch and LiNa took us to a very popular local spot where you sit and play board games, (Chinese checkers, Chinese chess, or cards), before your table is ready which was pretty awesome. Once we got in, the meal was really delicious and brought with absolutely superb service. The hotpot meal itself consisted of veggies and meats dropped in either a spicy or mild soup that you then dip in various sauces before eating. Also, I found a baijiu (local spirits made from sorghum), that wasn't completely unpalatable, so win! Ha ha.

China Day 2

Our second day in Beijing was also a good one. For breakfast Li Na made corn porridge and we ate left over meat pies from the night before. Then Mitch, Isaac and I headed out to Tian'anmen Square. we took the subway there and although it threatened to rain, it just stayed in that blissfully overcast breezy pre-rain state all day. Tian'anmen itself was interesting to see given the history, but otherwise it's just a large open square. the line to see Mao's tomb stretched over several blocks so we decided not to go in. Mitch said that he's actually never seen it in the 4 years he's lived here; the line is always crazy.
After walking through the square we ended up at the gate for the Forbidden City. we walked through a fair bit of the "city", and it was good to see but quite a bit of it looked the same, and we were pretty much only allowed in the courtyards and gardens rather than inside the rooms. The imperial garden itself was ok but nothing compared to any of the temple gardens in Japan. We actually had a hard time not comparing the aesthetics of the buildings, gates and gardens to those of Japan. In our opinion Japan is much more beautiful, but it was absolutely worth it to see for ourselves what these spaces actually look like, since previously we only had Chinese epic period movies to go by.







Two really funny things that I didn't get photos of: The restroom right outside the Forbidden City had a gigantic gift shop inside of it (didn't feel it was appropriate to take a photo) and the audio guides had a languages available section listed, one of which was Esperanto (didn't think to take a photo until it was too late). One other interesting detail was that there were some groups of Chinese domestic tourists who wanted and in some cases did, take photos either of us, or with us. That happened in Japan too, but it is always fun to observe fascinations with other nationalities and races.

We found a steamed bun place for lunch that was yummy, and once again Mitch saved the day by ordering for us; the menu was all in Chinese with no photos or display food, so it would have been really hard for us to order on our own. The meal for the 3 of us including 6 orders of dumpling plates, a cucumber salad, and 3 bottled waters was just under $3 total. Food in China is cheap!



After lunch Mitch took us to an area with department stores full of items for rich folks, and we had a beer and walked down an alley where several vendors were selling skewers of wriggling scorpions, dead starfish, spider, bugs, etc for grilling. After chilling for awhile we decided to catch a cab to head somewhere else for about an hour before Li Na got home. That's when things got weird.

For the next 1 1/2 hours, we could not get a cab. we saw tons of empty cabs that wouldn't pull over for us, and the 2 that did pull over asked where we were going and then dismissed us when we told them the university district (which was pretty far away, not a tiny fare). We also saw some Chinese people get turned away from cabs, so it didn't appear to be solely because we are foreigners. Mich said that hasn't happened ever before and he was completely baffled. We proceeded to walk (while attempting to hail cabs the entire way) for the 1 1/2 hours until we gave up and found a bus that took us somewhat in the right direction. Of course it was rush our at that point, so it took us almost another hour on the bus. Once we were off the bus we again attempted to hail a cab and had several empty ones pass us before one FINALLY stopped. Crazy! By the time we got home we were all like "what just happened? Is the US at war with China all of the sudden?" Soooooo weird.



The evening was redeemed by a delicious meal of Peking Duck (they call it Beijing duck here, hee hee), along with Sichuan green beans, Kung Pow chicken, Mao's favorite dish of pork belly, and duck soup. we waddled home and went to bed fat and happy. With sore feet.

China!

After an uneventful flight we arrived in Beijing on Sunday evening and had dinner at Mitch and Li Na's apartment. They live in the University district which is a really cute neighborhood, and the weather was nice but a bit humid by San Francisco standards (Mitch had told us it was not humid at all, but we found out that was by midwest standards). Anyway, Li Na made a delicious dish of stewed chicken with potatoes and homemade flat bread named laobing. It was yummy! Afterwords we walked around the neighborhood and looked at the night market where the vendors sell fruit and vegetables. Since Mitch was still jetlagged as well we all headed to bed at 8pm.



We woke up super early the next morning and went out for street food breakfast. It was AMAZING. We had fried dough "donuts" without sugar, soup and some pork steamed buns named baozi.



Then we went to the Chinese hospital attached to the university so Mitch could get his bandages changed. Bandages you say? Yep, poor Mitch tripped and put his hand through two, TWO glass windows the day before we arrived. So his right hand needed a bunch of stitches and he has a splint for the tendon in his thumb, and is all covered in bandages for the next 2 weeks or so.



After breakfast Mitch took us to an underpass near his place where senior citizens dance every morning for exercise. It was quite a production with live music and props, and got some fun video and photos of it. It was just ridiculously happy and we all walked away with big smiles.



We then took a bus to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. We got there around 11:30 and the sun was scorching. It was also a bit further away from the ever present pollution in Beijing that looks like fog, so that made the sun feel stronger also. We walked up quiet a few stairs and got a terrific view of the wall. In the photo of the 2 of us you can see an enormous sign on the hillside celebrating the 2008 Olympics. We found it a bit cheesy and would have preferred a photo without it, but they put it in the most scenic spot so that it would be in all of the photos. As Mitch said "Hey, this is the REAL China- it's good to have it in the photo!" hmmmm. He might be right. Anyways, it was a fun day and we had a great time.



After a late lunch of noodle soup we went back to the apartment to cool off and wait for Li Na to get home from work.



For dinner, we had beef filled "pie" from a really nice woman that runs a shop that Mitch and Li Na have been going to forever. The woman was so sweet, she even brought us several free soups to try. For a perfect ending to a great day, we walked around outside near the canals and watched people sing karaoke from portable TV/Audio set ups that some enterprising people run on the sidewalk. It was dark so unfortunately we didn't get any photos of that. You will need to use your imagination for that one.

We got a good nights sleep and we are off to see Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City today. Plus, it's supposed to thunderstorm, so things might get interesting today.....
Thanks to Lisa and Marc for posting this, since China has blogspot blocked ;)

[note from Lisa: appologies for the formatting not being as nice as usual, I've never used Blogger before!]

In case you missed it...

Some of our more interesting blog posts from our recent trip to Laos and Thailand:
Arrival! Plateau! Homestay! Leeches! Books!

Share

Last 3 days in Luang Prabang + Bangkok

The day after our homestay in the Hmong village, we decided to have a chill day and went to Wat Xieng Thong because a store that sells ethnic masks was supposed to be right next to it. After much searching, it was double confirmed that the store had closed down. Bummer. We did go inside the Wat though, and it was lovely. It even had some cool images of Buddhist Hell, something you don't normally see represented in temples.

After the Wat we had a lazy time shopping, window shopping, and having lunch by the Mekong. Around 4:30 we headed out for a sunset cruise (1 hour) of the Mekong. Lovely! We were the only 3 passengers on a boat built for 20 and it was really great to get to see monks swimming/bathing, fishermen fishing, and even a gas station on a boat. The sunsets in Laos have been very quick and not very colorful, but this one was at least not overcast and of course very charming. After dinner we ran into Mike from Oregon (who we met a few days before) and he recommended we take a cooking class from the Tamnak Lao Three Elephants Cooking School. This was really good luck because we had been discussing whether or not to go on a boat ride to the Buddha Cave (cave with lots o' small Buddhas in it), and none of us were terribly psyched to go. So the next morning Isaac, Kat, and I went and did the all day cooking class.



Actually, the first thing we did was get up at dawn to see the monks receive alms. This is a really well-known activity that lots of tourists visit and photograph. There are signs all over Luang Prabang asking people to be respectful, photograph from a distance, and not disturb the monks. Let me tell you, it was a circus. We all agreed that it was probably the most disgusting example of "bad tourists" that we have ever seen, anywhere. People in the monks faces, wearing skimpy clothes, having friends take their pictures standing right next to the monks, etc. I took the picture below, which is even before things got really crazy. I wanted to photograph the bad tourists more but I was so embarrassed to be holding a camera at that point I just wanted to put it away and watch the alms giving in silence. I guess not every experience traveling is a good one. According to this link, the monks don't want to continue the charade... it's sad it has become what it is now.



So, back to the cooking class. We learned how to make lots of great Lao food (and ate it!), went to the market to look at vegetables, and had what were undoubtedly the coolest group of people in our cooking class. We had a recovering investment banker from South Africa, A UN human trafficking specialist from Australia via Spain, 2 US Army wives living in Okinawa but teaching in Vientiane for a few months, and an American couple living in Yokohama working for/in the US Navy. Everyone loved the class and afterward Kat, Isaac and I went with Joey and Julia (the American couple) to have Lao Lao and walk through the night market again. It was a really fantastic time with a great group of people.



Our last day in Luang Prabang Isaac and I took off on our own to explore some different areas of the town. We ran into Wayne, the South African, and he suggested that we go to Utopia, a bar/restaurant overlooking the river. We did and it was a really nice way to waste an afternoon, if I do say so myself. Also, Isaac and I went into what I thought was a clothing store and Isaac bought another large awkwardly shaped instrument. I'm serious. Only Isaac could find the one thing in the store that we couldn't bring on the airplane, again. At least they could ship it for us! And it really is a lovely Hmong flute-organ thing. It sounds cool too.
After that we went to the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre, which had some fascinating exhibits. And...drum-roll... I was able to buy an authentic fair trade mask made in Laos. Score!



We met back up with Kat and hung out a little bit for our last night.
The next day we flew to Bangkok, where we planned on buying some cheap clothes. The first few malls we went to were impressive in their Tokyo-esque new and shininess, but disappointing in that they were more expensive than the US. We went to the Puma store, where Isaac is very familiar with the prices, and confirmed this. More expensive! Lame. But we eventually stumbled on MBK mall, a haven for cheap deals and fake Prada bags. I didn't really want any fake bags but we did find a few items of cheap clothes, had some surprisingly good cheap meals, and hung out in the arcade for way too long. We are dorks. One funny thing was I saw a (fake) Esprit watch that I wanted, and was attempting to talk the woman down from her price of the equivalent of about $23. The watchband, which was embossed with the words "Genuine Leather", was clearly not genuine leather. When I pointed this out, she started saying the thing that all shop keepers seem to say when you question the purity of a silver item: "It's 80%". About half way through saying it she realized how ludicrous that statement was and started laughing. Which made me laugh. We laughed together for a minute, she lowered the price a bit more, and of course I had to buy it then. I mean, come on. The watchband was 80% leather, right?

So that's it - the end of the journey in South-East Asia. For now. It was a very nice trip, and felt great to be back there. :)

coming along nicely

Due to work, jet lag, jet lag, rolling around in clean sheets, showering with hot water, drinking straight from the tap and an untimely cold on Isaac's part, we have yet to finish our Laos blog entries. Actually, I have had the last entry written for days, but I can't post it until we get the photos re sized and sparkly. and I just don't have the energy at this very moment. Because you can just imagine how many episodes of Project Runway we had to watch after 3 weeks away. You understand.
Also I am concerned that the last blog entry, like all my other blog entries, is too long. Although thank you Kat for the tip about paragraphs. If you are a loyal reader and have been admiring the segmented quality of my last few blogs, thank Kat. But once again laziness will probably take over and you guys will just get the entire post all at once, like unstoppable verbal diarrhea. You're welcome for that mental image.
Because I know everyone enjoys images with blog posts, I have included this completely unrelated and gratuitous image. It is a rare self portrait that I took while almost kicking Lisa's face. Yes those slippers are real sheep skin. No you may not have a copy of this picture.
Again, you're welcome:

Our homestay in a Hmong village

When we got to the Hmong village where we would be spending the night, Kia explained that we would be spending the night in the village chief's house. The village chief also ended up being the village Shaman, school master, and former medicine man too. Score! All the children were staring at us for prolonged periods, open mouthed, as if we couldn't see them back. This was to be a theme during our stay, but more on that later.

Kia explained that since it was a Saturday, there was no school so most kids were either working or in their homes, and most of the adult villagers were harvesting crops (as they do every day during the harvest seasons) and wouldn't be back until dinner time. It was about 2 pm and Kat, Isaac and I hadn't expected to be at the village quite so early as we had thought the other village stops would take longer. Since this was a custom trip G.D. set up just for us, I guess all bets were off. It was very quiet and Kia didn't really put his heart into trying to facilitate conversation - the three of us sat with Kia and the chief in his house in the near dark (there were no windows and the village didn't have electricity for lights) for a while and it was a little bit awkward. Eventually we all got to asking each other questions - the chief wanted to know our jobs, if Isaac and I have kids, and of course had to ask Kat "what are you?". As saying "American" was, of course not accepted, she has learned to quickly add "Korean" which then lead to more questions about why she moved to America (she told him she was 5, so it wasn't really her choice), and if her parents left because of the war (how old do they think Kat is???).



Then we got to ask him some questions - he has 11 kids, aged 35 to 2, his wife was working in the fields and would be spending the night near the fields rather than trek back to the village (unfortunately that meant we never got to meet her), he became chief by being elected. Elections are every 4 years and the stipend is very small so he still needs to make money from farming.



After some more interesting conversation, Kia went to take a mid day nap and Kat, Isaac and I went to go take photos of the village and walk around. The Chief's 2 youngest daughters were following us around from a distance(age 4 and 7, I would estimate), and were truly adorable. The picture at the top of the post is the older daughter and grandson, the man with no shirt is the chief, and the younger daughter is the picture below the chief. I would also like to add that even the 4 year old was working. She had a large baby, maybe 1 or 1.5 years old and literally half her size, strapped to her back and was doing an admirable job of attempting to rock and shush him since he was screaming his head off for about 3 hours straight. I later learned that the baby's dad is her older brother and the baby's mom was working in the fields all day, which is why the baby was so upset. When the mother did get home around 5pm, she also had a small infant strapped to her back. She had been doing the same work as the men in the fields all day, just with a baby strapped to her back. These women are no joke. Working their butts off from age 4, apparently! We passed out some books, which were well received, and Kat gave out pencils to all the local kids we saw. The kids didn't beg but were very happy to get the pencils. At one point we didn't know if we had enough to give to a new group of kids so we put the pencils away. One little girl who had seen other kids get pencils from afar kept looking at the other kids' pencils with a really sad longing in her face, but didn't say a word. No begging here either. Kat and I did a quick head count and decided we did have enough to give her and the other kids pencils and they were so happy!

When dinner time arrived Kia cooked us a simple meal of choko (local veggie) and chicken soup, sticky rice, and one other dish made of local greens. It was delicious, although my belly was still wonky from the bumpy ride. I forced myself to eat something so they wouldn't loose face, and took a cipro in case my upset stomach was the start of getting sick. Kia apologized for the simple food and accommodations and we explained that we were very happy with them - we wanted the authentic experience! We defiantly got one. Bathing was in public from a spigot in the middle of town (They bathe together but with sarongs on to cover up). Seeing as how everyone was still stopping what they were doing to stare at us, we all decided to just wash our hands and faces and brush our teeth. The toilet was a squat toilet outhouse behind the main house, and they had Isaac, Kat, and me all sleep on the same raised platform together. This was fine with us although very different from the Lowland Lao house, where Isaac and I were asked to sleep separately even though they probably thought we were married. The roof was tin, walls were wood plank, and floor was packed dirt. While we had dinner chickens, dogs, and cats all came and went and were either allowed to stay or forcefully kicked out seemingly at the whim of the house's inhabitants.



Picture above: Cooking dinner

Before bed we all sat by candlelight/flashlight and talked some more. It was really great to get to know the chief and ask him questions about the Hmong, about his life, and his family. He gave us all a drink of Lao Lao from a bottle that had been packed with Lao Lao and large 1 to 1.25 inch bees (a tonic that "makes you strong!" we were promised). I only had a tiny sip because of my belly. The chief invited us to sit with his family and eat a bit more, which we all did even though we weren't hungry, because he was being so polite and generous. Soon after we went to bed and my arms stomach and thighs broke out in small hives which made sleep really hard. Luckily I had brought the cortisone cream from our first aid kit (we only had our little day packs, the big packs were in the Green Discovery office in Luang Prabang). So now the mystery is, am I allergic to Cipro (never have been before), the bee juice or something else? My dad is deathly allergic to honey bee stings, and I can't remember if I have ever been stung by one. I guess I need to see an allergist when we get back to the states. I feel fortunate it was just hives and not something more severe, since the nearest emergency-ready hospital was in Bangkok!



The roosters started crowing at 4am and everyone in the house started getting up, and the 3 of us tried to sleep a bit longer since it was still pitch black. One funny thing was the kids, and not just the 4 year old, kept stopping by our bed and pointing the flashlight at us and continuing to stare. It was so funny - I knew from earlier that they didn't seem to have a sense we can see them staring at us, but with a flashlight 6 inches from your face in the middle of the night, come on! Opening my eyes and moving didn't seem to get the message across that they were blinding me, so I finally would very sweetly say "good morning" and that would send the kid and their flashlight running. It's amazing that they didn't seem to know I could see them back until I talked to them!

The next morning we had bread, leftover sticky rice, and more leftover choko from the soup for breakfast. Then we went for a walk with Kia and the Chief to see their herb garden, where they grow their herbal medicines. The Chief explained that sometimes foreigners come to stay with them for a week or two to study their knowledge of medicinal plants. They even had a German stay with them for a year and a half in 1996. Still, judging by the kids' reactions I think maybe it's been a little while since falang have spent the night. We gave the Chief the rest of the books from Big Brother Mouse, to give out to kids or to the school. He looked at several of them with the youngest daughter and she seemed really curious about them. I think we may have a future reader on our hands! Before we left the Chief showed us some dried animal's feet (looked kind of like a large rodent, sort of), and said they were something Shamans give Hmong people for protection. He wanted to know if we could take them home with us. We asked Kia what animal they were from, but he said he didn't know of the English name since we don't have them in the west. Then we asked if they were rare, and Kia didn't understand the word "rare" or "endangered". So we had him ask the chief - "Are there many of these animals in the forest? Or not so many?" He asked the chief and the answer was "Oh no, not many at all". Ah. So we had to regrettably tell him thank you, we are very honored at his generous gift, but no, customs would not let us keep them if there are not many left. I can only imagine the hot water we might have landed in if we had tried to bring some exotic semi extinct animal's paws home. Yikes.



Picture above: The central room of the house. The bed with the mosquito net is where the three of us slept.

The stay was really great for all of us, and I think especially moving for Kat. She really wanted to stay longer and wants to go back with Kiru (her husband) in the future. I loved it too, and I'm not sure how much of it was my belly problems, but I felt one night was probably good for me. It was a tiny bit like camping and I was so hot and sweaty by the next day I couldn't wait to shower. Isaac and I both agreed we liked the first homestay a bit better (partially because Udon was such a great guide), and Kat liked the Hmong homestay best, because the Chief and his family had been so wonderful. We all agreed that we felt very happy and lucky for the opportunity to get to spend the night in the village.

Next up: Back to Luang Prabang!