Journeys in Laos' hidden North
Three generations of family live in one room in a Hmong village between Muang Sing and Luang Nam Tha. They share the bed, the cement floor and the kitchen together. Offering us sour lychees and opium they explained how they walk for an hour twice a day to reach their farmland. I never caught their names but thanked, 'Sabai-dee' profusely for their hospitality, determined to leave a good impression of foreigners. We were the first white people they had ever met.
Just outside these two main towns, as in most areas of Laos,
wooden village upon riverside wooden village lie next to the roads. In the
midst of our cultural exchange, the father, head of his part of the household,
returned from the fields. A rattan sack laden with vegetables hung heavily off
his back. He dropped the dead weight and plonked down to light his pipe. A dark
brown cloud of smoke emitted from the end, and it was at this moment one of our
group asked for a photo with the family. I shifted uncomfortably.
It’s not that we didn’t want to pose with
them, we didn’t want to be another tourist pretending to be more cultured than
five minutes before the meeting for the sake of someone’s Instagram folio.
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I see photos of people surrounded by African children; I've been one of those people. I see people sitting in groups of poor children smiling away next to these cute little dirt covered malnourished faces while making the piece signs with their fingers next to a white well-fed grin. I also see people having photos taken of their genuine friends, people they have volunteered with or spent time helping, and built a rapport. And there is the difference, that is not voyeurism but that's what we would have been had we posed in that photo. We would have been those exploitive tourists.
However our un-enthusiasm for posing in ‘white saviour’ photos let
us down and I wondered how this might look to our hosts. Would our discomfort
be mistaken for disrespect and boredom? This was no more evident than in the next village.
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The Akha people here were used to seeing Westerners.
The unmissable blue sign at the side of the road said as much, "Case free village". Rag-tag children bounded up to us on over size bikes and mismatching shoes. "Bye bye!" they greeted us, hands held out for requisite offerings of confectionary. And I just felt vulgar, impotent that all I could have offered was sweets and I had none. I took no photos.
At our final stop, the Lanten village, bamboo and rattan
homes on stilts greeted us amongst a family of jungle hogs quenching their
thirst in a leaf lined log trough. Here the women still wear traditional blue tunics and shorts.
Their hair uniformly styled in to buns decorated with silver coins that glint
in the sun. All material is made by loom, which they use for themselves rather
than selling to other Laotians who won't buy it.
Did we want to buy
any cotton? The question came so eloquently translated, five minutes after our
arrival. The purpose of these visits was becoming clear. I declined, when I
should have said yes, for if you are going to visit remote villages and their
adjoining cultures, you should be prepared to offer or buy something for the
privilege of being shown the dwellings.
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"We have a very rich culture here."
Laotian society is as diverse and intriguing as its’ emerald roller coaster track of mountains. As if the latter half of the twentieth century is yet to
come, but all the negative outcome of the Vietnam War has. “We call it the
American War”, a charity worker from Nong Kiaow tells me, inadvertently
explaining the pockets of Western resentment. An insurgence of sightseers waiting
to happen.
I wonder how long it will be before these strong networks of
tradition in every day life will become only ties to the past. In these days of
capitalism and sky-scrapers, we are seeing the desolation of natural
environments, feeding and mating grounds of countless animals and the cultures
and homes of indigenous peoples.
How soon will Laos’ culture be whittled to a small, watered down remnants of heritage? Or swamped with mass tourism like Thailand? One only need look at Vietnam to see the quick pace of tourism and ‘gap-yah’ wonderers trampling along the main backpacker circuit. I only hope the face of tourism and drunk-packing changes for the better, towards more responsible, respectful and eco-friendly tourism, before any more lasting damage can be done.
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| Woman at Lanten Village |
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