Return to the Farm

Hello!  I apologize for the long time it has been since I have written a post.  Here is an update on our travels:

After the trekking in Laos, we decided to leave the country as soon as possible.  Partly because we were ready to leave Laos and partly out of necessity because of our lack of money (money was stolen while trekking) and the lack of ATM's in Laos.  We headed straight for the Laos border of Huay Xai, across the river from Huay Xai is the small Thai town called Chiang Khong.  The trip to the Laos border took about two days.  We had a very strict budget all the way because we had very limited funds and we did not want to take money out of an ATM until we reached Thailand again.  

After two days traveling Southwest through Laos we got to Chiang Khong and stayed one night.  We found a fantastic Korean BBQ Restaurant which was teeming with locals in Chiang Khong.  We had a feast on all sorts of Thai vegetables and meats (including liver, heart, and other misc. meats).  Unfortunately the next day my stomach did not think this meal was so fantastic.  Our next destination was Chiang Rai, only about two hours away from Chiang Khong, but the bus ride was excrutiatingly long because of my stomach pain.  We spent a few days in Chiang Rai re-enjoying the relative comfort of Thailand.  After our hiatus from farm work, we were ready to put our boots back on and get dirty!  We made contact with a farm 70 km north of Chiang Mai called Amee Doyer's Organic Farm.  This farm is very large, about 100 rai, and grows all sorts things including papaya, rice, all kinds of fruits including hundreds of orange trees.  They also keep about 60-70 pigs, whose needs I spent much of my time at the farm tending to.  The people who own the farm are from a hilltribe called Lisu.  The majority of the workers and people who live on the farm are from Burma.  (The location of the farm was very close to the Burmese border).  We arrived at the farm to discover that the English speaking owner of the farm was in fact in Canada, and would be there until December, so we were left to figure everything out through charades and sign language.  We were the only WWOOFers staying at the farm during this time.  The first few days on Amee Doyer's Organic Farm we spent planting tens of thousands of beans.  We worked with the other farm laborers planting the soil of a large fruit orchard with beans.  Because no one spoke English we could not ascertain the reason we were doing this, but we figured it was to fix nitrogen in the soil to create healthier soil.  So, we spent hours digging small holes and then throwing three white beans in each hole.  We estimated that by the end of the two days we must have planted somewhere in the range of 50,000 beans.  After the days of bean planting we began to learn how to care for pigs.  After several days of caring for the pigs, I gained a new appreciation for the vileness of this animal.  Of course, I still enjoy pork, but I will never look at a piece of bacon the same way.  As I said, the farm kept about 60-70 pigs, some of which were the size of small horses!!  I worked in the pig pen quite alot.  At first the stench of the pigs is quite shocking.  When they urinate (which they do in copious amounts) the stench almost seems to burn the inside of your nostrils, as if you were inhaling an acidic chemical.  

I observed pigs doing four things only: eating, sleeping, pooping, and peeing.  Pigs eat three times a day, just like us humans.  We spent about an hour in total mixing pig slop (times three for each meal).  The pig slop is made with large brownish grey pieces of stuff that looks like smashed cow dung.  I could not figure out what the stuff for quite a while and was not able to ask the farm hands what it was.  Later, I figured out what it was.  The farm has a large house used for producing oil for cooking.  Inside the house is a huge machine that is used to press small seeds which they told us were "niger" seeds.  After the seeds are pressed an aromatic oil is pressed out.  One day I watched this process and they made about seven large garbage buckets full of cooking oil.  The machine expels a waste product from the oil.  The waste product is the compressed seeds after the oil was been squeezed out.  The seed shells come out in cakes that look like smashed cow pies.  All the waste from the seeds is bagged.  Then, we would take the bagged seed cakes, put them in a two big cauldrons, add water, and the stuff would turn into pig slop!  Amazing!  We also added a few other things to the mix, one of which looked like sawdust but smelled like fish.  

There are about 20 baby pigs on the farm who get a special pig slop with fresh greens mixed in.  We made several missions into the forest to collect fresh greens for the babies.  On the first mission we cut down about 20 banana trees, sliced off the leaves, and then loaded them on a cart to take back to the pig sty.  On the second mission we collected a kind of green leaf which we just called "pig lettuce."  Pig lettuce is covered with tiny bristles (kind of like nettles) which sting you to the touch.  After the pig lettuce mission our arms were covered in welts and rashes.  We could only hope the pigs appreciated our efforts.  We chopped up the banana trees in to bite size pieces and saved them in trash buckets.  Whenever we mixed the baby pig feed, a few buckets of chopped banana tree were added in.  We also had to chop the pig lettuce into bite sized pieces.  This was a long and arduous process.  We were given two machetes and two planks of wood to use as cutting blocks.  I spent a good chunk of time over the next days chopping up the pig lettuce with the machete and the cutting block on the floor.  After hours of this, I felt that I would be a sufficient sous chef to any top chef in New York!  

An interesting moment came when we witnessed the slaughter of one of the large pigs.  Alea, one of the farm owners, came over to the pig pen and picked up a big machete.  We gravitated to him because we had never seen an animal as large as this  pig slaughtered before.  He thought our interest was hilarious.  Alea found it hard to believe that we had never seen a pig slaughtered before, or any animal for that matter!  He was even so kind as to offer us the machete, giving us the chance to kill the animal.  While I think this would be an interesting experiment for any carnivore, I think I'll just keep my hopes on killing a chicken.  We both declined this offer.  He said ok, and turned his attention to the pig.  With a swift stroke, Alea stabbed the foot long machete blade into the pigs side, between its ribs in the direction of its head.  I was surprised that the pig's throat wasn't cut, but apparently it is much easier to do it this way.  The pig convulsed for about a minute or two.  A small amount of blood flowed out of the machete wound.  After a minute some blood came out of the pig's nose and mouth, the pig urinated in its own pool of blood, and then it was dead.  I realized that my own heart of beating almost out of my chest as I watched this spectacle.  After the pig was completely dead we took it out of its pen and began the process of cleaning, gutting, and cutting it up.  The first step was to pour buckets of boiling water on the skin and scrape off the top layer of skin and hair with the blade of a machete.  This process reminded me of how humans shave their faces and/or legs.  The pig's skin looked grotesquely human after this "shaving" process.  After the majority of the hair had been removed we moved the pig near the gas tanks.  The farm also makes huge amount of gas from the pig waste.  A hose was hooked into the gas take and the skin of the pig was torched to get ride of any more left over hairs.  After this was done the gutting process began.  One of the farm hands began by cutting the pig from chin to tail (on the belly side), again with a machete (a very multi purpose tool!).  Then the head was cut off and placed to the side.  We watched in amazement as the organs were removed one by one.  We made guess as to what each thing was: gallbladder?  large intestines?  heart? liver? kidneys?  Half of this pig would be for our own consumption at the farm and half would be for selling at the market.  After all the "guts" were removed the butcher continued to cut the meat in smaller pieces.  

Later that night we found that our dinner was almost entirely made up of pig.  Pig soup, a bowl of pig liver mixed with intestines, and a few other dishes consisting of body parts I cannot name.  Some of the dishes were ok, but I could swear I could taste the pig slop in the meat.  All our meals for the next three or four days were also entirely made of pig.  

After about a week on Amee Doyer's Organic Farm we decided to depart.  The experience there was fantastic but for learning potential, it had its limits because of the lack of English speakers who could tell us the bigger picture of the farm. 

After the farm we headed to Chiang Mai where we spent the next 5 days re-re-enjoying the comforts of urban life in Thailand.  Chiang Mai has a great night market, which we wandered through on several nights.  We discovered the magic of mango sticky rice at one of the night markets.  There are many temples in Chiang Mai (none that we visited), but perhaps more interesting to us were the ubiquitous used book stores.  Yikes!  One around every corner, each one we just had to go in.  After a few nights in Chiang Mai, the number of books we possessed was laudable.  Our stack of books had reached more than two feet high! Chiang Mai is a dangerous place for the reader. 

Almost a week passed in Chiang Mai and we decided it was time to head back to a farm.  We decided we wanted to come back to Neil and Su's farm (the first farm we visited) in Bang Phra.  We have now been at Neil and Su's for about two weeks (every day of which we have worked!) We are working on several projects including: building bungalows, building a woodfire oven, digging septic tanks, weeding tomatoes, encouraging the chickens to lay more eggs, and constructing a dock over the catfish pond.  There are currently two other WWOOFers staying here: a couple from France and there are two guys from Switzerland coming soon.  Our time in Asia is coming to a close soon but we will spend the majority of our time here left in Thailand.  On September 14th we are flying from Bangkok to Singapore, where we will finish off our trip with three days worth of hawker food and delicious coffee.  

Trekking in Phongsali

We have just returned to Thailand after a great couple of weeks in Laos. The trip had many high points as well as a few low points. We decided that we wanted to go trekking at some point on our trip and we decided to go to Phongsali in Northern Laos as our trekking base. The bus trip to Phongsali was an arduous journey to say the least. Ten hours crammed on a bus passing by the edges of frighteningly steep cliffs. Almost none of the road to Phongsali is paved, so we endured many bumps along the way. Because of the rains, there were many landslides blocking the road. We stopped intermittently to wait for backhoes to clear the rubble from the road, as well as for the driver to have regular cigarette breaks. We arrived in Phongsali at night, found a place to stay, went to bed and then woke up early in the morning to find that our room was directly above a chicken coop full of noisy roosters.
Phongsali was a delightful town. It is very isolated compared to most of the other towns we saw in Laos and there were almost no tourists there (probably because of the difficult road conditions.) The town is devoid of "city noise" like cars, motorbikes, and honking. Because of this you can hear other noises, which at times seem equally loud, for example: roosters, children playing, music, and chickens.
We were walking around the meandering cobblestone roads of the town when we by chance met Ms. Tui, a worker at the tourism office. We told her we were interested in trekking and she quickly arranged for us to leave the next day. We decided to do a four day, three night trek into the hills outside of Phongsali. Phongsali province has the most ethnic minority groups in all of Laos (a total of 28). During the trek, we would stay overnight at several Akha villages in the mountains.
We started off the trek Monday morning by boarding a bus to a nearby town called Hat Sa. From there we boarded a boat that took us up the Nam Ou river to the start point of our trek. I should note that we were not trekking alone but with a guide named Khounsey.
After we got off the boat the trek immediately was kicking our butt. The assent into the mountains was incredibly steep and the day was scorching so we instantly were drenched in sweat. We stopped after 3 hours for a lunch of sticky rice, pork, and hard boiled eggs. We continued on after that trudging through winding jungle "paths." Khounsey took the lead, hacking away the overhanging vines and tree branches with a machete.
Along the trek we passed through about 10 different Akha villages, all of which were spectacular. It was mind boggling to ponder how far removed these people are and just how much effort must be put in for something that we think is simple, going to the doctor for example. When an Akha person gets sick or needs something from the "modern" world they must trek hours and hours through impossibly rocky, steep, and muddy jungle to get to Phongsali.
We immediately noticed while passing through the villages that the men mostly sit around smoking tobacco bongs or hanging out in the house while the women do absolutely everything else. The women collect water from nearby streams for drinking, cook, clean, gather food from the surrounding jungle, carry the children, feed the children, make tea, feed the animals, etc... They do this while wearing these incredible traditional costumes. The Akha men wear Western clothes and the women all wear traditional garb. Their headdresses are massive and are dripping with silver and colorful beads.
During each of our three overnights we stayed at the house of the chief in the different villages. All the chiefs were very welcoming and hospitable to us. We at meals with the chiefs as well, sharing in meals of the local Akha food. The food was almost all the same at each village. We received steamed rice, boiled bamboo (a major staple for the Akha), sometimes beans and eggs, and pumpkin soup or cucumber. Before each meal the chief pours everyone a shot glass full of rice whiskey. Before and at different times during the meal you clink glasses with everyone and slowly sip the whiskey. I must say, the rice whiskey didn't sit very well with me. It was so potent, I felt that everytime I took a sip any sort of living organism in my mouth and/or stomach was effectively being killed by the alcoholic burn.
Unfortunately, a low point came after the first overnight when I discovered that someone had relieved me of the majority of my cash during the night. Our guide blamed it on the villagers, but I am almost entirely positive that it was in fact the guide himself who stole the money. Since it was a rather large sum, for the next four days I entertained fantasies in my head of sneaking away, looking through his pack and finding my money (my passport photos, and one Joker, which were also stolen). I finally decided against doing that because Khounsey was our only lifeline back to Phongsali. If I did steal my stolen money back, and he found out, there were a series of possibilities I thought could happen. 1) He could leave us in the jungle with no way out. 2) He could resort to some sort of violence (he did have a machete in his backpack after all!) 3) He could steal the stolen-stolen money back. Anyway, none of the possibilities seemed very good, so I decided not to look (probably the rational decision). But, it was rather torturous to be fairly certain that my money was within a few feet of me for the next three days. Oh well. Lesson learned.
Anyway, after that hitch, we continued on the trek. The first two days of the trek were amazingly beautiful and the next two days poured rain. The unfortunate thing about rain in the Lao jungle is that it brings out hordes of leeches vying for your blood. I have had some experience with leeches in Nepal, but the sheer number of leeches we pulled off our boots and skin was exponentially more that in Nepal. After a while, it was almost pointless to even check for leeches because the minute you pull one off, you have two more on you.
During the third day it was so rainy that the "paths" had turned into streams and as the rains continued, into rivers. After we set out on the third morning, we were completely soaking wet with in 20 minutes. We continued the six hours hike for the day in a sog. We had to forge a river on the third afternoon to get to another village. But before crossing the river we at a wet lunch of "hot dogs", fish in tomato sauce (canned) and wet rice from the previous village wrapped in a banana leaf. Since there were so many leeches we had to eat lunch sitting on rocks in the river. We were completely rain soaked anyway, so eating lunch in the river made no difference to us.

After four days of trekking 6 hours per day we were completely exhausted. I had gone through such a range of emotions during the past 4 days that I was emotionally and physically tired. I had been awestruck at the villages, humbled by the scenery, touched by the kindness of the local people, amazed at the isolated the Akha people live in, suspicious of the thief, angry at our guide, disgusted by leeches, amused (especially during shower time. This consisted of me, Eric, and Khounsey washing at the village taps or in a stream. Women in Laos bath wearing a sarong wrapped around them so as not to expose their bodies. I did this too and not have much respect who can effectively wash while wearing a sarong. Anyway, during shower time the majority of the boys in the village would gather around and watch us bath, probably laughing at our pale skin), angered at Khounsey for being a thief, satisfied by the meals we were served, ached after long ascents and slippery descents, and much more. Overall it was an amazing experience that I am glad I did. Since the majority of Laos is rural and isolated in this way, I feel like I understand the country to a much higher degree.