The Tribe Above the Clouds

Disclaimer: This was a rather long winded post but every beat of the trip is stuck in my mind so here you go!

I feel like at this point I have been to many places: mountain towns in Palestine, floating villages in Cambodia and desert oases in Mexico but getting to, trekking in, and staying at the Akha villages in Phongsaly broke what had become my comfort zone for a while. While not impossibly difficult or will-breaking it was quite the adventure and a privilege that I still have mixed feelings when reflecting on it months later.

The Journey to the North

First step was getting to this remote province. The further most north and mountainous provinces is not the easiest to reach. 12 hours from Luang Prabang, 24 from Vientiane or the much more reasonable 7 hours from Oudomxay made the choice easy. I actually started the day far further south in Vang Vieng and took the Chinese funded high speed rail to Oudomxay and then bought a bus ticket on the spot for the 3:00 bus to the north. The Oudomxay bus station like all those in Laos is far from the city center so getting lunch at one of the stalls in the station was necessary. The time listed on the timetable for the buses was 11:00 am and 4:30 pm but as far as I can confirm the 4:30 was incorrect as I double checked in my ticket and with the person at the sales counter that the actual time was 3:00pm so I’m not sure what the case for that was.

I’m usually really lax about windy roads and crazy public transit but I was struggling to take my mind off of the sheer cliffs and hairpin turns as the sun descended behind the shadows of mountains surrounding us. Along the way we stopped for dinner at a beautiful riverside facility that sold Laotian snacks and roadside classics. I opted for some sausages and sticky rice enjoying the views that would be postcard worthy just about anywhere else.

I had reached out to a trekking agency (+856 20 28 449 939) a few days earlier to secure a guide and they had also arranged accommodation for me. Rolling into the station in Boun Neua—which is now the provincial capital after a change in 2024– which was far from the city center, someone was waiting for me to show me to the newly built Inthaseng Guesthouse. The teenager behind the counter gave me my keys and I was prepared to rest even as the temperature sank lower and lower.

And So It Begins

Waking up and walking over to the market near the bus station by 8am meant another round of sticky rice and meat. I met the organizer of my trip there and exchanged the predetermined amount of cash with him which was wads of Laotian kip (160$ worth) from my backpack I counted the night before. We walked over to store my luggage in the bus station and met my driver who was a middle aged Laotian woman with a ubiquitous dashboard cat.

After picking up the guide the only talking was amongst them in Laotian as I sat in the back but as we approached the drop off point my guide explained he had been at a wedding the night before and was nursing the “after effects”. He was a younger Laotian, Kham, not even 30 years old and wore a black North Face coat over camo fatigues and occasionally swapped between a beanie and cap.

The trek started somewhere along the road between Boun Neua and the city of Phongsaly. We started up a path only accessible by foot or motorbike. As soon as the roadside shrub subsided. The vistas opened up and the misty mountains of the Laos of my imagination was in front of me.

Along the path we passed by some domestic pigs and sparsely populated farmland but never too far away from a house. After a brief stop in a decently sized Akha village which included bargaining over a wild chicken that we ultimately decided against, the real sweat-inducing adventure began.

Hardly even a clearing in the bush and Kham was climbing through; the sandy jungle floor flicking up and slipping away underneath his hiking boots. I started a bit delayed because of my shock but did not want to fall behind and get lost so I quickly picked up my pace.

Now, I’ve been on many hikes and treks the world-over but this was definitely the most treacherous. Giant spiders, river crossings and timbered logs over chasms all contributed to the trail. Like something out of an action adventure game that required a minimum of agility and balance. Once we had reached a precipice of a cliff we set out our extra layers on the clearing’s floor and Kham pulled out a bag of sticky rice, a disposable container of what he just described as vegetables and minimal but agreeable pieces of grilled pork.

After lunch, a nap was due. I gathered up all the plastics that would otherwise have been ignored and woke up about half an hour later surrounded by nature which may have been one of the most relaxing naps of my life.

Remember how I mentioned dodging spiders? -well it only got worse from here. That is, until Kham pointed above his head to an especially large one and said something along the lines of “tastes good”. He confirmed they were not poisonous after I apprehensively asked and to confirm to me, he grabbed it out of its nest allowing it to bite. Then with a bag leftover from lunch he snatched it up. Along the way he would collect several more to cook later using a branch.

Finally the brush cleared and I looked down upon a picturesque wooden village. Not our destination but a promising sign of the progress we had made. We were back on a decent footpath! One final rickety bridge that in retrospect was not the worst but was still worth paying extra caution to, we had crossed the village gate that according to Akha belief separated the village from the mystical spirit world.

The Welcome Party

At first a stray wood house and then they became more frequent until they clustered into a village. A few indifferent looks at first then I noticed some of the older Akha women began stirring and moving away from the campfires they had been hovering near previously. They were easy to identify as they were head-to-toe dressed in traditional attire. Layers of black cloth and silver jewelry made a complex fit highlighted by the iconic trapeze headdress. Such outfits are the biggest draw for tourists and photographers to Akha villages but traditional dictates that photos are not permitted.

This was my welcoming party. After climbing the stairs to a large guesthouse these women laid various wares to purchase: coinage from the past 200 years of colonization, jewelry, knitted items and bracelets which I ultimately bought for their efforts. After roughly half an hour of useless sales tactics, the women dispersed.

A flier on the wall of the guesthouse caught my attention. Since the Akha are strict adherents of tradition—even to a fault—it advertised all the dos and don’ts for visitors. I observed the one about showering with underwear on before helping out with dinner.

As an appetizer Kham fried up a dozen or so spiders with some salt. After trying rat in Cambodia, I was confident and nonchalant as I ate these critters that kind of tasted like salty peanuts and if not for the appearance actually were decent.

One thing I picked up on pretty early was the gender divide. I had never really see it to this degree anywhere, even the Middle East. The women cooked, cleaned and were constantly bossed around with little autonomy as the men drank and hung out. Previously I actually had seen a documentary about how mothers who give birth to twins are thought to be cursed and sent to the wilderness to live out their days in exile and never to be talked of again. This is one example of what I mean by tradition being observed even to a fault.

The family unit I stayed with in the village of Ban Bounphieng had a grandmother who was always in traditional attire, the parents and around 5 kids who were obsessed with Tik-Tok to a degree that would even make the most addicted western high schooler wince. I never saw the family express love towards one another and they all seemed to view each other only as an acquaintance of circumstance. Maybe this was unique to them but it is possibly indicative of broader Akha culture.

I was hoping to have some explanation about what was going on with Akha tradition or having some sort of activity to do here but it never came. I gave up on the traditional Akha welcome massage and didn’t even want it after seeing the treatment of women already. The only activity was to cook dinner.

My job was to fry some potatoes over the pan heated purely by campfire on the concrete floor. A knee high metal table was dragged outside where us men would eat together, away from the women and children inside the kitchen. A generous spread of actual toasted peanuts, boiled vegetables, soy paste, rice and boiled pork fat completed the spread which had been made by the women of the house.

This is specifically why I hate to criticize this family or Akha society. They fed me with an exorbitant amount of food despite obviously living close or below the poverty line. It is traditional and I am judging them from a western perspective but to see the levels of oppression left me with a feeling of discomfort. I never saw the living quarters, instead we laid on a mattress with heavy blanket on the floor. The near-freezing weather luckily didn’t affect me overnight, just the wailing of newborns ignored by everyone else in the village throughout the night.

Morning Refuel and Dispersion

As I pretended to be asleep on the living room mattress, I got to observe the morning routine of the Akha. The children begand to stir and then the women. The first thing the grandma did was fit on her complex dark outfit. Her outfit gave her the outline of a drifting phantasm in the plank house. The sound of heels striking wood suspended plank floors like a drum would make sure I wouldn’t fall asleep. That, and I was still hopeful I wouldn’t get some kind of explanation and introduction to Akha society —but that never came.

I was able to appreciate the mountainous beauty from where the morning mist closed in on us from as I spit my toothpaste from the stilted house’s balcony on the chicken coop that seconded as open-air plumbing. My guide got a much later start which allowed me to observe the start of the day’s errands which meant the start of breakfast. Boiled pork bones with slim portions of attached meat would be the protein served along with accouterments of salt and pepper and vegetables.

I also feel bad for pointing at Kham’s shortcomings too much because he was kind and over two days we got to know each other quite well but I wish he would’ve helped me engage more with my host family or given an explanation of the Akha village and culture. Most of my time with the actual family was them talking to each other and Kham as I awkwardly sat there, hardly ever acknowledged. On the other hand he helped me through this trek and kept me entertained with his curiosity of life outside Laos and opinions about life inside it.

As the family dispersed to the rice fields and presumably school I gave up on the hope any narration from my guide to explain the goings on of this village but I was determined to explore at least a bit by myself. Looking for totems, headdressed women and other fantasies I explored the village solo, only to find children staring cautiously at me around the campfire and older women presumably administering the toxic gossip that spreads around any tight-knit community.

Since I was able to prepare mentally for the hike ahead it actually seemed much more reasonable. We chewed raw sugarcane (easier said than done) and walked through rice fields on pleasant paths. The adrenaline came once we once again went to paths that hardly existed, at one time hopping over a skinny but deep ravine or crossing a corroded bridge that was even more treacherous than the one from the day prior.

The Adventure Doesn’t End

I thought we still had time to go when we stopped at an average looking roadside Laotian village but much to my surprise and relief we stopped. With some hot water we warmed up instant noodles from a convenience store and sat and waited for our driver. She was an hour away and as time wasted away it became apparent through several phone calls, picking us up was not really her priority while partying at a distant wedding.

Once this became apparent to Kham he began trying to flag down trucks that seemed to have capacity until we successfully hitchhiked aboard the back of a flatbed headed to the region’s capital, Boun Neua. There my guide had his motorbike which was the only feasible form of afternoon transportation up to the city of Phongsaly I had some interest in visiting for its ancient Yunnanese Chinese culture.

We were dropped off in the center of town and had a mile to walk around this planned ghost city the Laotian government deemed more convenient than the distant Phongsaly. Once we reached where Kham stored his bike, he had the idea of visiting the in-laws inconveniently in the opposite direction but he promised that he could warm up there for a bit.

I nervously realized what he meant by “warm up”: rice wine shots, luckily just two small ones but right before taking a motorcycle with him and my 2 bags of luggage up an hour long snaking road through the remote Phongsaly province; let’s just say I wasn’t looking forward to it. Sorry mom if you read this!

We packed up with some cassava from the in-laws and the next hour and a half was made every bit as unpleasant as it could be. A balancing act on the back of a motorbike with a big in front and back without the sun in close to freezing temperatures. It was the most uncomfortable I could be and I became numb to what would be otherwise stunning scenery.

Back to Comfort

After reaching one guesthouse at full capacity we luckily found another ran by a rather larger Laotian woman. I thanked Kham for his service and left him with a tip. My current goals: find food and an ATM after exploring the city before the light completely disappeared.

A few cobbled streets of wooden Yunnanese architecture still stand from hundreds of years ago. Phongsaly is like a time capsule preserving Chinese architecture better than even China disputably does today. This whole province belonged to the Asian giant until an 1895 treaty transferred it to the French and this was its allure to me. It’s a fact that influences the attitudes of the people-somewhat colder than the rest of Laos-and the food which is less traditional Laotian khao piak sen and more so Yunnanese migan with round chewy noodles that offered a nice texture. It is the perfect soup to warm me up as the temperature dropped below freezing high in these remote mountains. Phongsaly is a hidden gem that is much preferable to Boun Neua’s generic indifference but it is that: hidden. Only a trickle of hardy trekking tourists mean that it’s maintained an authenticity almost impossible anywhere else than Laos.

After trying my luck at the ATMs and finally finding one that worked so I wouldn’t be stranded in the clouds having spent my last bit of cash earlier that evening I clocked in for bed. A freezing shower was every bit unpleasant as it was necessary and under piles of clothes and layers of clothes I dozed off.

I expected this to be my highlight of Laos and after two busses the next day that totaled 20 hours first to Boun Neua at 7am then to Luang Prabang at 3pm I’m not sure it was worth the effort. I don’t have regrets about doing it but I have such mixed emotions where I don’t know how to feel about my experience. You must be a traveler that enjoys some discomfort, fantasy and raw authenticity for me to recommend this. The difficulty getting to the Phongsaly province and the indifferent stoicism of the Akha should be taken into account.

What I will say for sure is that it was my most memorable moments in Laos where I truly felt I traveled back to the medieval times. In addition to that having time in Phongsaly town is agreeable and the scenery is beautiful. If a mountainous undeveloped area of Laos with hill tribes and an ancient Chinese village would interest you, I’d still say go for it! What about you? Have you been to Laos? Would you be interested in such an experience? And if you have I’d love to hear your thoughts on it as well!