Hiking in Hongsa!

After spending a night here at the ECC, the head vet (William) and I departed to a small town 2 hours north called Hongsa. We were suppose to meet a group of tourists who were going on an elephant trek with a company called Green Discovery and wanted a couple of people that could talk to them about the elephants and the Lao culture (apparently I am an elephant expert already).

My day in Hongsa started with a cup of Lao coffee (pretty good coffee BTW) because it isn’t polite to drink water before or even during breakfast (not sure why). My options were eggs with bread (western breakfast) or noodle soup… I obviously got the eggs. Hongsa it’s a small town with nothing to offer but it hosts a lot of elephants since several mahout families live here and the surroundings are very beautiful as well so it was the perfect departure point for our elephant trekking. The market wasn’t attractive at all but I did notice that here in Laos the animals are smaller than in the western hemisphere. The cows, the horses, the dogs, even the chickens are skinny and funny looking. Regarding the people, I feel pretty tall most of the time so that says it all… I guess the only big living creatures in Laos are the elephants and the insects! OMG, the insects are ridiculously huge! If you are afraid of bees, flies, ants or spiders, you might be terrorized when you come to Asia.

During our 4-hour hike through farms, small villages and the forest, the tourists went on their elephants while Dr. William and I went on foot, which was lots of fun since I got to interact with the elephants all the time; I even got to see Water Buffalos and Asian Openbill Stork! The elephants were funny and very frisky; every time they saw something they like to eat (like banana trees) they would stop to grab a bite (or two). I soon came to realize (after almost being squeezed a couple of times) that it didn’t matter if I was in between them and their treat.

3 Asian Openbill Stork

3 Water Buffalos 

At the end of the hike we were invited to a Baci, which is a buddhist ceremony where you are wished a healthy life as well as good luck on your journey. The translator explained how we all have 32 souls (or from what I understood) and as we sin throughout our life we slowly loose them… So during the baci the shaman recovers all your lost souls so that you are completed once again. The ritual includes traditional Lao music, prayers, food (which to my surprise is REALLY spicy) and “lao lao”, their homemade rice whisky that you have no choice but to drink (several times) as a shot! To complete the Baci everybody in the room ties a piece of string around your wrist while saying good things to you, this white long string has to stay on for at least 3 days!

Shaman and me

Strings around my wrist

Today I got to play with elephants, hike thru breathe-taking landscape and recover all my lost souls while getting drunk on lao lao. Not bad for a first day, right?

Karla Nova