During the night it ABSOLUTELY poured down so we woke up to the thought that we would probably get soaked for the next 2 days, especially if our Chief's mud hut leaked! There were 4 others on our trek, 2 american ladies from Oklahoma and Texas and a young Swedish girl and swiss guy. All were really good company, one of the American ladies had been travelling for 2 years as she passionately disliked the US and (in her terms) the way it had 'corrupted and ruined a large proportion of the world' meant that she never wanted to go back, quite an experience to meet an American who doesn't love America!! After a few technical problems with paper work, (e.g. we were asked to fill in the evaluation form before we had even done the trek and also had to sign to say that they had the right to 'refuse us any medical attention!'), we set off via Songathew. First stop was the local market to buy food. The middle section of the market was cool, lots of bright and vibrant veggies & amazing fresh fruit, but over to the meat counter was another story.....again 'anything that moved sprung to mind,' as we saw every organ and body part (plus a million flies) on sale at the counters. My first sighting was a buffalo or horses tail, not sure what or how much meat/subsistence that would give you but needless to say I didn't stay to find out! An old lady with no teeth came begging towards us, she was a character, weathered beyond belief and scrawny, mashing some dodgy looking powder to eat which made her mouth black...again another incredible photo I missed. Laden with bags of meat and food, (but no ice buckets/coolers) we set off 30km north to the starting point of our trek, well if you can call it a starting point!! We basically got dropped off on the side of the highway upon which our guide pointed up a very steep muddy non descript slope and said 'that way!' We all knew right from the start that it was to be an adventure ahead, 'Laos style'........ After clambering, sliding and getting completely covered in mud in the first 10 seconds, we all pulled each other to the top! The next hour of our trek was just fantastic, we didn't follow any path at all, just navigated our way through the jungle and overgrowth in no particular direction!!! Some points were pretty hairy with a sheer drop on one side and.....more mud! Unfortunately in trying to save ourselves we grabbed branches but these were covered in spikes so human chains were the only way possible... To add to the stupidity of how useless us 'westerners' must have looked, the local village girl assisting us on the trek traversed the steep muddy parts in FLIP FLOPS and in about 30 seconds flat without batting an eyelid! After our first casualty with a cut to the American ladies hand from one fall, our guide realised how dangerous parts were becoming (we later found out he had never actually done this trek before!) and in true tribal form he made us all bamboo walking poles which were life savers! The trek was just brilliant, a true adventure to be able to explore the jungle with no specific route or tourist trodden trail, so in true Betts and Hogarth fashion, this suited us completely and we carried on clambering through the national park. After 2 hours were reached a clearing and the view was beautiful, forested mountains for miles against a clear blue sky....we stopped for lunch here and had our first taste of how the local tribal people eat. First our 2 guides went off into the bushes and came back with 3 massive bamboo leaves, aka our table! They then placed a mountain of sticky rice, banana, bamboo mix and meat on the leaf to share. The sticky rice was used to pick up the rest of the food, no cutlery needed....It also stuck literally to everything else too, clothes, palette, stomach lining, boots and most of us managed about an eighth of what we had been given, which our guide said was a typical Laos portion! Amongst the slurping and loud sucking noises that also came from our guides, it truly was unique to be sitting on a mountain, eating randomly off a bamboo leaf and the 'land' so to speak and definitely was the start of many more experiences we will never forget... We then continued climbing and our guide explained to us the many medicines that local tribes use from the forest. First we tried some very sour berries that were meant to help bad stomachs - the taste was pretty unbearable but our guide convinced us that having water after the berry made the taste turn sweet and bizarrely he was right, very strange to say the least! He then proceeded to show us a leaf that they burn underneath a stool after a women has given birth and make her sit on it, basically it is meant to help 'bring back her muscle tone' as he so politely put it! It was amazing, and very funny at times, to learn the way in which the villagers live off the land for medicinal remedies, they even had one which makes men more fertile and full of vigour, move over Viagra!! At our next open stop we could see the Akha village we would be staying in, in the distance, it was set between 2 mountain tops, was extremely remote and in the middle of nowhere! Excited and nervous at the same time we hiked the distance to reach the village and on arriving could hear lots of wood chopping and work going on in the forest, the first being a lady of about 70 with her trusty homemade wooden axe and flint, cutting wood! It really hit home to us in an instant the harsh reality of their lives and the incredible strength and willpower they have to survive, even at 70! She beamed a nervous smile towards us, showing the red melon seed teeth so typical of what we had started to see. At the top of the village was a wooden swing where apparently the boys bring the girls and sing to them to impress them, on reading and hearing about the Akha tribe, I would say that their culture/traditions displayed pretty modern beliefs and this surprised us - girls and boys for example were allowed (and encouraged!) to have 'relationships' before marriage as it indicated signs of good health and fetility, a man was supposed to only have one wife and divorce was even allowed if the chief agreed!! Quite a difference from other tribes, where marriages were arranged and sex before marriage was the sign of all evil! The Akha tribe are actually a mixture of Burmese and Tibetan cultures and it was so interesting to learn of how many tribes exist within the forests of Laos, and although they may be only a few miles apart, their traditions and beliefs are so vastly different! We then walked slowly and quite nervously through the village, the villagers though seemed as nervous about seeing us as we did them, as they had not previously seen many westerners and had not, thank god, been influenced by the tourist trade, (like areas we had heard like Chiang Mai), something I hope will never change......It was quite a culture shock and unbelievable at the same time to see how they live and survive in the world; their homes consist of mud huts with bamboo roofs which, with no electricity are extremely dark and smoky from the open fires they have inside, not only for cooking but to keep warm also. Sleeping consists of a thin mattress on the floor with up to 25 sharing just one small hut and one well (donated through aid) serves the entire village for drinking and freezing cold washing water! The children are pretty dirty and amuse themselves by playing in the mud with the pigs, dogs, cows and kittens, you name it, the village is full of it! Young children of about 5 or 6 walk around with their 3-5 month year old baby boys/sisters on their backs - hard to imagine parents at home allowing that and again another incredible sight we will never forget! Walking round the village at first made us feel like we shouldn't be there and that we were invading their lives....one of the American ladies had the confidence to ask villagers for photos and got some amazing shots, I plucked up the courage and when finally asked, got a no, so took loads of pigs after that as we didn't need to ask them! We wandered through seeing fathers cutting their children's hair, ladies grinding wheat using physical leg force on a wooden contraption that at home we would only see in a museum, saw ladies dressed in their beautiful Akha tribal headdresses individually crafted as a sign of pure independence, old men with no teeth sat in rags chatting and smoking surrounded by even more children and pigs! The village also had a small bamboo hut style school which quite hilariously had listed on the black board the 7 children that had been absent that day! Our guide explained that children and their parents don't like school as it means they are not working in the fields getting food so the family can survive but now the government are trying to educate the tribes and everyday a teacher (who we met the next day) would hike a good 3 hour walk to teach the children. We then watched as children as young as 3 along with their very elderly grandmothers came back from the forests heavily laden with wood filled baskets on their backs........so far away from the existence we live in..... Nearing the eve, we visited the chief's hut, our home for the night! I suppose we expected him to be dressed in some special tribal attire to highlight his authority but stood in front of us was a slight old man in ragged clothes who spoke no English or Laos at all. The hut was very dark, smoky and windowless with a small wooden platform next to his, which 8 of us would have to squeeze onto that night to sleep - all adding to the unique experience we were having and to come! By this time word had got around the village and we were indeed the centre of attention now, teenage boys hung around the chief's hut and just stared curiously at us, young children jumped screaming into the American ladies camera amazed at being able to see themselves - the older ladies were wary though and stayed away. Our toilet was a communal hole in an outdoor bamboo hut nestled amongst lots of pigs and smaller minute huts on stilts, built for young lovers to come and stay for the night - peaceful toilet experiences were had! One time, on seeing shoes outside and music playing, I decided I could hold on for a tiny bit longer! Before dinner it is a village custom for everyone to wash together, ladies use sarongs and men just stand in their imitation Calvin Klein y fronts! Ads braved it and went up to the local Well much to the locals surprise (and horror as he wore boxers!)... the rest of us, knowing that we had the very cold mountain air to brave that evening chickened out, I would have probably caught hyporthermia knowing my luck! I think Ads was the first westerner to do this and it was quite funny to see the locals staring at the well in amazement as he joined them to wash in the near freezing water!! Needless to say he came back clean but looking blue..... Dinner consisted of sitting with the chief on low stools as we were served more sticky rice, more bamboo shoots, tomato flavoured sauce and a meat of sorts dish. It was really tasty and washed down with a few shots of homemade rice wine, did the trick! We then translated questions via our guide to the chief and as expected I asked the most! It was interesting to hear how the village actually had 3 chiefs, that elections took place every 3 years and that 54 families and 450 people in total resided there. He also explained how children could marry others from other Akha tribes but no inter-tribal mixes would take place. He then also asked via our guide questions about our countries, at times it was quite difficult though as our guide could speak very limited amounts of the local language also and parts are apparently quite different to the Laos language. By now the entire hut had filled with more villagers coming to stare at us and we felt on display! Bizarrely the male teenagers now had their hair waxed flat, were wearing red lipstick and had fake beauty spots!!! At first I thought they were imitating local Akha ladies and were there to undertake the local massage but we found out since that it is tradition for local single men to make themselves look beautiful in order to find a wife, VERY bizarre to say the least....does that mean that if Ads one day starts wearing lipstick, he is trying to tell me something, Ha!Ha! Our Akha ladies, in beautiful full tribal attire, then arrived to give us our local pummel, sorry massage experience! Again watched by the entire village almost, and squashed onto our sleeping area, we all had our aches and pains pummelled out of us, it was great and quite an experience! After that the hut was emptied and at 9pm the chief lay down to sleep which meant bed time for us too! Fully clothed we squashed literally onto the wooden platform with not an ounce to enable you to move at all, everyone staring upwards trying to sleep whilst through the night the chief snored loudly, pigs snorted under us, babies cried, puppies squealed, dogs barked and generally it wasn't what I would call a good nights sleep!! I found the smoky air and pitch black really claustrophobic and must admit was so glad to see sunrise and hear the village wake up to start the day at 5am so I could get out of there! Jaded we all sat drinking coffee after a group visit to the loo and still amongst the mountain mist, the villagers came back to stare at us some more. One man had become intrigued with our cameras, so I showed him how to use mine (praying he wouldn't drop or delete the 2,000 pics on there!) and he excitedly took pictures of anything and everything that moved....well parts of things that moved, so more pigs for my collection! The smile of joy and proudness on his face to see what he had produced was a sheer delight, just wish I could have given him my camera for good. Breakfast consisted of more rice, more bamboo shoots and good food again (or so I thought but was later to find out that perhaps not in my case..), then we said goodbye to the villagers, feeling quite sad as by now it had become so much more relaxed and integrated and had been a fantastic life moving experience to say the least! We worked our way down the mountain valley, waving at villagers we recognised who by now had done 4 hours of work!, and up the other side... after about 2 hours we looked back at the village, a mere spot on the horizon and couldn't believe how far we had gone already. Again the terrain was different which made the trek even more adventurous as we clambered across logs in the river, scrambled high through large bamboo reeds and again along no particular path! We ended up climbing over a whole woodland area that had been cut down for rubber plantations (donated by the Chinese to apparently assist local trade) which was extremely exhausting as we fell our way up to the top! Again the views were breath-taking....lunch consisted of a serving platter of bamboo leaves, a tasty egg mix and more.... yes you got it, sticky rice! By now we all felt we may explode! The rest of the day saw us scrambling through forest, then finally and quite wearily heading on the last descent down to our last village which would end this unique experience & journey, bamboo poles still in hand!! Amazingly the village was located on a road and Seb thankfully managed to buy a beer here for us all to share and celebrate with. Young kids in the Hamong village were running round playing in the mud with small toys and the constrast of a village near to transportation was quite a stark difference from the remote Akha tribe of the mountains.... Wearily we mounted our songathews and took the bumpy ride back. It had been a fantastic and incredible 2 days, one that will go down as a true highlight of our world trip and journey not only across the world but into the lives of such primitive worlds also...remarkable! That eve we took very long hot showers to feel clean again, met the others for dinner then collapsed in bed and slept VERY well indeed!!