Muang Sing

Today we travelled with chickens on the roof of the minivan, which would have been funny if they had not crapped all over my bag! Muang Sing is another dusty frontier town - on the border with China. Akha tribe women sit on the side of the road stitching seeds and beads onto belts and bags.

I went for a one day treck when I was in Luang Namtha. We followed a steep narrow path up the side of a thikly forested hill, until we came to a stopping place, where our guides built a fire and roasted fishes on split sticks. They spread banana leaves onto the bamboo picnic table and laid out bundles of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, pieces of dill omlette, boiled greens and roast fish.

After lunch we walked though bamboo forests, past banana trees (the animals had eaten all the bananas) and more forest, coming down into the valley carpeted with rice fields. We stopped at a lone house built out of wood and bamboo to wait for the old couple who were valiently bringing up the rear.