Lao hill tribe villages Part 2: Lanten village

Lanten woman and her children returning from the field

On our second night we visited a Lanten village. This village seemed more advanced than the Khmu village from the previous night. Most of the houses in the Lanten village have electricity which was evident from fluorescent lights on the porches. The houses don't have indoor plumbing, but unlike at the Khmu village, there wasn’t just one central communal water fountain to be used by all. Rather, there were many such outdoor fountains, each one serving a small number of houses.

Curious village children gather around the falang

The villagers were much less shy in this village compared to the previous one. It seems that all the children from the village gathered around the house where we were staying. They mostly just observed, and they certainly didn’t beg. They probably knew that we would buy them candy, which of course we did. They asked questions, showed us magic tricks, played cards with us and so on. Some of the children spoke quite a bit of English so that we were able to communicate basics such as how old they are, how many brothers and sisters they have, how to count, how to name parts of the body and colors. I noticed that some of the girls spoke English just as well as the boys because they all go to school, despite tribal traditions which would allow only men to know how to read and write.

The village children joined us at the table

Upon our arrival in the Lanten village we noticed that the water barrel in the tourist toilet was almost empty. It was my impression that only women carry water in hill tribe villages so I offered to fetch water for the toilet. I asked our guide for a bucket and he wasn’t too thrilled. Apparently tourists, or falang as they refer to us, don’t work. But he obliged anyway and handed me the smallest bucket from the kitchen. I got a surprise at the water fountain: in this village, both men and women carry water! During the time it took me to bring the one small bucket of water to the toilet, someone must have sent the village boys for water and the barrel was full before I even had a chance to go for a second bucket.

Although the water carrying is shared equally between men and women, bathing is still a no-no for women. We all bathed in the river, but just like the previous night, falang women were covered up. One of the girls in our group thought that there may be a way to find a shower in the village. I found that slightly bizarre, because even if there was a shower, the water definitely came straight from the river so it would make no difference if she just soaped up in the river. But she asked the girls who were milling around and they understood what she wanted and were happy to show her where she could shower. I went along because I was curious. The girls danced happily down the path – and led us towards the river! Sure enough, behind some bushes we saw two local women dressed in sarongs washing themselves in the river. So much for a shower.

Village girls playing with our hair

The adults of the village were not as forthcoming as the children, but some of them, both men and women, did join us after dinner. One very old man who spoke some English asked outright if we would buy him a beer, which we did. Another one joined us at the table, bringing a bunch of bananas and we offered him beer in return. It wasn’t until later that our guide told us that the guy wants to be paid for the bananas, which we had mostly eaten by then, thinking it polite to accept what he offered. We naturally assumed that if a guy joins our table and drinks our beer, his bananas were meant as a gift. Well, they weren’t.

Overall, I couldn’t say that I had much connection with the local people from the hill tribe villages on these two short visits. In the first village, they mostly didn’t care that we came and in the second, although they didn’t beg, they knew well enough that there would be plenty of beer for them if they approached us. I did learn a few Lao words such as "hello" (sabaidee) and "thank you" (kupjai). There was no need to find out the Lao word for beer. Everyone, including locals, calls it just by its brand name, Beerlao.