“A Day of Laotian Village Experiences”. Another great day! First we visited Nayangtai village, a traditional Tai Lue community. We had a walk around town seeing a couple of villagers, visiting their temple, and learning a lot about all the edible and medicinal shrubs and fruit trees.

Then we had a weaving demonstration of cotton from plant > woven goods with a couple of us trying our hands at it.

We then were invited upstairs to participate in a Baci Sou Kwan ceremony which is a “profound and meaningful ritual that celebrates the bonds of family, community, and the human connection to the spiritual world. This ancient practice, known across many Lao and Tai ethnic groups, holds a special place in the life of the Tai Lue people, marking significant life events, transitions, and communal gatherings.” The village elder chanted many Sanskrit prayers, about a dozen locals each came around and tied welcome bracelets of cotton string on our wrists, and we were given ceremonial treats to eat.

Afterwards our lunch was that of Lue cuisine (fried fish, dried river weed, sautéed greens, bamboo shoots, tofu omelette, and sticky rice) while said locals played traditional music for us.

We returned to our town and 2/3’s of us continued on with the afternoon’s adventure: hike to a waterfall. We took a longboat upstream about 30 minutes to Ban Sopkhong Village, a small khmu village, then trekked out into the rice paddies, finally reaching the beautiful limestone cascade of Tad Mok Waterfall. It was a good 3 hour adventure with some steep bits to tackle so some nice exercise.

Only Steve was adventurous enough to plunge into the pool, to be fair, he was the only one prepared to do so.

A pleasant return back by boat, arriving just at sunset. A great day out!