When I finally pulled myself out from under the mosquito net, I had been laying there for 12 hours. This isn't because I was tired, but more so as a result of not having anything to do at night besides go to sleep. One thing that I have noticed now that I'm forced to sleep so long: I can remember more of my dreams! At home, I never remember my dreams. After I started to think about it, I think that I need to make myself go to sleep earlier at home. I would consider dreaming to be normal, and the abnormality of not having dreams may have to do with the lack of sleep or work-related stress at home. Once I return home, I'm going to try to sleep more each night as I think a prolonged period of little sleep destroys my dreams, but also has a toll on my body that might not be readily apparent.
After a lazy breakfast of eggs, rice, cabbage, and chili paste we packed our bags and set off for the day. Our trek was fairly easy today - about 5.5 hours over gently rolling terrain. Pon kept assuring us that we would face more difficult days - James & I were thankful for the promise of something more grueling, as both of us were starting to get soft from sitting around beaches & eating all day long. About 30 minutes before our night camp, we stopped by a river to take a bath. This was my first day of bathing in a river, and it was beyond cold. What I discovered though is that if I didn't think about it, washing was much easier. After I had bathed, I noticed that my legs & feet were entirely numb, which made it difficult to walk back up the river bank.
I started to notice more & more hunters while we were walking. By the middle of the second day, I think that we had seen about 6 hunters. We heard countless other ones, as their guns fired at animals throughout the day. If I haven't mentioned it already, Nam Ha is a protected area. That means that Laos doesn't allow hunting; the habitat has been set aside for the preservation of the flora & fauna. For more information about the project, please visit see the Boat Landing's webpage (http://www.theboatlanding.laopdr.com/npa.html). I was growing more upset with every gunshot, because I knew that something was being killed. I'm supportive of normal hunting practices, but not of hunting endangered animals. As I continued to hike, I thought more about all of the hunting & realized that I was being ignorant.
The situation is similar to any country that has had trouble stopping their drug trade; Laos included. The coca in Peru & poppies in Laos serve the same purpose - as a premium cash crop for villagers. From an economic perspective, it's much easier to grow drugs than corn, potatoes, or rice. Drugs have a much higher margin; why grow vegetables when you can make 5 or 10 times as much money growing something else? If Laos wants to really protect it's endangered species of plants & animals, they need better options for providing their citizens with jobs. Instead of being hunters, I bet that those same people could serve as park guides and/or rangers. Bolstered by tourism dollars, the job would pay better than producing agriculture. Another incentive is that the same people that used to hunt the animals may strive to protect them (if for no other reason that to assure that they continue to have a job). And who is better at tracking animals than a hunter?
I'm not naive enough to believe that they can stop all illegal hunting, but I think they need to do something. On average, I heard about 10 - 15 gunshots echo across the valleys each day. Even if 1/3 of those hit their targets, that is a fair amount of animals being lost each day.
After a lazy breakfast of eggs, rice, cabbage, and chili paste we packed our bags and set off for the day. Our trek was fairly easy today - about 5.5 hours over gently rolling terrain. Pon kept assuring us that we would face more difficult days - James & I were thankful for the promise of something more grueling, as both of us were starting to get soft from sitting around beaches & eating all day long. About 30 minutes before our night camp, we stopped by a river to take a bath. This was my first day of bathing in a river, and it was beyond cold. What I discovered though is that if I didn't think about it, washing was much easier. After I had bathed, I noticed that my legs & feet were entirely numb, which made it difficult to walk back up the river bank.
I started to notice more & more hunters while we were walking. By the middle of the second day, I think that we had seen about 6 hunters. We heard countless other ones, as their guns fired at animals throughout the day. If I haven't mentioned it already, Nam Ha is a protected area. That means that Laos doesn't allow hunting; the habitat has been set aside for the preservation of the flora & fauna. For more information about the project, please visit see the Boat Landing's webpage (http://www.theboatlanding.laopdr.com/npa.html). I was growing more upset with every gunshot, because I knew that something was being killed. I'm supportive of normal hunting practices, but not of hunting endangered animals. As I continued to hike, I thought more about all of the hunting & realized that I was being ignorant.
The situation is similar to any country that has had trouble stopping their drug trade; Laos included. The coca in Peru & poppies in Laos serve the same purpose - as a premium cash crop for villagers. From an economic perspective, it's much easier to grow drugs than corn, potatoes, or rice. Drugs have a much higher margin; why grow vegetables when you can make 5 or 10 times as much money growing something else? If Laos wants to really protect it's endangered species of plants & animals, they need better options for providing their citizens with jobs. Instead of being hunters, I bet that those same people could serve as park guides and/or rangers. Bolstered by tourism dollars, the job would pay better than producing agriculture. Another incentive is that the same people that used to hunt the animals may strive to protect them (if for no other reason that to assure that they continue to have a job). And who is better at tracking animals than a hunter?
I'm not naive enough to believe that they can stop all illegal hunting, but I think they need to do something. On average, I heard about 10 - 15 gunshots echo across the valleys each day. Even if 1/3 of those hit their targets, that is a fair amount of animals being lost each day.
We spent the evening with an Akha tribesman and his nephew. He could dinner for us, which consisted of steamed rice, chili paste, and green pumpkin (aka squash). I think that James also had some chicken to eat, but I don't remember. He pulled out the Lao Lao, and started pouring drinks. The custom is Laos is to take shots of rice whiskey. Whoever is serving the rice whiskey must take the first shot, and everyone engaged in dinner is expected to participate. There is one cup, which is passed clockwise. It's not good sense to take an odd number of drinks, so you always need to ensure that you keep your number of drinks even (2, 4, 6, 8, etc). I found one exception to this rule - if you're too drunk to remember how many drinks you've had. The rice whiskey is extremely strong, and it cannot be distilled more than .5 or 1 time because it tastes like I imagine gasoline to taste.
After we were finished eating, we sat around the fire. We finished the bottle of lao lao (served in a re-used dirty plastic bottle), and Pon played the guitar. I needed to remind myself to look up each night - the sky was ablaze with small fires of white light. On certain nights, you could see the galaxy, and tonight was one of those evenings. Pon and our host wandered off to bed as I started into the night sky for 20 or 30 minutes, wishing that I could see the backdrop of light back home.
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