It was the end of the school holidays for the school children in Non Khiaw, Laos. As I met my friends on the shores of the Mekong river, they hurried me along to a local teenager's house where they'd been celebrating this glorious day for children.

Words & Pics: Charlotte DCI was introduced to Sky, who at 19 had taught himself English from a textbook he found and now teaches his class when his teacher is away. He was absolutely brilliant. My friend Rob jumped on the back of his moped to get some Lao Lao (a rice made spirit) and we were escorted to a girl's house down the road. After a night of gradual Lao Lao consumption, endless giggles and sometimes intolerable guitar playing, we said our farewells and arranged to meet Sky the next morning, when he would take us upstream to his village.

We met him early at the pier, where we boarded a local boat and set off to his village. Butterflies surrounded us like flies, resting in huddles on the riverbank then simultaneously flying upwards in an explosion of colour around us. We skimmed along the Mekong, snaking in between the breathtaking limestone rock formations jutting out the ground. After 45 minutes the boat stopped and Sky declared that it was time for us to get off, so we clambered out of the boat, waded through the river and climbed up the steep banks to his village.


My first impressions of the village were that it was incredibly clean. Wide dirt paths dwindled between square wooden huts on stilts stood in neat rows. We dodged half naked young children playing, as well as pigs, ducks and chickens to get to Sky's house. Unlike the other houses in the village it was made of concrete and was much bigger - about seven by five metres. The interior, like most local houses, consisted of just one big room with mattresses under mosquito nets in one corner, and the rest was mainly empty.

The villagers had never seen 'falang' (white people) before, so within five minutes a huge crowd of curious faces had gathered outside; some bold teenagers were leaning through the windows, whereas the more tentative adults held back and craned their necks. Although our Laos was very limited and their English was non-existent, we managed to communicate through extravagant gesticulation and noises (something you become an expert at after a gap year spent travelling).

The village had around 45 families in it, and one primary school. There was no leader or any sense of class or order. In a way it was like they were all one big family, everyone cared for one another, so much so that one of the huts was called the 'rice bank' and if any family ever had spare rice they could put it there so that when a family was without food later, they could go there and eat. The school consisted of one large room with a blackboard at each end. There was only one teacher, who taught a class at one end of the room whilst the other half waited until she crossed to the other side to teach them. Everyone was self-sufficient and the sense of community is like nothing I've ever seen before.

That evening we took part in a 'bassi' ceremony. A select number of people were invited to join in, whilst children dangled from the windows eager to see what was happening. Huddling round two tables, we were made to drink two shots of Lao Lao and then each member of the family came and tied a white string, known as a bassi bracelet, round our wrist. Whilst they did this they repeated a chant in Laos wishing us good energy and fortune. We then were treated to a feast of sticky rice, bamboo omelette and spicy pork. We ate and drank and sang together into the evening and were all ready to sleep by midnight. As much as we protested the family gave up their beds for us and insisted we slept there.

The next morning we had an emotional goodbye as the whole village came to the riverbank to see us off as we boarded the boat back to reality. It was sad to leave a group of such tremendous people who, with no money, are happy and self-sufficient, and most of all, extremely magnanimous.