Griffth University immerse themselves in villages in Laos

As we travelled up the side of the mountain on our way to Pak Xeng we were awed as we took in the views of the Mekong river and towering mountains covered in lush forest. However as soon as we left the concrete road we came to realize the necessity for face masks as fine orange dust bellowed up behind the tuk tuks so thick that it obscured the side of the second truck following with the other half of the students in it. Suffice to say from that day on we named the second truck the 'dust truck'.

That afternoon arriving in the village we received a traditional welcome that the school children had put together for us, involving traditional song and dance. We were even invited up on stage to learn a dance with some of the children, which turned into a complete mess as we attempted the precise hand movements and attempted to follow the instructions they kept yelling out in Lao and forgetting to translate.

After that we were expected to show them a traditional Australian song and dance, so we thought what would be more Aussie than the hokey pokey, this turned out to be great fun as some of the children jumped up on stage to join and they all had the biggest grin on their faces. To conclude the evening we were taught the Monkey game where six people were blindfolded up on stage and three of them given bananas. I'm sure you can imagine the hilarity of the scene as banana was smeared through hair and on peoples faces as they tried to feed. We had two rounds and Laura and Jordan were pronounced the winners as they ate their bananas first.

Luckily for all those involved in the monkey game, we had state of the art washing and toilet facilities at our home stay mainly comprising of a saucepan and bucket of ice cold water, along with those all too dreaded squat toilets.
It was interesting to see the next day who braved the chilly bucket water, and in the morning there were several squeals and squeaks to be heard in between the roosters early wake up call. The roosters proved a conversation starter, as the week wore on the never ending squawk of the roosters continued and talk turned to how nice it would be to buy all the roosters in the village and serve them up for dinner one night.

There was excitement in the air as we set off through the stunning scenery to our first clinic. As our tuk tuk ascended above the clouds our breath was taken away by the sea of clouds among the mountain tops now more resembling islands.
Nothing could have quite prepared us for what we were to see in the clinics through out the week. Back in Australia we hear stories of different diseases people catch and injuries that befall them in strange overseas lands that all seem alien to us. However this is a constant reality for those who we visited in the villages and we have learnt in our few brief days spent here that we can never discredit a story no matter how far fetched it seems to us. The strangest example of this we have seen was a woman who turned up to our clinic primarily complaining of a sore throat (and we instantly thought it was re-flux due to the excessive amount of chilly they all eat). Though upon further questioning she divulged that she had been living with a leech in her throat for two years and at night if you shone a torch down her throat you could see it. Turning to the local health care workers for advice we discovered that not only had this happened before but was a fairly common problem.
Besides from the completely out there problems, we have seen a lot of heart burn due to excessive chilly and Lao whisky and headaches/dizziness from dehydration. Because of this we are fast learning some of the common responses in Lao such as Dim num lie lie deer - drink more water!
As meal times came around each day a feeling of anticipations and apprehension would fill the group as we wondered what suspicious looking meal would bechance us tonight and most of the time we were pleasantly surprised by the odd combinations of food that Lao cuisine presents.
Travelling back to Luang Probang was a very nostalgic trip as people reminisced about facebook, hot showers and clean clothes.