This is a lady from the Akha tribal group. Many of the Akha people come from Burma. They use the same cream on their faces that the Burmese like to use. I can't remember what plant it comes from, but they use it as a sunscreen and skin conditioner. We visited this woman's farm with the folks from MMF where we are visiting this week. They work with the tribal people, teaching them self-subsistence farming, animal health-care, etc.

This is a lowland rice field on the lower flats. They terrace it and flood it with water. The upland rice fields grow a different kind of rice and can be planted on the mountainside. Most of the farm work is done by hand or with water buffalo.

 This is an Akha village. We stayed overnight in a village almost like this, but the tribal name of the group is Lahu. Their languages are very similar and many of the Akha people also speak the Lahu language and interact with them. First we went to see the village in the picture above, and then they took us to the village where we spent the night. We took a tour of the village (Darren slipped in the mud with John and almost fell in the pig pen! :) And then we sat around and waited for supper to be made while it got dark.

 Here is an Akha baby in the traditional headdress. She is so cute! Her name is Mekayla.

Here is another of the tribal ladies.

This is a Lahu boy in the village where we spent the night

 Here is our room. The pink to the right is the mosquito net we slept under. It was sort of .... not my favorite to sleep in a room with three other men besides Darren! They had a separate mosquito net, but it still felt strange! And then there was the animal noises that we are unaccustomed to, like pigs snorting under the house during the night. The soup we had at breakfast included water buffalo tastebuds! They eat everything around here, including putting blood chunks in the stews!

This is some breakfast cooking! And the tribal dogs looking on. In this tribe they are not usually eaten, but in many of the tribes they are. 

We enjoyed our visit and I will tell you more about some of the other activities we are doing later.