white thai tribe

the white thai stilt house...notice the 2 staircases

myyher and the white thai children

the tea leaves that the white thai grow and use

their kitchen...back to basic!!!

we continued our tour after lunch towards lai chau town...we crossed a few long suspension bridges along the way...it already look scary crossing them by foot, but it was even more frightening crossing them on motorbikes!!!...haha...our first village visit was to the Do village, home to the white thai people...they live in stilt houses with firewoods stacked below the floors...there is usually 2 staircases up the house...one at the back that leads to the kitchen (used only by the women) and another at the front that leads to the living room (can be used by anyone)...as their name suggested, their pioneers have came from thailand long ago to settle in vietnam...and they divided themselves into the white thai and black thai...we visited one of the stilt house after walking around the village...ling said that some of the thai people still know how to speak thai language...but when myyher tried to communicate with them using thai...they didn't seems to understand...they explained to ling in vietnamese that only the older generations know thai and most of the younger generations have lost touch with their thai language...they were really friendly, showed us around the house and treated us to some tea that they made themselves...we were abit hesitant at first to try them, but we still took a few slips, not wanting to be rude...it was a pity that we didn't bought sweets yet, else we could have at least offer them to the kids to repay their kindness...oh ya, i forgot to mention that they actually have televison and vcd player!!!