It was on a misty day in the beginning of April that our old Soviet 'Command Car' carried us out of the provincial capital of Phong Saly for a long journey of more than a month through the district of Nhot Ou in the far north of Laos, populated by the Lolo and other Tibetan-Burmese ethnic groups.

But it was really only in Ngai-Nua, known for its Tai-Lue people, some 90 kilometres northwest of Phong Saly, that our tough trek actually began. Happily, up to that point, the road was good, otherwise the journey would have been much longer.

We spent the night in the village preparing our sacks and absorbing the ambience of the place which seemed timeless.

The next day we set off on foot, reaching the village of Sop Soum, inhabited by another Lao-Tai group, the Yang. Its forty houses, at least 25 kilometres from the nearest road, were surrounded by forests with streams full of fish, and plenty of orchids around.

From time to time, Koh or Lolo caravans passed through carrying salt, fabrics and other merchandise. A solitary Koh traveler, with a locally-made musket slung over his shoulder, asked if we had anything to sell. He pointed to a distant mountain and said he was going there to meet his kinsfolk and needed a gift for them. We tried to offer him a small packet of sweets but he insisted on paying. After a brief persuasion, I was able to convince him to accept it and said: "I haven’t given you anything. I have simply asked you to take it as a gift for your nephews."

Our long and difficult trek was made worthwhile by the surrounding beauty. Among the calls of the birds and monkeys one could hear the singing of young Koh

girls far away in the rice fields. Then, beside the track running alongside the stream I saw, to my surprise, the silos of the Kohs. placed here and there, where they are kept for the whole year without fear of anyone finding them or stealing the rice from them.

We arrived at Sop Suam at sunset and the following morning we were off to Nam Ou river. We waded through the shallow waters. It was a significant event for us because it indicated that we were close to the source of this grand river which feeds into the Mekong. Our pleasure was even greater when we noticed how little the forest around the source of Nam Ou river had been destroyed — though there were upland fields cleared here and there by Koh, Yao and the Koeus.

In the afternoon, we reached the foot of a nearly 1,700-meter high mountain. The village was Alus, which was perched on the. summit of this mountain ,was actually our destination. But before beginning the climb, we stopped to rest and bathe in the clear stream. It took us two hours to climb and we needed staves because the mountain sometimes sloped at 60 to 80 degrees.

Who are these Alus people?

For the past fifty years, the Lolos have been recognised as an important ethnic group in the far north of Laos. But all that time, this same group of people has been largely ignored by Lao society. According to the official statistics of the Nhot Ou district, there is no such ethnic group — only Alus. It was only after arriving in the village that I realised that the Alus are in fact Lolos. And thanks to our journey that the Alus (a pejorative name given to them by other groups) were able to reclaim their real name, the Lolo-Phos.

The great Chinese historian Yang Chien in his compilation of the history of the kingdom of Nanchao in the beginning of the 16th century, referred to them : "The (Kouo Los) are barbarian Ts’ouans, descendants of the Lou-Lous. It is from this last name, by a process of corruption, that the word Kouo Lo developed." He further wrote that there were 12 types of Kouo Lo or Lou-Lous. In Laos, it was common in the past to group all the Tibetan-Burmese groups under the term Lolo. Since then, however, these various groups have rediscovered their true names. There was only this one group of 700 people in three villages, the Alus, who strangely did not realise that they were Lolo, or Lolo-Phos.

We arrived at one of the three Lolo villages perched near the summit of Tapeusou (in Ho Chinese, meaning Large White Tree) mountain — which is also the name of the village — just as the sun sinking into a deep ravine, created a striking scene with thousands of colours. The village has 36 houses and 244 inhabitants. All the ground around the houses had been pounded flat and solid to protect against the often strong, cold winds. The bamboo houses were long and were built in rows, up the mountain. They all faced down, having only one small entrance in the middle. Inside, each house was divided into two large sections — one for the men and the other for the women and kitchen.

Around the village, a rock wall had been built and one could observe several ruins and several collapsed wells, which suggested the length of Lolo habitation. Beyond the wall stretched fields of maize, vegetables and opium — all produced for local consumption. Everything in the village seemed unchanged and traditional. Only the occasional plastic bag, a small symbol of modern city life, had infiltrated here. The men were dressed in black while the women adorned themselves with silver ornaments and brilliant jewels, complementing the striking beauty of the mountains. They were always in colourful attires. It is the task of the women in this part of the world to rise early in the morning to husk rice, fetch water from the wells and begin cooking stew in large pots. They also prepare snacks to which they add the milky sap from the opium poppy. This sap, which tastes delicious, is used by the Lolo as part of their basic diet. The women also walk into the forest in search of firewood, and to gather wild fruits and vegetables. During the rainy season, the Lolos come down to work on the paddy fields. The Lolos, like some other ethnic groups in Laos, are in the process of changing their way of life, abandoning, little by little, their destructive slash and burn cultivation and their cultivation of opium for paddy rice. After the harvest, they carry rice on their backs or use cattle for this purpose, back up the steep mountain to their homes. It is a hard life.

I learned during my talk with the head of the commune that once they had tried to move down to the base of the mountain, but the village was struck by a string of bad luck. In the first year they moved, 80 people died of malaria, and in the third year a fire swept through the village reducing it to ashes. So, the Lolo returned to their present location.

Visitors are extremely rare in this remote region, and our presence in the village triggered off a festive atmosphere. The young men and women dressed in their finest, which for the women included cigarette lighters and small pairs of Chinese scissors hung around their waist as ornaments. Also other items with a more direct use that suggested a taste for things modern, such as finger-nail clippers.

They were happy and talkative — and some exuberant youth ran and rolled down in the fields. Some of the young women played music on flutes made from the stem of rice plants. I heard a young man singing aloud somewhere towards the side of the mountain. He was soon joined by a woman. It was a truly poetic contest. I later learned that Lolos never sing face-to-face.

Dinner was composed of opium sap, "honey of the 5th month", vegetables, a sour pork dish, perfumed rice and maize alcohol. The feet and head of a boiled chicken were placed before me. The village ‘medicine man’ — an old man — looked for a combination of signs: how much of the claws were clenched? Was the chicken’s tongue out? And so on. After examining the chicken closely, he smiled at me. "Your coming here is good. And your future will be happy," he said. After the meal, we were taken to the central house which serves as a place for meetings and celebrations. There. in the light of a barge torch, young and old danced to the tune of a flute. "Be" playing "Groupe" music. The dance is cabled the "Dance of 12 Rhythms" and is a difficult one which involves leaping and pirouetting in the air. But each one could do it and still maintain a circle.

After the dance, they usually retire but younger lovers continued to stroll around the village under the large, serene sky full of stars. The moon was wonderfully clear and the smell of nature was in perfect harmony with the ardor and innocence of the lovers.