Scary Lao Ghosts

I am sitting in the sun at a really beautiful eco-lodge waiting for my German friends to return from their morning elephant ride; I can hear the sploshing of water buffalo behind me slowly moving through the wetlands munching the grass with big rhythmic ripping sounds and the gentle tingle of the cowbells tied around their necks makes a soft, melodic and beautiful accompaniment to the chirping crickets and bird twitter. Over the past few days we have been trekking through the Xe Pian protected area with a Lao guide enjoying the jungle and the Brun minority villages along the way. We have tried so many different kinds of bush foods (including the base compound for paracetomol) that I have lost track, some, like the fresh raw cardamon stem or the red leaves that tasted like those sour lollies (I forget the name) were tasty, others like the bush bean were not so good. We stayed overnight at a village called Ta Ong in the forest with a project that is trying to convince the villagers that they can make money from tourism instead of poaching the sun bear, asiatic bear and tiger that still lives in their forest...last year they cut down a really large swath of forest to grow more sticky rice (the national dish that gets eaten at EVERY meal) since then there are no more yellow-cheeked gibbons. Although the village guide made no admissions our english-speaking lao guide from town suspects the gibbons were eaten...so there is still plenty of convincing to be done...
We arrived the day after an old man in the village had died and many villagers were frightened of the ghost that was said to be still hanging around the village. This particular village still practise animism as well as buddhism and had strong beliefs that the dead persons ghost was still around. No-one would walk alone for the next few days until the body had been removed from the house and the correct ceremony to convince the ghost that the person was dead now and to leave the village had been performed...the children were really scared and the adults seemed to enjoy provoking them by proclaiming sightings in nearby trees and then laughing at the reactions... it seemed to actually be quite a lot of fun.
We had dinner with a local family but then the generator was started and a chinese movie was played...the whole village seemed quite addicted to the television so we went to bed early because it was difficult to compete with the movie... also we had had a long walk and were a little tired and the interaction was difficult; the children often cried in fear if 'the long noses' came too close so getting the community to relax around us was quite a challenge (but we did manage a few laughs mostly by trying [and spectacularly failing] to learn a famous lao song)...

In the middle of the night I needed to get up for the toilet and as I made my way outside in the moonlight I could hear the ceremony not too far away, the pounding drums and calls and screams of the villagers spooked me out and I had to pee right beside the house rather than walk alone for 100 metres to the toilet...yep. I got scared of the lao ghost.

As I lay awake back in my bed I listened for a long time to the animistic calls and drumming of the village ceremony and as it mixed with the night sounds of the jungle I felt peaceful and transported to an otherwordly moment in time. I felt I was listening to a living and breathing history, a timeless tradition that has been echoing throughout the jungle hills for a long long time. It was a beautiful way to drift back to sleep....

My fear made for a great deal of mirth in the morning and the villagers seemed thoroughly entertained by my reluctance to walk alone...then they explained that the lao ghost is afraid of the long nose foreigner who of course is much taller and bigger than the lao ghost.... but whether taller wins - well, I'm still not convinced and with my time over I am certain that I still would have watered the plants near the room rather than make that 100 metre toilet run in the dark and take my chances with the ghost....