Making Brooms in a Hmong Village // Laos Travel Photos

exploring isolated northern laos

On the last segment of our hike through a series of isolated villages, we parked ourselves for a homestay at another Hmong village, this time far up in the hills. Once again, there are no paved roads to this village, you must hike to get there.

We slept in traditional wooden houses with straw mats on the floor. I spent most of my hours  making brooms made of dry wild grasses. The brooms are one of the main livelihoods of the village as they are then exported all over Laos and Thailand. I found the process very meditative. I liked the fact that everyone participated in the work (men, women, and children). We did it sitting on the ground or on stumps of wood, and I found that after a short period my back started to hurt! The grass is very delicate so the challenge was to work fast without damaging the herbs. At first the locals laughed at my pace and my struggle to group together grasses evenly, but eventually I got the hang of it.

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to find ways of communicating without speaking the same language. In this village, it was through broom-making.

Check out my first two blog posts from this hiking adventure, Joyful Portraits of Khamu Villagers and Photos of a Beautiful Isolated Hmong Village and for more info on this hiking trip go to Laos-adventures.com

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