October 21-November 11, 2003

(NikiAnne’s journal, October 25) How can two countries, China and Laos, border each other yet be worlds apart in culture, cuisine, and lifestyle? Immediately, Laos was a breath of fresh air compared to China. When we crossed the political border on foot from Mohan, China into Boten, Laos the wind switched directions and we found ourselves in a world of peace. The obsessive honking we despised all through China ceased. Yelling lowered to practically a whisper. Our modest nin haos (hello in Mandrin) became sabadees (hello in Lao), yet this time they were reciprocated. Smiles gleamed from the Lao faces naturally and inquisitively.

Without hesitation Andy and I said zai jian (goodbye in Mandrin) to China moved deeper into Laos with a bounce in our steps again. From the border we headed straight for the capital of the northern province we had entered into, both named Luang Nam Tha. Lush, green, tropical forests surrounded us on all sides as we scanned the new scenery from a bench in the back of a pick-up (this is the most common form of transport in Laos). Reddish dirt roads presented themselves before us, an invitation to experience the arduous yet scenic life as the Lao do. Cars and trucks share to the roads with cattle, water buffalo, chickens & cocks, pigs, wild boars, dogs, geese, pedestrians, and cyclists, as well as the Chinese tractor wagons that resemble a lawn mower with a trailer attached. The air is damp and muggy, but not murderous.

What isn’t protected nature reserve is being farmed…bananas, bamboo, weed, opium, wheat, rice, tea, coffee, and God knows what else. How can people in this country be starving or malnourished when there is so much rich produce at their feet? There must be something that makes the situation so, but we never found anyone who could translate it for us. The bloated, bulging bellies of some of the little kids are proof that something is wrong with resource distribution or diet.

Luang Nam Tha is your typical provincial capital; there’s one main street running through the center of town and the Chinese presence is easy to spot due to all the cheap factory-made products that crowded many of the shops and Chinese characters on the signs. We found the town and its surrounding hills very pleasant and full of life. We rented bicycles with two other travelers, Angela from Austria and Ed from Holland, and rode a total of 30km on trails and roads that took us through hill-tribe villages, rivers, and undulating farmland to the north, west and south of town. This day’s ride was one of our best in our whole trip.

(NikiAnne’s journal, October 28) Our first encounter with locals on the ride was at the Nam Dee village. The people were Lenten (AKA Lao Huay) and the village is traditionally known for making mulberry and bamboo paper, although we were there too early in the year to see it for ourselves; they start making it in December. Despite our untimely arrival to watch the paper making process, we arrived just in time to make friends with the local children of that village. Upon arrival we were greeted with the timid smiles and bulging eyes of about 5-6 young girls whose ages ranged from 2 ½ to 7 years old, and 2 little boys. Those who were dressed were wearing black, some already faded to navy blue, raw-cotton oversized shirts and trousers with bright pink tassels hanging from the neckline to their waist. The tassels were fastened by a beautiful silver clasp. In an effort to break the ice, I gave each of the girls a small hair band. Those who couldn’t put it in their hair themselves motioned to the older girls and myself to help them with it. Some of them put it over the plastic one they already had in their hair (the ones used for newspapers), while others took that one out first. Most of the kids were too shy to say anything, but some giggled at the funny looking shorthaired girl with glasses that was spitting out unintelligible Lao phrases and playing with their hair.

As we were departing the village school began pouring out more school children, tempting us to say a little longer. We watched them in excitement and curiosity as much as they did at us. Some stood their distance and observed us from afar while others came close and begged to have their picture taken. The joy of digital cameras is that you can share the captured moment with them right there. Kids are universal around the world; they love to be the center of attention and cameras. Natural models. When we finally left our departure was blessed with a procession led by a 7 or 8-year old boy on a water buffalo. He rode the strutting animal down to the river below us with as much regal pose as an emperor on an elephant. The buffalo soaked in its natural bath as we waved goodbye through our dusty trails to the children chasing after us and yelling what we hoped were friendly farewells in Lao.

Even after we left I couldn’t help but think of the older girls in that village and how their demeanor gave me a little insight into what their lives must be like. The older girls (between 12-18 years of age) didn’t smile much, whether it was out of habit, fear or unhappiness, I’m not sure. It was very apparent that their lives childhoods had been robbed by the chores of caring for their littler siblings. Their nature was mature, solemn, and motherly…protective and nurturing. My comprehension of their situations at their ages lacked tremendously; perhaps trying to understand their circumstances through my eyes was far more of a cultural challenge that I thought. If they are surrogate mothers at even the age of nine, I guess it would seem natural to become a mother themselves at 16. When I asked a girl how old she and her daughter were she replied 18 and 1½, respectively, meaning she got pregnant at the age of 16. It makes me wonder what defines adulthood when children marry and/or have kids so young.

The last village we stopped at was Ban Pa Sak and known as a silk weaving village. I really wanted to know how all the silk textiles I had been seeing were made. We spotted two looms at two different houses. Both families welcomed us to take a closer look at these magnificent machines and also sat down at them to show us how they operated them. It was a full-body workout to use one of them. For each stitch one’s feet are pumping two foot pedals while simultaneously guiding the silk spool between two walls of perfectly arranged string going the other direction. And after each stroke one has to tighten the stitch with what looks like a gigantic comb. Essentially, we learned how much physical labor and attention to detail goes into each step of the process. At the second house we visited they also showed us their silkworm farm. They had bamboo trays with worms in all different stages of their silk making process. There were small worms, big fat worms that were about to burst, as well as worms that had already began cocooning themselves in the silk (which we understood to be their fecal). The natural color of silk is florescent yellow and it only turns while once it is boiled in water. It was all very fascinating and made us appreciate the silk garments we saw at the markets much more.

Riding through these small villages of bamboo-stilted houses and by grassy rice paddies on a one-speed banana seat bicycle gave me a feeling of peace and serenity; I was experiencing the Laos I had imagined before coming.

(NikiAnne’s journal, October 28) The environment and resources seemed to govern our days to the extent that we were practically on “Lao time”. We found ourselves so beat from each day’s activities that we were putting ourselves to bed before 10:00pm, which is a little later than when the locals shut down the lights and retreat for bed. Such an early bedtime inevitably made our morning rise earlier than our usual 9-10am get-up time. Not only were our bodies telling us that by 7am they’d rested enough, but around 6-7am was also when the roosters announce that they’re awake and the locals began the morning work; somehow, their work always involved pounding and chopping bamboo right outside our window. Nevertheless, we slowly wiped the sleep from our eyes, looked around the room to remind us where we arrived and fell asleep the night before, and cautiously crawled out from under our mosquito nets.

Breakfast, which is served at most of the guesthouses, was usually something to look forward to. It typically consisted of a fresh fruit juice or shake (NikiAnne was partial to pineapple, while Andy was loyal to banana), 2 eggs (poached for NA and fried for Andy), a fresh baguette and maybe a cup of Lao coffee with sweetened condensed milk for a little jump start. We were very thankful that the Lao offered breakfast that catered to the western palate since the Lao themselves eat a breakfast much like the Chinese, which is whatever they ate the night before for dinner- usually a spicy meat soup. As for lunch and dinner, we usually ate the typical Lao food as much as possible, but with so much influence from China and Thailand, we often didn’t know what authentic Lao was.

Surprisingly, the dense and never-fleeting humidity that blankets life here never slowed our step or locked NikiAnne in bed with an excruciating migraine. Somehow our energy stayed up through out the day in spite of the heat, bike rides, shopping, “city” strolling, tuk-tuk rides and minimal intake of water. Andy did, however, have trouble standing on his feet or keeping his head out of his food past 7pm.

From Luang Nam Tha we went to another town further a field that was also known for its aesthetic beauty and surrounding hill-tribes, Muang Sing. In the three days we spent there we rented bicycles one day and a motorbike another. On bicycles we rode through about four villages all to the east, very near to the Chinese border. These villages all happened to be of Yao (AKA Mien) peoples. The highlights were watching kids play the most innovative games as well as chat and share snacks with a handful of teenage girls running their parents snack shop. They got to practice their English while we avidly tried to learn as much Lao as possible from them.

The next day we thought we’d try to cover more ground by renting a motorbike. The villages we wanted to see this time were of Mong (AKA Hmong) people and Iko Akha. Interestingly, the bike rental guy gave us a brand new bike without even caring if we knew how to drive the thing. We had to ask how to put it into reverse before leaving his shop. We also asked if he had any helmets for us to wear. Nope! NikiAnne thought she’d be resourceful and ask the masseuse she had visited the night before if he had two we could borrow since he seemed like a nice guy. He wasn’t home when we stopped by though, so his wife said she’d ask her neighbor, the town barber, if he had some. Lucky for us he did. Although he said we could just borrow them for the day we insisted that we pay him something, which we was pleasantly surprised about. It seemed that everywhere we went in Laos we ran into such warm, helpful people.

The highlight of the second day was us trying to steady the beast we were on. The roads we chose to take couldn’t have been worse, potholes galore. Between NikiAnne having trouble steering us in a straight and controlled line and Andy trying to keep an even speed and not jerk us back and forth by accelerating too fast we were glad we had helmets on. We thought our day was ended prematurely when Andy jammed the brake pedal against a rock, which automatically killed the engine. At first we thought we would have to walk the bike back to town (which was at least a few miles away) and pay an arm and a leg to get it fixed. However, we moved the brake enough to where we could drive it back to town to the mechanics shop. We feared we were going to get charged an exorbitant price because we were foreigners, but the mechanic took one look at our situation, grabbed a crow bar that fit over the brake pedal and just bent it back into place at no charge. What a load he took off our shoulders. The day was still young so we decided to explore a few more villages, yet this time we took much better roads to get there. From then on we were much better on motorbikes. We’re really glad we chose to learn there though, where there’s barely anything else on the road, rather than in a city.

We entered Laos on a short two-week visa, which is the max. length of stay if you haven’t made prior arrangements to stay longer, so we felt it was necessary to move farther south if we wanted to see all that we wanted before our visa ran out. It took us a day and a half to reach our destination of Muang Ngoi (pronounced moo-ong noy), after a series of pick-up trucks, a van, a boat, as well as one breakdown. Nevertheless, we made it there in one piece. To our delight, we met a fellow American, Paul, on our boat to get to Muang Ngoi. We learned that he had stayed in Muang Ngoi a few years back for a month and was coming back for the first time to see the people and place he had fall in love with so much again. He was also coming with the vision of introducing the concept of edu-tourism to village. We understood it as the idea of incorporating the locals’ daily tasks and lifestyles into activities that would educate tourists about them as well as their practices and culture. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have come to this village at the same time as Paul for reasons you’ll soon learn.

Muang Ngoi was one of the most special places we had the good fortune of seeing firsthand on our entire trip. Because you can only reach the village by boat there is very little noise or air pollution. I don’t even think we saw a bicycle while we were there. There is only electricity for 3 hours a night provided by a generator. The villagers enjoy clean drinkable water (for them, we still chose to boil ours) due to a secondary river that runs down from the mountains and into the main river. There is one main street on which there are a few guesthouses, restaurants, and candy/food stalls.

On the coattails of Paul we rode, as everyone and their grandma came out to greet him. Although he gave no prior notice of his arrival the villagers still recognized him immediately and proceeded to shower him with hugs and smiles. It was such a beautiful site to see a homecoming of a foreigner in a remote Laotian village. We let Paul lead the way. We all stayed at Mama Juum’s Guesthouse. Andy and I had our own bungalow, private patio and hammock for $1/night. There were 4 rooms in total, with a common bathroom/shower, and dining patio. I don’t think we used the showers once since we went ab-naming (bathing) in the river every afternoon after playing volleyball and Frisbee with the local kids. Life was good in Muang Ngoi.

Every morning we woke up with the rooster that must have had a severed vocal cord; his cockle-doodle-doo was horrible. If we didn’t wake up with the rooster the water buffalo roaming the field below our stilted bungalow would surely wake us with what felt like an earthquake by scratching his back against one of our supporting beams. Whichever way we woke up, it was early and promptly after eating we always had something to do. Some of the ideas Paul had for edu-tourism were basket weaving, tending the rice fields, spear fishing, and language exchange. Basket weaving proved too meticulous and time-consuming for all the males. I was the only one that stuck the day out with Pong, our master basket weaver, from beginning to end, which included cutting the bamboo into very thin strips with machetes, smoothing them, and then weaving them into a rice steamer basket. By the end of the day I had a Band-aid on every finger. Spear fishing was for the men, but again, they didn’t prove very successful at that either. The foreigners only caught sardine-sized fish after hours of trying. They get A’s for effort though. We all trekked through the rainforest, over the waterfalls, and up the hills to get to Kek’s rice paddies to help. The event proved to be more laughable than helpful considering we carried 1/3 the rice that Kek and his wife did in sandals on muddy slopes while we were in hiking shoes and falling all over the place. The language exchange corner, which was at the same restaurant at 2pm everyday, proved to be quite successful though. The children were eager to learn English while we were eager to learn Lao. Many of the older children (11-13 years old) spoke impeccable English with American accents, yet they couldn’t read the word “cat.” We learned that they spoke English so well by learning from the tourists who traveled through the village. Watching these kids converse in practically flawless English was breathtaking. And in just one short week we learned quite a bit of Lao as well.

(NikiAnne’s journal, October 30) This particular morning I rolled out of bed and on to the hammock for a morning read before we made our way to the common patio for breakfast. I had told Mama Juum that I would be happy to help her rewrite her menu in English since hers has pretty ratty so we worked on that as well this morning. By 11:30am I felt it was time to take a walk to explore the town a little- this ended up being by myself since Andy went spear fishing with Paul, Julian (Germany), and Kek, Paul’s good friend from the village. (Spear fishing was one of those daily things that Kek did in life so this was a trial run as to how he could profit from taking interested tourists out for a go…remember? Edu-tourism.) After reaching the far eastern end of town where the wat (temple) stood, I turned around and headed for the smaller river on the far western side of town by way of the dirt pathways that weaved in between all the houses off of the main road. I stumbled on lots of kind, hard-working people who nodded politely at me without ever ceasing their work. I found myself most intrigued with a young man in his late teens making a new fishing net. He was weaving and knotting the string so fast I couldn’t follow his moves. It was art to me yet most likely necessary to eat for him.

As I carried on with my walk I found myself in utter awe of an elder gray-haired woman who was mending the top of her bamboo rice basket. A group of us gringos had tried our hands at basket weaving the day before and failed miserably at it. I was the only girl in our group of foreigners and the only one that stuck to the task all day until we finished them. However, by the end I had a band-aid on every finger from the machete we were using to split and smooth the bamboo reeds with. All in all, the experience heightened my appreciation for those who are skilled and patient enough make the baskets that are used to cook every one of our meals in this country (as well as the rest of SEA for that matter). I sat down beside this woman as she concentrated on fixing her basket for about 30 minutes, trying to learn and remember her weaves. She acknowledged my presence yet continued her weaving without interruption.

My departure was premature because I accepted an invitation of a young girl (about 18 years old) to do down to the river with her. She had two different baskets slung over her shoulder, but that still gave me no indication as to what we were going to do. Her friend, My (15 years old) joined us on our walk down to the river. It ends up that we were going frog and prawn hunting and fishing.

Their technique was to slowly lift a rock up from the shallow water and hope that a fish or shrimp would swim into their net that was strategically placed down stream from the commotion they were stirring up. To my amazement they were catching quite a few things- all of puny size, but food nonetheless. As interesting as the whole search and discovery was, I couldn’t help but feel horrible when they broke the legs of the frogs so they couldn’t hop out from their baskets. When they saw how horrified I was with their leg breaking technique they opted to kill them by throwing them against the rocks as hard as they could. I don’t think they noticed my look of shock this time, which I tried to suppress as best as possible.

We waded our way upstream in search of more hidden treasure. They crossed the stream here and there, for what I assumed was tactic on their part. I was enjoying the simple, bare-handed hunt until I lost my footing and fell into the river, bag and all. Initially I laughed, as did they, proud that I had saved my camera as well as Andy’s from getting wet. It wasn’t until I reached the bank that I realized I didn’t have Andy’s. In a panic I ran back to where I fell to discover that it had fallen out and was sparkling silver from the bottom of the bed. As quickly as I could I tried drying it off, hoping that it wasn’t water logged. To my dismay, the power button failed to do anything. I frantically shook the water out of its crevices while attempting to look calm in front of my two companions who were both hovered over me in bemusement. The juxtaposition of our two realities was enough to make me chuckle.

Thoughts of Andy and what good care he takes of the camera were flooding my mind. After all his good efforts in caring for his camera I break it. If these girls only knew what deep sh*t I was in.

After drying all that I could of the camera I motion to the girls that they should go on without me and that I’d go back to the village. They understood. I thanked them for inviting me and went on my way. I went back to our bungalow to figure out how I was going to tell all this to Andy. Time was torture.

In the end, I told him everything and he took it better than I had expected. Neither of us was happy that we were without a digital camera until Bangkok, but at least we had NikiAnne’s 35mm film camera to document the rest of Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia before we got to Thailand to have it fixed. So there you have it… the whole story as to why you all haven’t seen any photos posted on our website since Northern Laos.

(NikiAnne’s journal entry Nov 7, 03) At 6pm of our last night in Muang Ngoi, we all, farang (meaning “foreigner” in Lao and Thai) and Lao alike, united at Mama Juum’s Guesthouse for a traditional Lao farewell. The ritual involved sitting on the floor in a circle around a foot-high table full of sweets and fruit. First we bless it and then ask for it (or that’s at least what we understood) and then to receive the food you have to take two shots of Lao Lao (homemade whiskey). You are then blessed by having a banana tried to a string hung around your neck. Everyone then takes a modest amount of food from the center of the table and eats it. Following the feasting we were blessed and wished well by the Laos as they tied a piece of string around our wrists. By the end of the blessings you had a bracelet of strings that practically went half way to your elbow. It was a beautiful ceremony and tradition that was done in honor of us. The continual bonding and good times we shared with these people only made it that much harder to leave the next day. Anyhow, we topped off the night by being the dancing and singing buffoons that we are. The more Lao Lao that was consumed the more Kek jammed on the guitar and we Paul, Julian, and I sang the blues. Thank God everyone was too drunk to remember my scratchy tone-deaf voice.

The next day we arrived Luang Prabang by slowboat via the Nam Ou and Mekong Rivers that we hired with six other farang. It took us about six butt-numbing yet scenic hours to reach this adorable historic Lao capital. Among us were Julian (Germany), Alberto (Spain), Mandi (UK), Ken (US), Sebra (US), and Dan (US). Paul didn’t make it on our boat due to his massive hang over and an invitation he had to take part in a ceremony of spreading the ashes of a monk who died in the Muang Ngoi village while we were there. We met him later in Luang Prabang though.

While in Luang Prabang we ate well and soaked up the company and stories of the various travelers since LP is kind of a hub of sorts in Laos where people got tips from others regarding the current situation of their next destination. However, when we weren’t babbling in the cafes or wrestling the visa tourist office to have more time on our short 14 day Lao visa (that’s a story for another time), we were exploring the crystal clear, calcified limestone waterfalls of Tat Sae with Mandi, Alberto and Julian, or gawking over and shopping for the most beautiful silk textiles and paper products in the silk-making village of Ban Phanom, or the mulberry paper village. Every evening we perused the night market, which is where many vendors in town lay their merchandise out on blankets for tourists to buy and to reward yourself in the end was the food stall alley where you could devour fresh spring rolls, noodle soups, kebabs, etc. If you didn’t get to the night market before 5pm though, you had to rely on dimly lit lamps that didn’t always reflect the actual color of the scarf or the contents of your meal. After our third night in LP we moved on to Vang Vieng. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 7am, which was perfect for seeing the monks collect their morning alms at 6am. LP has the highest concentration of monasteries, and therefore monks, in all of Laos, so it’s quite a spectacular sight to see orange robes parading the streets as far as the eye can see at the wee hours of the morning. We weren’t alone at this hour either. With us were women selling sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, which are what we bought to give to the monks, and many locals whose routine is to give to the monks each morning before they even eat themselves. We learned that you only give a pinch of rice to each monk rather than your whole ball of rice, to share with as many as possible. It was a great last impression of LP before we boarded our bus to Vang Vieng.

The scenery in northern Laos is outstanding. It's like being in the middle of a 360-degree postcard. There are huge limestone karsts formations climbing straight up into the clouds with verdant valleys of rice paddies below. Water buffalo and cattle roam freely amongst the lowland vegetation. Villages are small so bicycles seem to be the main mode of transportation. Tacraw is very popular in Lao. Tacraw is a game like volleyball except the players use their feet and head to volley a bamboo-woven ball back and forth across a chest-level net. It isn't easy to say the least.

Situated directly between Luang Prabong and Vientiane, Vang Vieng is a one-horse town on the Nam Song River with a picturesque and relaxing setup for foreigners much like Yangshuo in China. Surrounding the town are limestone pinnacles. All the restaurants play movies each night and all serve pizza, hamburgers, and any other comfort food the lonesome traveler may be craving. Although our stay was only 2 short days we still managed to splash around in the river outside our hotel the Thavonsouk Bungalow (which was one of the nicest places we stayed), watch some movies and meander through the dusty streets. Rather than drive what we heard to be a pretty treacherous road to Vientiane, due to the road itself and potential risk of bandits causing trouble, we opted to kayak the majority of the distance on the Nam Lik River. Due to the season (October was the end of the dry season) most of the day was spent on level 1-2 rapids. It was on this excursion though that we made some good friends, who unbeknownst to us would turn up again later in our travels: Alex & Josie and Chris & Ben, all of whom are from the UK.

Vientiane was probably our least favorite destination in Laos relatively speaking, but it was a must for us since we wanted to continue on to Vietnam. We arrived a few days earlier than we had anticipated because we heard there was festival taking place while we were in country. The Boun That Luang (Full-moon Festival) is the largest Buddhist festival event of Laos, which marks the end of religious celebrations for the year. What we never thought of was that accommodations would be more difficult to get. Duh!!! After much schlepping Ben and NikiAnne finally did the scouting alone while the rest of us sat still. In the end we found a decent enough spot and ran for the restaurant close by in near starvation. The festival took place on the full moon of November 8^th at That Luang. We were told that it’s a very colorful gathering due to all the minority groups that travel to be present, yet all we saw was a lot of colorful neon flashing lights. What we thought was going to be a unique and spiritual event turned out to be your typical commercialized bazaar with flashy technology, blaring techno music, and security frisks rather than prayers and chanting. Perhaps there was some religious and sacred ceremony that we missed, but otherwise the event was a horrifying experience that reminded us too much of what we thought was being left at home in the States, commercial hoopla. The highlights of Vientiane unexpectedly were the awful haircut NikiAnne got; Buddha Park, as the name suggests, a park with lots of huge Buddha statues; Forest Temple, where we took an introductory class on Vipassana mediation; drinking with the Laos from our hotel and our new British friends; and visiting the Lao National Museum. Our next journey was a 24-hour bus ride from Vientiane, Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Unfortunately, we only got to see the northern half of the country and even within the north there’s a lot more we didn’t get to see. We hope to come back before Lao becomes commercialized. Just now is Laos starting to capitalize on its beauty and resources as a tourist destination. It’s noticeable when you’re asking the price of a silk scarf or a tuk-tuk and the Lao fumbles in his mind for a profitable yet reasonable price to give. Some overshoot their mark and ‘offend’ us and our pocket book while others charge a humble yet satisfying amount for them and we both walk away happy. We just hope that Laos keeps a controlling hand on the way and speed at which their country develops so it doesn’t turn out like China, Vietnam, or Thailand where much of the culture and traditional lifestyles are sacrificed in the name of monetary profit.

Already the social scene of Luang Prabang and Vientiane appears to be a bit more depressing than that of Muang Ngoi and the other smaller cities we visited. In these larger, more developed cities, we saw a lot of older, unattractive, dorky western men with pretty, well-spoken, and at least 20 years younger Lao girls on their arms. We also saw a few shady “massage parlors” with women working on the corners, waiting for a “wealthy” western customer. In hindsight, however, we saw much more of these unpleasant phenomena in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, but regardless of the country, it’s an aspect of tourism that I despised and became embarrassed to be inevitably associated with, due to the color of my skin or origin of birth.

Nevertheless, the goods out weighed the bads in Laos, making it one of our favorite countries of the trip. Laos is never far from our minds; we are constantly asking ourselves when we’ll be able to return.

We’d like to send a special thanks to the entire Muang Ngoi village for making us feel like family while we were there. Undoubtedly, we’ll see you again. Ang, Poen, and Luck- keep practicing your English! And Paul, we know you’re not Lao, but you’ll forever be connected to the wonderful memories we made in Laos. You’re a great person who’s changing the world for the better one person at a time. Keep on Edu-tourisming!