One of the reasons we’re taking this trip is that we want the girls to see how different people around the world live. While we’ve been to many places, we have not spent much time in rural communities and have not done a homestay yet. This all changed when we disembarked the slow boat and set off to visit the village of Muang Soune with our homestay guide Kham. She grew up in this village, which is home to both ethnic Lao people and Hmong people. Kham returns with small groups of tourists to a newly built wooden house she owns surrounded by fruit trees on the outskirts of the village. This place is not on Google Maps – a tiny village on the Ou River north of Luang Prabang.

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