A proposed visit to a village of the Akhu minority near Kengtung caused a bit of confusion to begin with. “Yes, we know the Akha, we’ve seen lots of their villages in Thailand and Laos. They’re famous for selling wooden frogs on Khao San Road.” Guide: “No, no — Akhu not Akha. The ‘bamboo pipe people’.” We assumed that their Burmese neighbours preferred selling said pipes to colourful headgear and that either the guide’s or just a local accent accounted for the slight difference in pronunciation.
The famous bamboo pipes.
But no. Generally considered a sub-group of the Sino-Tibetan Akha probably more for entomological than ethnographic reasons, the Akhu seemed to us a lot closer to the Mon-Khmer Enn group, though having evolved in small communities in an isolated valley for generations they have developed a language that is mutually unintelligible with those of other minorities, and traditional dress and costumes that set them apart from their nearby cousins. Enn and Akha villages are close by but in rugged terrain with limited communications and transport.
Traditional houses.
According to local guides,
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