Mee Lee is Hmong and has been selling herbs and traditional medicines by the Talat Sao in Vientiane for four or five years. She learned about using herbs and traditional medicine from her parents and relatives when she lived in the mountains between Long Cheng and Vang Vieng. Her customers are not only Hmong, but in fact are mostly Lao. As you can see by the photo there are many, many different herbs, potions, and remedies she has for sale and we asked about some of these.

The wild cat and flying squirrel immediately attracted our attention. I took a picture of a man holding both up, and I was wondering what he would want to buy them for. She told us the wild cat was mainly for decoration and the flying squirrel could be used by mixing the skin, cut up very finely, with lemon juice and drinking it for problems with gall stones. The antelope antlers can be used to alleviate muscle aches by cutting off a small piece, putting it in whiskey, and drinking the mixture. The red mushroom is used for pink eye. In one of the pictures she is selling me little bundles of herbs and bark that when cooked as a tea are good for muscle aches. This bird's beak is used for alleviating children's high fever by scraping the beak into hot water and having the child drink the tea. Along side of it is the backbone and dried meat from the flying squirrel. While we were talking a young lady came by to look and was checking out a vial of tiger fat. I'm not sure what was in all the vials, but she did show us the tiger oil, tiger fat and bear fat.