Books and birthdays

21 February 2013

I sometimes justify taking three months off work and travelling to Laos by saying “I’m on Study Leave”. Which is all very well until someone says “Oh how interesting. And what are you studying!?”

Well, I could say that I study different topics every day. Sometimes it’s language – learning a few words of Lao; sometimes history – learning about the IndoChina wars; or politics – finding out about the changing political systems of South East Asia. A lot of the time it’s botany or ecology  – what is that tree and why does it grow like that? What bird is making that call? What impact does slash and burn have on wildlife? Often the subject of the day is agriculture and food science – finding out what crops the local farmers are growing and how they are cooked. Many hours are whiled away with a bit of literature. I have my Kindle for that. Then there’s a fair amount of economics –I’ve been making a concerted effort to improve my knowledge of the alternatives to economic growth.

So I rest my case. It’s study leave.

And as evidence, I offer you my reading list for the trip. I’ve read more books in the last 11 weeks than I have done for many years and have thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of settling down to immerse myself in a book for hours at a time.

Date finished:

• 4 Dec     Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel [unfinished. Yes, I know ... but I just couldn’t reconcile reading about sixteenth century London while sitting in tropical SE Asia!]
• 6 Dec     Tender is the Night – F Scott Fitzgerald [tales of hedonistic life in south of France fitted beautifully]
• 20 Dec   The Merry Misogynist – Colin Cotterill [Excellent discovery – Dr Siri murder mysteries set in 1970s Laos. Great characters, well written and good humour. Also informative about Lao culture.]
• 22 Dec   The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year – Sue Townsend [Lightweight read.]
• 29 Dec   Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte [What a pleasure to have the opportunity to re-read a favourite.]
• 1 Jan      The Coroner’s Lunch – Colin Cotterill [First in the Dr Siri series.]
• 6 Jan      Love Songs from a Shallow Grave – Colin Cotterill [Dr Siri No. 7]
• 10 Jan    The Flowers of War – Geling Yan [Harrowing account of 1940s Nanking and the Japanese occupation.]
• 16 Jan    The Garden of Evening Mists – Tan Tang Eng [Beautifully atmospheric story with Japanese garden aesthetics set in post-war Malaya. Lovely.]
•  18 Jan   The Godfather of Kathmandu – John Burden [Much grittier than Dr Siri! Sex, drugs and violence set in Thailand and Nepal.]
• 22 Jan    The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern [I don’t normally go for fantasy so I was surprised to be so captivated by this novel. Good.]
• 30 Jan    The Thirty Three Teeth – Colin Cotterill [Dr Siri no. 2]
• 3 Feb     Disco for the Departed – Colin Cotterill [Dr Siri no. 3]
• 13 Feb   Enough is Enough: Building and sustainable economy in a world of finite resources – Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill [Inspiring and easy to read.]
• 13 Feb   Prosperity without Growth – Tim Jackson [Not such an easy read but worth perservering with.]
• 13 Feb   Anarchy and Old Dogs – Colin Cotterill [Dr Siri no. 4]
• 16 Feb   The Story of Beautiful Girl – Rachel Simon [Moving story of love conquering adversity set in 1960s America.]
• 19 Feb   Curse of the Pogo Stick – Colin Cotterill [Dr Siri no. 5]
•                 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
•                 Slash and Burn – Colin Cotterill [Final Dr Siri mystery]

Ah – and then the party began! On Friday morning lights, tables, barbeques, sitting mats, drum kit, speakers, PA, crates of beer began to be set up in the garden. Then the whisky drinking started at lunchtime, when two car-loads of Khone’s life-long schoolfriends rolled up from Vientiane. The drinking basically continued non-stop, with just a brief intermission for sleep, until late on Saturday night. Wow – these Lao know how to party!

Michelle's birthday present.

With no neighbours to worry about, the music was full volume day and night - a combination of Lao/Thai karaoke and live music provided primarily by Khone’s friend, Doctor Naughty, who sang those sweet schmaltzy ballads so loved throughout SE Asia with keyboard backing tracks. [Dr Naughty is, in real life, an eminent medical consultant]

The singing doctor.

We sometimes found it a bit difficult to join in wholeheartedly with all the jokes because of our lack of language, and of course we didn't know the songs, but a good time was had by all. I tried to explain “The hair of the dog” expression to Khone at breakfast on Saturday, as she was knocking back her second whisky of the day, but I don’t think she “got” it!

Khone and Khoun -our  wonderful hosts.

Laos - The Battery of Asia

19 February 2013

It’s been really too hot for walking this past week. By the time the sun burns away the mist in the morning the temperature is too high to make walking a pleasure (low 30s), so we retire to the shade, put the fan on and find things to do that are less energetic.

... Such as watching this bee dig a hole in the bungalow upright. Don't think Khoun will be too pleased!

Yesterday, however, the skies were cloudy and it was cool enough to set off on a walk up into the hills. We decided to saunter for an hour or so along a dirt road we hadn’t yet explored, past the Japanese-funded village school and up a wooded valley. As we walked, we could hear the river cascading along in the valley below us.

School girls giggle and pose.

Eventually there was a path down to an iron bridge over the river and we were able to walk down the bank to the water side. It was a fabulous spot, with rushing water, green pools, hibiscus flowers, rocks and overhanging trees.

What we didn’t realise at that stage was that what we had found was the outfall from the Nam Dong Hydropower Plant!

The Nam Dong was the very first hydro project in Laos. It was built in 1970 to supply the Royal family in Luang Prabang with electricity. Although it’s over 40 years old it still works well, with a capacity of 1 megawatt.

Of course this is peanuts in comparison to modern day hydro projects. The Xayaburi Dam, which is currently under construction in southern Laos, has an installed capacity of over 1200 MW. The Lao government reckons the country could be generating up to 28,000 MW one day, aiming to become the “Battery of Asia”. The plan is to use the Mekong and its tributaries to boost the country’s earning capacity by selling electricity to its energy-hungry neighbours - Thailand, Vietnam and China. At present there are 16 major plants in operation, producing just over 2500 MW, and 23 more in the planning stages.

All this is not without consequences and not everyone is happy. Although hydroelectricity is essentially a renewable energy source, large projects like this have massive environmental and social consequences. Indigenous tribes displaced by earlier hydro schemes in Laos were persuaded to leave their lands with the promise of better housing, schools and healthcare. Many report that such promises were not fulfilled by the government and life became much harder for them once they had lost their traditional land rights. No surprises there then!

Everyday scenery as we walk back.

This is a rural Lao service station - marked on the map as such! It comprises one bike tyre and three bottles of gasolene.

In other news, Khoun and Khone are having their house re-thatched. The roofer has removed the old thatch already and today his wife has the task of passing the new thatch panels up to him on the roof, using a hook on a long bamboo pole. Meanwhile their toddler plays nearby in the shade and the school-age boy joins them in the afternoon. It’s a family affair.

The Bucket List

14 February 2013

So we’re into our final two weeks now and we can’t quite come to terms with the idea that we’ll be leaving this slice of paradise and making our way across the world back to home and real life - and the snow and rain of course. Strangely, my body has suddenly gone into rebellion about this today and given me a bad back, which is a bit of a pain..

In preparation for home time we’ve been writing up our bucket list – things we want to do before we go: have a Lao barbeque at our favourite restaurant, visit the Peacefulness Chedi, get a massage, buy strange fruit from the local market, get a haircut (me, not Trevann, obviously!), submit VAT return, buy presents . . . Nothing too adventurous there.

The teak leaves turn an amazing colour in the dry season and most of them drop. A single leaf crashes loudly through the branches. I feel a haiku coming on ...

View from the veranda.

I’ve also been thinking about where we could go next year – if we can afford it! Having hit upon a place that ticks so many boxes for us it’s difficult to think that anywhere else could match up. Perhaps Cuba, Nepal, Burma or southern Vietnam?

Most mornings Bo or Leanne bring us coffee on our veranda. It's our little luxury and makes us feel very special!

Meanwhile, the temperature rises here. Afternoons are spent in the shade with the fan on as we go well over the 30 degree mark. Chinese New Year brought a mass of new visitors to Luang Prabang. Saturday night was as busy as we’ve seen it, with hundreds of Chinese and Vietnamese tourists and cars. Apparently the Chinese government has declared a month-long holiday for New Year this year in an attempt to boost consumer spending.

One of the many beautiful temples in Luang Prabang.

The bungalows have been full as well, and it’s become difficult to keep up with the steady stream of Australian, American and German couples appearing for perhaps two nights, sharing travellers’ tales and then moving on.

At weekends the boys do their chores around the garden. Here are O, Fly and Bobby clearing undergrowth in the dry stream bed that runs past our bungalow.

Yes, it's another amazing moth!

Back to civilization!

9 February 2013

What a relief it was to cross over the river from Chiang Khong in Thailand back to Hok Say in Laos. Just 3 minutes on the ferry but a couple of decades in “development”. On the one side of the river you have western-style shops, cars, clothes, wifi, tv, hustle and bustle. On the other side it’s chaotic, dusty and low-tech but oh so much friendlier. I love the Laos immigration office – hundreds of visitors trying to get their visas stamped stand and wait around outside the passport control window. As each passport gets completed and handed out, the people nearest the window call out the name so that the passport can be collected. All very good humoured and relaxed.

Hok Say passport control.

A major prospect on the horizon is the second new bridge across the Mekong just east of Chiang Khong/Hok Say. The bridge itself has just been completed, and once the immigration offices have been built in the next year, the Laos-Thai border crossing will open. Of course all the guest houses and ferries at the current crossing point will lose their custom and the towns will basically have to move a few kilometres downstream to the new bridge. Personally I worry about anything that will make it easier for Thai/Western culture to seep across the river and infect Laos!

Earlier, in Phayao, Thailand, we visited a curious "Garden of Heaven and Hell", populated with bizarre Hieronymous Bosch-style sculptures

Dinosaurs, unicorns, deities and the Buddha!?

Trevann at the entrance to Hell!

We wave goodbye to our River House guesthouse from the river.

Our downstream journey in the slowboat was as beautiful as the upstream one, but the weather was better. And of course it’s much faster so we didn’t need to set off so early in the mornings. We were collected from our guesthouse in Chiang Khong at 7.50, giving us time to enjoy the early morning views from our balcony.

Dawn from the balcony.

A bit of gentle exercise overlooking the Mekong.

The last two slow boats to arrive in the evening race to port.

There were 15 of us on the boat this time, plus our guide, Kae. After a few hours, drifting serenely past stunning landscapes – more pix of river, forest, mountains, river, ... – we stopped off at a Khmu village. There’s very little evidence here of any way of making a livelihood. In contrast, on the second day we stopped off at a Lao tribe village, where all the women came out with woven cotton scarves for us to buy at 50,000 kip each, and there were well-tended gardens plus pigs and chickens. Much wealthier.

Kae at the Khmu village.

Khmu villagers.

Much more prosperous Lao village.

Well-tended veg plot on fertile river silt.

The stopover at Pak Beng was much easier than last time. Although we still slept in a hotel room designed by morons, the evening meal was good. We all ate together and Kae tried, unsuccessfully, to enrol us all in a Lao whisky drinking game involving a decapitated chicken. Most of us being mature travellers well past the age of such hilarity it was perhaps ambitious of him to try.

Kae tries to start up a drinking game.

This woman in Pak Beng market was teaching her daughter how to make a net bag.

It was nine hours on the boat on the second day which sounds like a long time, but it’s such a relaxed way to travel it is not arduous at all. You can move around, help yourself to tea and coffee, talk to fellow passengers, or just gaze at the view as new landscapes gently pass by in front of your eyes.

Red silk cotton trees lose their leaves then suddenly produce bright red blossom at this time of year. The villagers dry the flowers and make soup from them.

Every now and again a cargo ship rumbles by.

Uta - German co-passenger.

We reached Luang Prabang at about 4 o’clock, rang Khone, got picked up in the jeep and were back in our own bungalow within the hour! How wonderful to be home!

Ripples on the water reflect the ripples on the land. 

It really is stunningly beautiful.

There have been changes since we left just over a week ago. In that time, piped water arrived and a new wifi system has been installed, which will (eventually) allow wifi in the bungalows instead of the current arrangement where you have to go to the communal area to get a signal. It’s good to see “improvements”, but I can’t help worrying that rapid development will lead to the loss of everything that makes Laos such a delight to live in.