Laos - throw away the rule book

1. Sunny & Master K show some skin
2. Ssshhhh genious at work
3. The bizzare discotech at kilometer 48
4. Hotel delivery Laos style
5. I have to get it installed before the grand final
6. Stop for lunch in Hong Phon with Ven
7. Doug's Roller, probabaly the only one in Laos
8. Doug's compound in Dogphone
9. The irrepressable Doug
10.Villa Sisavad
11. Beta testing the atmospheric control unit
12. Get a diesel engine to run on 100% propane, no problem

I know it has been a long time between blogs (I’m sure there should be an appropriate cyber expression, how about ‘blogout’ or ‘blogage’ could work). The truth is I have just realised I have been in VT (Vientiane) for almost 2 weeks now. I should explain that my trip was more about the adventure of doing something new and interesting and not about covering thousands of K’s on a motorbike, if I find something interesting to do I will stay. I did have a funny feeling this would happen in Laos as I had contacts for the projects here with EWB (Engineers without borders). I have found the work I have been doing here professionally the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I have many trials and tribulations in my years as a professional engineer, I have worked with and for some good people but to be honest I have struggled with most professional relationships as I have serious problems with the corporate bullshit thing. I don’t mind mentioning by name the people I worked with at Festo were just plain unpleasant. It was interesting that myself and Sunny were talking about some of the absurdities of corporate mentality and I mentioned that Festo had copyrighted the font for the logo and Sunny say “Why would you ever want to work for a company that copyrights fonts?” Which just encapsulates perfectly my sentiments. Anyhoo back to the story, in terms of covering ground and visiting different countries, the journey has stalled in Vientiane, however in terms of my personal journey I have covered more uncharted territory in the last few weeks than I have in most of my life. The appeal of Laos is very hard to define; it is certainly not the traffic which is scary. We have given nicknames to local traffic junctions when we give directions to each other and amongst them the ‘no rule roundabout’ and the ‘no looky, no stopy junction’ seriously if you stop and look you will cause an accident. The people are just terrific and always friendly and smiling, but there is something else here which is impossible to define, perhaps a simpler way of life or maybe the contradictions they have in their culture which is a constant source of education and amusement.

The biogas project at the RTC is ‘progressing’ but as always with everything here it is never straight forward, there are a few teething problems and trying to educate the locals in the art of controlling input variables, is difficult if they spoke English, as they don’t it all has to be done in gestures and hand signals, as the principle power source is cow poo it’s just too ‘carryonesque’. I made a very good contact a guy by the name of Doug Handisides, I had his contact through EWB and Sunny knows him quite well. He is quite an extraordinary technical/ entrepreneurial tinkerer with a huge compound on the outskirts of VT which is an Allidins cave of engineering stuff. We said we are trying to get an old diesel generator to run on biogas/ diesel duel fuel. He said he had an old Kubota diesel that he has been running on a mixture of all sorts of bio crops, if we came back the next day we will get it running on propane (ends in ‘..ane’ near enough). Sure enough after a lot of huffing and puffing it started and we had it running on 100% propane, admittedly it made a lot of noise without the diesel fuel but it did run and it did start.

We asked Master Khampuen if there is one item which would really help the hospital what it would be, he said that a cooling fan for some of the patients would be a good idea. So we have been trying to set up a system where we charge batteries using the diesel generator and storing the power in batteries. We then pass the 12V DC through and invertor to power a number of small fans. We found a very useful and helpful electrical shop in VT who, quite correctly, insisted in testing everything before it left the shop, we even had a roadside beta test, see photo.

We left the RTC very late one night and decided we all needed a cold drink and looked out for somewhere in the darkness that might still be open. We arrived at a place known only as Kilometre 48, so small it does not even have a proper name; we saw some flashing lights which normally indicate that beer is being sold. Turns out to be a discotech and it was heaving also had what was actually a pretty decent live band, this place is in the middle of nowhere (Bob’s country Bunker stuff). The band started playing some Laos folk songs so the girls were up and doing a traditional Laos dance on the suddenly crowded dance floor. I am so glad that I don’t do drugs or drink, this was difficult to handle on fresh air, welcome to Laos.

I am now in early September and I do need to be back in Oz to open up Erawan by the end of this month, so I have to start thinking of finding somewhere to leave the bike. My original plan was Chiang Mai although Doug compound in VT sounds like a better bet, there could be complications with the bike passport as it could be considered an import. If I go back to Chiang Mai I will have to think about heading there in the next week. So there is no Vietnam, Cambodia of Phuket on this trip. Yes it is a cop out on my trip but I just don’t care. If any of you have read Ted Simons ‘Jupiter’s travels’ he had the same problems and eventually took him 5 years to circumnavigate the globe on a Triumph Tiger.

Laos would not be to everybody’s taste, the people are great but you will not get the luxuries that you can get even in the remotest parts of Thailand. But if you want to go somewhere to give your mind body and spirit a bit of R&R, I would highly recommend it.