The trip up north

Many thanks for your comments on my last blog, I have been in constant touch with Jazz back at Erawan and he has been keeping me abreast of the fire situation in Victoria, I can’t really think of words to say that would adequately cover it, it is a surreal feeling watching the images on the TV. You get used to seeing images of disasters on the news; Katrina, Asian Tsunami, George Bush etc. but to see them from your home is shocking. On BBC world this morning, the top story was the Memorial service from the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, although I am not in Australia at the moment, I would express my solidarity with my countryman, all I can do is wish people well and hope they all get through this OK.
Its been a tough few days in Vientiane with one thing and another, things not running to plan etc. realising I needed a break from the city. I do like Vientiane, it’s a fascinating place, but it can be hard going sometimes, not as much as Bangkok, but I guess if you add heat and humidity to anywhere it can be a strain. Myself and Vene talked about over dinner with Somjan and his wife Ng and we decided to hire a car and drive out to the country for a couple of days. I was up for driving to Louanphrabang which is about a nine hour drive but Vene said it was too far for just a few days and suggested Talad instead ( meaning ‘market’), a town by the side of big lake which was just a few hours drive north in Vientiane Province. I picked up a 2006 Ford Ranger, I wanted a normal sedan but the hire car companies said you can only have a sedan if your staying in Vientiane, the roads get so bad outside of the city that they insist that you have a 4WD, normally you get a driver at no extra cost but not my way of doing things.

Dinner at The Moon The night with Somjan & Ng

Takes about an hour to get out of the city traffic although the city limits get a little blurred, it is just a gradual thinning out of the traffic chaos and more wildlife on the road. We took the opportunity to drop in at the Hui Hanna waterfall, which is where myself, Chris and Somjan were going to ride to for a cold drink on our return from the RTC the Sunday before, but the 18 km round trip from the main road on top of the 1 ½ hours that we already had covered was too much. There is an enormous sign pointing the way and local talk suggests that it is very beautiful, so as we had a good set of wheels I thought it was worth a look see. Vene try to discourage me saying that there wasn’t anything there, I said that there doesn’t have to be anything there I just wanted to have a look at the waterfall. OK OK OK, always listen to local knowledge, on the plus side it is very peaceful, you are certainly not going to be disturbed by falling water, a bit of poetic licence was used in the naming as I would not consider a weir a waterfall, specially one that doesn’t ‘weir’. There appeared to be some sort of aquatic park with bars/restaurants and such which was completely deserted and run down apart from a sultry young girl who approached us to relief us of 15,000 kip (about $AUD3), I did inquire exactly what we were paying for and the response was ‘ everybody pays’, which is not a answer at all. The word disappointment didn’t quite cover it. So back on the road.

The cascading waterfalls at Hui Hanna

Just north of Kilometre 56 the road hits the mountains and twists and turns at a steep angle. According to Vene this is nothing compared to roads from Vang Viang to Louanphrabang, the roads are not to bad it was the suicidal driving that was the biggest concern, overtaking on blind bends is the norm. Also the road winds through a lot of small villages and is quite narrow, the houses come right up to the edge, there are small children and school kids everywhere with simply no sense of the danger, the idea of hurtling through at 80 kph is just plain stupid. We arrived in Talad after about a 2 ½ hour drive, must admit didn’t look much of a town apart from a picturesque river. Anyhoo, after a few inquires we were pointed to towards a decent hotel, I was expecting it to be in the town but we crossed the river towards Lake Namnyung. The centre of Laos is very mountainess and covered in forest, this would explain why there are no trains in Laos; I don’t think I have ever been to a country that does not have trains before. The mixture of mountains and lakes mean that they are very big on hydro electric power and we passed a large dam and then up again into the mountains. After about 30 minute drive we found a hotel which had a simply spectacular view of the lake, so we decided this was our pitch. The location of the Namnyung view hotel was a small fishing village of about 200 people and the port for boats travelling the lake. All though the view from hotel room was spectacular it was rather odd that we were the only guests in the hotel. We decided to have a walk into the village for dinner and this was also strange, there were many large restaurants which all had inviting fulang names and were completely empty, again we were the only people eating out. I suspect that the village were used to having a large number of fulang, and I would guess at construction of the dam, now that the dam was finished there was nobody here and the village was dying as a consequence. It would be interesting to reflect on the cause and effect of large injections of cash into a community for projects such as this, the amount of different variables are long and complex but there is one thing that is certain in any project which effects communities it is essential to understand to reap the true benefits you have to be prepared to be in for the long haul (Are you listening George Bush). I was OK with the room, it was a great view and the peace and quiet after the noise of Vientiane, but Vene was a bit freaked out by it (the Laos equivalent of the twang of banjo’s) and cajoled me into driving to Vang Vieng the following morning.

Smart set of wheels

Lake Namnyung

Breakfast with a view

Hydro electricity

I had heard of stories about an Vang Vieng being bit of a tourist trap, but if there is one thing that I have learnt is don’t take anybodies word for it, go have a look for yourself, plus gives me a chance to see a bit more of this fascinating country. The three hour drive north was fairly uneventful, average speed was about 50 kph, traffic, windy roads and slow driving through the towns and villages keeps the average speed down. The approach to Vang Vieng is beautiful, the mountains jut out of the flat countryside the product of a violent tectonic movement at some prehistoric point in time. A shallow river runs between the town and the mountains and the choice places to stay are river side. The town itself is exactly as described, the Laos equivalent of Torremalenos or Sanur beach, Bali with a bit of Ibiza thrown in, thousands and thousands of pissed backpackers from every conceivable corner of the globe descending on this small town in the middle of Laos to drink, dance, partake of ‘de ‘erb’ and attempt to breed. I shouldn’t be too harsh; it is exactly the sort of thing I would have been doing ¼ century ago, so I shouldn’t be tut tuting at the following generation’s excursions. Having said all this we managed to find a real good hotel which the view from the bedroom balcony is simply breathtaking, especially the sunset which I completely failed to take a photograph of. The river below our balcony was in the process of being dredged, by hand no less. I watched the six guys for about 10 minutes and I was exhausted watching them. I took a short video on my camera but the file is too large to load onto the blog but I shall describe the process.
There are two rickety wooden pontoons which are hardly above water level, they walk a wheel barrow down to the end of the pontoon and turn it round, grab a shovel and jump into the water, at this point the water was up to their midriff. They commence to shovel the rubble out from the river bed and toss it into the barrow. When the barrow was full they pushed it back up the pontoon and built up the banks with it. When that bit was dredged sufficiently the all jumped into the water and dragged the pontoon to the next bit. Keep this up all day and add heat and humidity, (although the water would be keeping them cool), they would be earning about $2 a day doing this.
We took a walk down to the riverside and bought a couple of cold drinks at a riverside bar, who looked like they were just starting to wind up for an evenings partying so it was pretty quiet, Vene said the bars usually close about 5:00 AM. We sat ourselves on one of the river bank drinking couches and watched the spectacular sunset over the mountain. The choice entertainment for the backpacker was to hire a truck inner tube and jump in the river at the top end of the town, park yourself in the inner tube and let the gentle flow of the river take you all the way to the riverside bars. So there was a constant stream of semi inebriated backpackers passing in a inner tube in front of us. The new game of “guess the nationality of the pissed backpacker” was created, a more sophisticated version of Pooh sticks.

The view from our hotel

The following morning we went to the Tham Jang caves for a quick look see before setting off back for Vientiane. For those that followed my blog of my travels through Thailand last year may remember I visited the Erawan Caves near Udon Thani which I found on the off chance, they were a bit off the beaten track and although they were pretty spectacular the facilities were pretty poor (including a very poor lighting in the caves).Tham Jang caves being in a large tourist trap was a different matter. Like the Erawan caves there were more than sufficient steps to get to the entrance 147 of them this time( as apposed to the 610 to the Erawan Caves), these were much steeper and alarmingly hard work. The cavernous interior was much smaller than the cathedral like Erawan caves but the rock formations were more ornate and the stalactite and stalagmite formations were exquisitely detailed. The interior was well lit and had solid walkways and steps, the use of coloured lights emphasised the beauty of the rock formations which was a bit touristy but effective.

Tham Jang Caves

It was going to take most of the day at a steady pace to get back to Vientiane. The drive back was the same as the drive up except heading south instead of heading north. Vene wanted to stop and buy a fish for her mother on the way back, apparently the fish is cheaper an fresher in the country and is ‘free range’ as apposed to ‘fish farmed’, I could not say weather there is any difference in the taste, it would be easy to say it’s rubbish, but I have been caught out too often by my ignorance. We stopped at a small town called Tha Heua about 50 km south of Vang Vieng, a town famed for it’s fish, this was apparent by the shear number of fish mongers, in fact the whole town appeared to be entirely fish mongers. I was reminded of one of Douglas Adams creations, can’t remember the book exactly, possibly ‘long dark tea time of the soul’, which had a planet called ‘Frogstar’ which fell into ruin by being over run by shoe shops. Fish purchased on our way again.

A town entirely comprising of fish mongers

Our final stop was at Nam Nik Kayaang, an eco village which had a huge signpost by the side of the road, I thought with the biogas, sustainability thing I was getting involved in it might be good to do a bit of networking. A new road and plenty of signposts were of ominous sign of style of substance and I was not disappointed, although there did seem to be some small holding banana plantation, there was nobody there, the only thing of substance was a shallow river which was pretty and had a group of ‘river urchins’ as apposed to ‘street urchins’ who were having the most enormous fun dragging a long bamboo pole up and down the river for no apparent purpose. I must admit the kids here are great, they smile all the time and will often shout ‘hello’ to you or ‘ sabai dii’ the Laos equivalent. They are always interested in the fulangs; I think they are just as curious about me as I am about them. On the whole it’s not a begging thing, they never seem to be after anything, the street beggars in Vientiane are quite confrontational which is a bit off putting, the Thai beggars are very placid and if you give them anything will return with a blessing, I have found some of the Laos beggars quite aggressive.
After dipping our toes in the water we headed back to Vientiane to hit the Friday night traffic, filling the Ford Ranger up with diesel was a bit of a shock ,I don’t know why I think I was used to filling the step through up for about $AUD3, the ranger came to 210,000 kip over $AUD40. We were both pretty tired, the Ranger is not an easy car to drive and although apart from the odd detour it was all highways. Having said that a highway which is not the smoothest, very twisty and steep in places and shear concentration to avoid everything else on the road. So the fatigue was a little understandable. Imagine my delight when they told me that my room had been let out and I would have to stay in a different hotel for the night, this was the second time they had done this so I told them to shove it, I did get the feeling that someone at the hotel didn’t want me there, you would not normally do this to a guest who tends to stay for months at a time. A quick decision was made and we decided to check in at the Hotel Vansana which is out on the Road 13 South, a bit out of the city and the drive across town in Friday evening rush in the Ranger was pushing my stress needle into the red, remember in such a tall car you can see the any of the step-throughs flying around you, at night it is worse as they don’t use their lights, they don’t look and the don’t stop. If you hit one, you are a fulang so it is your fault. The Vansana Hotel is a bit more expensive but has a very good swimming pool. The rooms are very pleasant and the cable TV has Australian network so I managed to catch the Hawks and the Demons game from Launceston. The internet is pretty poor here, there are “ETL Wi-fi available here” stickers everywhere but why should you pay for a service when the free stickers will do the job just as well.

Vene amongst the river urchins

A long way on a step-through

How to hide a large market
















The Entrance to Vientianes Wattay Airport at rush hour
















Generic market shot #1
















Generic market shot #2 'who's for curry ?'
















Generic market shot #3 dried fish















Amongst the laburnums at the RTC



















Insert humorous double entendre




















Just plain nasty



















Generic market shot # 4

















Generic market shot # 5 'who ordered the fish with flies?'

A long way on a step through

Now I’ve found my bearings a little better in Vientiane I am starting to shop smarter, there is a small supermarket, café, bike hire place which is right in the centre of Vientiane which is distinctly French, the coffee and the baguettes are excellent, I used to do most of my shopping there as it is clean, air conditioned, well organised and a most of the products are recognisable, they even have Belgium beer, Jameson’s Whiskey and Tim Tams amongst other goodies, but they do charge fulang prices ( prices are comparable with what you would pay in Europe) which is OK for a short stay but if I’m going to live here it is an outrageous thing to do, the Laos don’t shop there. Vene told me that there is a huge under cover market called “Talad Thong Khan Kham” which is not far from the hotel and is hidden from the main road by soothing that looks like a run down market, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. It’s really worth finding these places they are a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds and smells. I also took on the opportunity to try and get to grips with this completely mad money system they have here.

More on money and numbers;

This not the first time I’ve bleated on about the Laotian kip but I have been in Laos for a total of about 2 months now and it is still giving me grief. Just a quick re cap, there are 5000 kip to the Australian dollar at the moment, this makes conversion a lot easier than when I was last here when it was 8000 kip to the Dollar. 50,000 kip is $10, 1,000,000 kip is $200, diving things by 8 in your head whilst working out all the zeros is a headache. Being such small denominations it is not long before you are buying even small items that you are getting into the hundreds of thousands. Unlike English, Laos and Thai have different names for one thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand and a million, tends to repeat after that i.e. the word for a billion will be a thousand million. So not only do you have to know the basic integers, but also the multiples of 10 all the way to a million (not a lot costs over $200 in Laos). Otherwise you fall into the most basic of ‘trying to speak another language’ which being able to ask the question, no problem, ‘How much’ is ‘todd dy’, and then not understanding the answer. In the tourist area’s there is usually a large calculator on hand to punch the digits in, not here.

Then there are these damn notes. All the same size and the 1000 kip, 2000 kip & 10,000 kip are all blue. In addition one side of the note has the Laotian numbering system ( it is a decimal system so at least that helps ) but the zero was a later edition so zero’s are universal but the first number is Laos, the 1 looks like 9 and the 2 looks like a 6. Being Laos it is very important to have the picture of revolutionary leader ( still haven’t got his name yet) on everything so you have three notes which are the same size the same colour with the same picture , a lot of zero’s and confusing numbering system. To add to confusion the 5,000 kip, 20,000 kip and 50,000 kip are all brown, same size and same picture.

Back to the market; its times like this I really miss having a house, there such a huge variety of fish, fruit, vegetables and spices that I would really like to jump in at the deep and start creating bizarre dishes. Neil Perry would be wetting himself, ‘all the flavours, and fusions, and local produce - I could charge somebody a hundred bucks for that’. What your mssrs. Perry, Ramsey et al. would not show was the amount of flies that are swarming round the meat and fish stalls, more than a Aussie BBQ. I took some snaps, I’m sorry their a bit blurred but I didn’t want to use my flash as some people get a bit funny about that sort of thing, not in the belief that it captures your soul but more in the belief ‘he’s taking pictures, there must be a buck in it for me’.

On Sunday, Myself Chris & Somjan road up to the RTC, the hospital run by Master Kampu up close to Kilometre 48. Somjan used to work for SED-LAOS but has since left but has remained a good friend and was happy to come along as translator if we covered his expenses. My aim was to fit the new air inlet and to get tier diesel generator running on biogas. Our mode of transport this time would be three step-through motorcycles that we own/hired between us. It is not long trek just over out to Kilometre 48, which is 48 Kilometres from Vientiane city centre (clue is in the name) and then a hanger left onto a very rough dirt track for about 10 Kms. Through the city on Sunday morning then out on Road 13 North at about the same speed we reckoned on about 1 ½ hours each way which is not a big stretch but the seat on a step-through is not really meant for those sorts of distances so by the time you get off you feel like you’ve been interviewed by Molly Meldrum. The last time we were here was the wet season and the rough road was mainly deep puddles although the deep ochre soil seems to have very low percolation and didn’t seem to get any worse. This time it is the dry season and the road is mainly sand, deep in places. Sand and motorbikes are not a good mixture but the step-throughs are only a tad over 50 Kgs so they weren’t difficult to save if you felt it going over. Anything larger that was not built for the task would have been a hand full, (Charlie, Claudio has fallen off again).

On arriving at the RTC we were met by Master Kampu and his wife, MK was in surgery, which is conducted Laos style, whole families come by truck load, boat load or motorbike load and they all sit in front of MK as they are examined one by one and MK preaches the health gospel to all assembled. Although my Laos is still at the basic level the word ‘Boom Boom’ was mentioned a number of times which is the Asian colloquialism for coitious. So this would account for the Laos distinct lack of embarrassment and uninhibited talk. Whilst the surgery continued we went down to the diesel shed which was having a refit (new thatch) and after a bit of dicking around with the hose and the inlet and getting water out of the biogas pipe, I tried to fire the thing up. Unfortunately it did not work at all; the engine just did not like the gas. I tried different combinations of mixtures and throttle positions and then put the gas directly into the air intake, still nothing. Hugely disappointing and a huge headache to figure out what to do next. There should be no problem but I think it is a combination of the poor state of repair of the diesel (probably only about 14:1 compression) and the poor quality of the gas, further investigation needed. We stopped for lunch and MK broke out the herbal local whiskey which he dug into with vigour. It was a terrific spread as it always is, some incredibly hot beef salads and clear soup and a mushroom dish which was just very difficult to describe. Kampu tends to starting talking after a couple of drinks and through Somjan he was making some remarkable claims about the herbal medicines that he was creating. I won’t mention anymore here as we discussed a number of different ways that his claims could or should be verified and having it in the public domain could be counterproductive. We met some of his patients who seemed quite happy to be paraded in front of us these included a women who had the illness of ‘talking too much’ I could not possibly comment. Also a young man who had a terrible cancerous growth on his neck (see picture) which MK was treating with his herbal medicine. It is impossible to find the words to cover the different emotions you have when you see such a sad case as this, the positive is that he is receiving treatment but I could not possibly comment on weather his treatment he is receiving at the hands of MK is worse better or indifferent than the treatment he would receive in the west (or even the large Hospital in Udon Thani, Thailand, which appears to be the first destination for serious illnesses in Vientiane). However I would be very interested in the outcome. As the afternoon wore on, I went and secured the new air inlet on their aging diesel whilst discussions were held on the possibility of building a better road to the hospital, somewhere in the region of $US12K to $US20K and the possibility of bringing power as well. The long ride back, needed a bum break by the time we got back into VT, we stopped at a small café, restaurant on the banks of the Mekong not far from Chris’s house and watched another beautiful sunset. I didn’t take many photos on my trip, the majority of the camera memory was taken up by a 1:30 min video of me attempting to get the diesel running on biogas for reference. I plan to return to the RTC when Sunny arrives which will be early March, hopefully I can find out why it won’t work and if possible fix it, or at least have the answers.

Back to the blogosphere

1. Disabled ramp Laos style
2. Vientians version of Arkwrights
3. Your friendly local compressor dealer
4. Full right up innext months superbike magazine
5. What a way to make a living
6. Yes that's human poo
7. & 8. tragic way to live
9. Bangkok anybody for public liability insurance
10. Dinner at Chris's house, Vene, Gai, Chris, Seb and Sebs offspring
11. All my own work
Return to the blogoshpere

Hi all
Yes my first blog is well overdue, the literary world has been suffering withdrawal symptoms since my last instalments (I wish) and I have been in Asia for over two weeks and approximately half way through my current tenure. Truth is I have been very busy with one thing and another and not had time to collect my thoughts.
First of all I should say soothing about the devastating fires in Victoria, It is times like this that global distances really hit you, although I can’t think how me returning would do any good at all, I did get a feeling I should be back at home. I forgot that the Triumph rally was last weekend up in Nug Nug near Mytleford, I had a text from Handle that everybody got back OK.
Anyhoo’s back to all things Laos, after spending a few days in Bangkok Catching up with Kwan’s friends and family with my mother I took the 1 ½ flight from Bangkok to Vientiane with Lao Airlines which was an experience. My first flight on a turbo prop aircraft a 60 seater Chinese built Xian MA 60. And it was comforting to know that one had crash landed in Manila only 10 days before ( although this was put down to pilot error). It was a real treat being bused out onto the tarmac seeing the Lao airlines MA 60 absolutely dwarfed by the 777’s and the 747’s next to it.
I must admit though it was pleasant flight, very smooth if not a little noisier than a larger plane and I love the simplicity of it, the safety display is “this is how your seat belt works” and that’s it. It doesn’t fly over water so there is no life vest and it only flies at 16,000 feet so there is no oxygen. The best part about it was the arrival at Vientiane airport, from the moment the wheels stop on the plane to getting in your taxi is around 15 minutes, I already had a visa so did not have to go through that process which saved sometime, but can you imagine how much longer a similar process takes at Heathrow.
My plan is to stay in Laos for about three weeks, in which time I had a number of different things I wanted to do a bit of work and a bit of pleasure, speaking of which it was good to catch up with my Laos lady friend, Vene, again, we hadn’t seen each other for 4 months, which was way too long. The first day I managed to sort myself out some wheels, a Taiwanese made YSM Magic110RR which is just about a powerful enough to pull the skin of a rice pudding, as long as you haven’t over baked the rice pudding. Anyhow it is only costing me $US5 a day.
I have picked up my previous contacts here and now have a more in depth idea of how much work is here, what I will be doing and most importantly how much I will get paid. Laos is on a steep upward curve at the moment so there is a lot of opportunity and a lot of chaos, which is kind of fun. I caught up with Souly from SEDA-Laos and we arranged for a trip out to the new municipal dump which is located at kilometre 32 on Road 13 south towards Paxan. As I mentioned in my blog last year they are building a new stadium as Laos will be hosting the SEA (South East Asia) games later this year, which is quite a formidable task for a developing country. Anyhoo the old municipal waste dump has been moved from next to the stadium and now has been turned into a golf course with money ‘donated’ by the Korean government. I would state for the record that everything I have heard about this development is that due process has been observed and there is not even the slightest hint of underhanded operations, malpractice or corruption.
I wasn’t too sure what my role in all this would be and as it is for SEDA-Laos I would be doing it of my own bat so it wouldn’t do any harm giving it the once over. The site is located 2 Km from the road on an unbelievable 750 Ha site (about 2000 acres) although only 100 ha is being used. I must admit the smell was no where near as bad as I thought it would be although the septic ‘pond’ was a bit ‘fresh’, I gather at warmer and wetter parts of the year the smell is unbearable, hence being 2 Km from the road . The most astonishing was that there were over 200 people living and working on the site, complete families with young children & babies. These are the ‘scavengers’ and there only source of income was to pull apart the bags of rubbish as they dumped and see what they can scavenge out of it, there is little of any value and it is mostly plastic (millions and millions of plastic bags), they then take their findings to the weigh station and are paid a some of money for the material they have found depending on what it is. These people are living in the most appalling conditions and are the very bottom of the food chain. I took a few photographs and must admit to feeling a little voyeuristic, and it does ram home to you that it doesn’t matter how tough your life gets, there are people in this world who are far worse off than you. The main reason for my visit was to assess what bio energy could be salvaged from the septic pit. Well there is not much there at the moment apart from a pit which is about 160m x 160m x approx 10m deep and is 75% full of human waste, a lot of poo. A vast amount of methane is leeching into the atmosphere and could be used for either or both biogas and bio generation and even the production of bio diesel by harvesting blue green algae. Anyhoo I will do a report for SEDA-Laos, my EWB colleague Sunny will be arriving in early March and he is very keen to do some development work there.
I have caught up with Doug Handisides a couple of times and been through the brief of how the whole Consultancy, payment, work visa thing goes, it really does depend on how much work there is around at the time. Laos has not been hit hard by the global economic meltdown aside from a lot of the larger overseas corporations and governments are pulling out or putting projects on ice whilst we are in this period of economic uncertainty. I have been doing a bit of research for him on a project which I can’t give any details on (a bit hush hush) on this blog, but it could be a project I can slot into on my return in mid 2009.
On Saturday we are riding out to the RTC hospital and meeting up again with Master Kampu, I managed to buy a new Air inlet for his Chinese Kubota diesel ( at $20 rather than the $160 I was quoted by the Kubota dealer in Oz) and assembled a separate inlet to take the biogas; I was quite pleased with it considering the tools I had to do it with. We will see how it goes on Saturday. Myself and Chris will be riding the 50 Km or so on two step-throughs so should be pretty exhausted by the time we get back.
Stay tuned for updates.