Interestiing visits

This is probably my last blog from Laos for a while, I’m heading back to Thailand next week and its looking like t is going to be a full week. I have been concentrating on getting things done here which I can only do here, I can write reports and do literature research in Melbourne. I can’t make visits or meet people who a useful/crucial to the project when I return. I have four, make that five specific visits I want to do in the time I am here. A visit to Laos university engineering department, a visit to a biofuels research facility, a visit to a Jatropha plantation, a visit to the Laos state fuel company and an organisation called MTEC which is actually in Bangkok so hope to visit on the way back through. I have managed the first 3 the engineering department was interesting, we met with the head of the faculty Dr. Khampan who I liked a lot. He spoke excellent English and was quite a fun guy. One of he main reasons for the visit is that LIRE does not have any workshops of their own so design, build, install and commission will have to be done outside, the idea of involving the university is the classic two way stream of giving the students projects to work on that exist in the real world and have finance to support them and in exchange we get university facilities and cheap labour (students). How the latter is needed is questionable when you can hire people for $4 a day. However the competence of the people you get is always ‘interesting’. I have some pictures of the university but they are mainly of equipment which will not interest many of you.
We then had trip to a privately backed biofuel research facility which was interesting. As many thing here it seems to be a project which had some money thrown at it in a short burst of enthusiasm and then for whatever reason been abandoned, stopped or just lost interest. Although this facility does seem to be still be being used after a fashion, a brand new building had just been erected which according to the head honcho, Sukan, was to house the laboratory and test facility, but I found out later that they are unsure what equipment to buy ( or do not have the money). They did a have an ‘all in one’ biodiesel reactor plant made by an organisation called MTEC, a Thai government institution based at Kasetsart Univeristy in Bangkok quite an impressive facility by all accounts. LIRE have a MOU (Memorandum of understanding) with them, although what that actually means in a country where a legally binding written contract is not worth the paper it is printed on is anybodies guess. Anyway that is trip number five.
Also managed to fit a trip number 3 which was to the Laos state fuel company to meet the manager of the renewable fuels department who was a very helpful and jolly man by the name of Phoukhong who for some reason spoke fluent Russian but not English or French. The main purpose of this visit was to ascertain what standard we had to make the biodiesel to seeing that Laos state fuel LSF would be both responsible for the quality control but also the distribution. Although the meeting was cordial everything was a little vague, I am getting the hang Laos meetings, its all a bit Chinese whispers until there is actual money placed on the table. Anyway agreements discussed and a MOU touted as the next step. We do need the cooperation of the LSF to commission the proposed plant we will need to test the biofuel produced and seeing that LSF have the only test equipment in Laos they do have a bit of a monopoly an situation I am sure they are fully aware of and will come to our notice when we have a to agree a price for the testing.
Shopping is always an interesting excursion, I know my way around the town pretty well now so if I want anything specific I know. I needed a new pair of sun glasses so the Chinese market (Taled Jean) out on Road T2 (Tanon 2 – Road #2 – Its communist lets keep it simple) was the place to go. After mooching around a couple of shops I found a sunglasses stand which seemed to have the sort of thing I was looking for. The young lady, presumably the shop owner, encouraged me into the shop for what I assumed was to show me some more sunglasses. She opened a large draw which was next to the sunglasses display and to my surprise it was full of quality made Chinese dildo’s . I was wondering what it was about my appearance that would dictate her to think that I was in need of such an item, it’s a worry.

I have finally got to the bottom of how to get hold of a decent sized motorbike; I have noticed that there are a few more on the road now so I was presuming there is some way round this law. The answer is no, A. you can not register a motorcycle over 250 cc. B. only a Laos national can have a vehicle in their name. I went down to ‘Jules classics’ which is a motorcycle hire shop in the centre of town. He has a Kawasaki 650 retro style which he was wanting to sell ( for the outrageous price of $US5500) and went through the fairly straight forward process you have to go through to get round the law. First buy your large motorcycle and also buy a smaller motorcycle of the same make i.e. a Kwak 125cc or 150 cc. File down the frame number and engine number and re stamp with the smaller models number, then change the plates. Then it’s just a matter of finding a dead Laotian to register in there name. Once he had explained it all to me I couldn’t se what all the fuss was about.
Today I exercised my democratic right, Australian federal election on the 21st of this month, for those not in the know it is against the law not to vote in the election in Australia. Being out of the country I a pretty good excuse and I wouldn’t be in too much hot water if I didn’t bother but the Australian Embassy is just around the corner from the Lire office and it is one of my ‘high horse’ issues about voting. Apart from the very sound argument ‘if you don’t vote you can’t complain’ there is an even better reason. Throughout the years many people have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live in a democracy however uneven, flawed or broken it may be. Not to vote would be disrespectful to their memory ( I will get down from my high horse now). The whole process was remarkable efficient and didn’t take to long at all. I was tempted to vote for the CEC ‘Citizens electoral council’ who I receive regular e-mails from for reasons I am not too sure, I did e-mail and them and asked them to stop and they replied by saying this was not possible for technical reasons, however I do find there press releases very entertaining. There political platform revolves around that there is a international conspiracy to reduce the worlds population by mass genocide being orchestrated by… get this… the British royal family. The main entertainment value you get here with voting is going back to the office and Laotians how difficult it is deciding which party to vote for.

Dinner at Hong view restaurant

Kiu ( Somjan borther ), Oon ( Somjans wife), Somjan, May and myself.










MK famous flushing toilet

Somjan MK and May on our trip to fix the final leak in his water filter

Sunday morning at the Abundant water facility

'sieving' the used coffee from Joma coffe shop

Tons of stone Jatropha drying at TRI biofuel research

Workshop at TRI note un opened crates containing 3 brand new chinese screw presses

Methanaol and Toluene being stored in the appropriate safe manor

Edward standing in fronto of MTEC Biodiesel reactor at TRI

Group of happy Laotions at hotel working with Belgium Anthropologist ( with glasses ) wanted there picture taking

The pool at Villa Sisavad and its 'unusual' colour

Some insect life here you don't need 'Dawsons exterminators' you need Signorey Weaver

Somjans House

May on our visit to Tat Lueang

A nice picture of Tat Lueang

Same again but me

Even the Laos ministry of tourism refer to Patuxay as a'monster of concrete'

May in front of Patuxay

Back to the RTC

Although I’m only on a short trip this time I did want to get out seeing Master Kampuu at the RTC hospital as we have become firm friends over the last few years, even though we don’t speak the same language. It was just a matter of fitting in with my schedule ( I am working Monday to Fridays and I would need Somjan to go with me to translate, who is also Monday to Friday ) then there was the transport, normally the road is passable on a motorbike in the dry season, just very sandy, in the wet season forget it. Also, I had been trying to arrange lunch with Souly from SEDA-Laos (Social and economic development agency ) the lady who is partially responsible for getting me involved with the RTC as the Biogas project was administered by SEDA. To be honest relationships had been strained between me and her for a while, she has a rather ‘confronting’ personality and we had left it as ‘staying friends’ rather than ’working together’.
Anyway phone going off at 7:00 AM Saturday morning which is very Souly ( ‘I’ve been up for hours, you should be up too’); Suggesting we could catch up for lunch and she was going to the RTC that afternoon, would I like to go with her ?. Cool that had transport and translation sorted out as well. So she picked me up at about 1:00 (only an hour late) and we set off for what is usually an hour or so drive to the hospital. I was reminded just how grating her personality was, I try to look up on as educating, the Laotians can be difficult to work with sometimes, As my colleague Edward stated that yes Laos has had a lot of civil strife in its history but there are still good reasons why Laos is so underdeveloped. They are utterly chaotic but still have these incredible layers of protocol you have to adhere to, also similar to the Thais, they love there paperwork. They also have a number of idiosyncrasies that can be quite honest baffling to an outsider at times. Souly is paperwork, protocols, idiosyncrasies all rapped in one, topped of with a huge dollop of self righteousness. Having said all this she is completely dedicated to help making life better for the poorer citizens of Laos and she produces real results, even though working with her is akin to sucking thick soup through a straw, after a while your head and jaw start to ache and is strangely unsatisfying.
Since I was here only 6 months I was utterly amazed at the amount of development that had been undertaken. The road is now fully developed, it was under construction 6 months ago, its not bitumen but a high density crushed rock which seems to be very resilient to both heavy vehicles and monsoon rains, for a time anyway. There was now a flushing toilet which was housed in its own separate ‘thunder box’ this had been constructed specifically for fulong visitors/ patients as the general ward toilet, to quote Arthur Daly, is a ‘sawn-off lavatory’. Perhaps the most telling improvement is there is now power, it would only take a few minutes to imagine what it is like living in a community that has no power, think back to your last power cut. Air conditioning is a bit of a luxury so you wouldn’t have it out in the sticks anyway, but no fans, no fridge, or freezer, no lights no TV, nowhere to charge your mobile phone. This is before you take into account this is a hospital with all the ‘interesting’ issues that would raise. They also have rebuilt the ward rooms which are now constructed from rendered brick but the number of rooms has shrunk from 6 to 4, they have installed a Thai made water filter, which when I arrived, was leaking. I now understood why Souly wanted to take me. They have to clean the filter elements on regular bases which should be a straight forward operation I have no idea why they had completely disassembled the unit. The simple truth these guys are not the most mechanical competent people in the world. They had already lost a couple of the components (this was only installed a months ago) and I suggested that to stop the unit leaking they should use the usual ‘teflon tape’ instead of plastic bags which they had employed. Kampuu son in law was dispatched to the local market to pick up some teflon tape to try to fix the worst of the leaks. The leak from the top of the filter was not repairable as they had lost the o ring but the other three were fixed. Just before the monsoon came down.
The other very noticeable thing was the level of the lake it had dropped by about 3 metres I asked Souly the reason for this and she said it was due to global warming, should have realised that I was going to get an answer like this, surprised the Chinese or the Thais weren’t involved somewhere but seriously if water levels in a lake have dropped 3mtrs in six months due to global warming we are in deep trouble.
The rapid development of the RTC site is representative of the shear amount of construction work that is being undertaken in Vientiane. There are new buildings, quite sizable ones going up everywhere particularly. I was in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 where a similar thing was happening, but on a much larger scale of course. There I did get the feeling that the economy was racing out of control (10% increase in GDP every years for 10 years is a doubling of the economy). I am not an economist but I was worried that nobody seemed to have their hand on the brake. The collapse of the ‘tiger’ economies less than a year later seemed to bear this out. I don’t get that unnerving feeling in Vientiane, it is a country which there is a definite need to improve basic infrastructure and in all honestly most of the public and private corporation buildings could do with a shake up. Most spectacular of all is the rejuvenation of the riverside in the city. Vientiane is a smallish city ( about Adelaide size ) and is perched on the banks of the Mekong, last year the river front all the way the Don Chan hotel near the friendship bridge ,all the way to the end of the river front road ( the tarmac bit anyway ) was a series of small bars and restaurants, admittedly some were in a state of disrepair consisting of wooden boards which you did not get a great deal of confidence walking over, however there were some fairly new and impressive restaurants such as the Mekong Deck. Well they have all gone a 5 km stretch of the river front has completely disappeared and is being subjected to a huge and dramatic makes over. Even by developed countries this is a huge project and hopes are they will do a good job of it, the it’s that are nearing completion certainly look OK. The emphasis will be for tourists which are a rapidly growing business however I would hope the locals will get a shout. It would be sad to see the new river front swarming with Starbucks and Mackas although I still think that the multinationals are still on the whole barred. The only multinational I have found so far is Swenson’s ice cream which has just opened opposite the Lao plaza hotel, At least we can get good ice cream now.

Next blog in about a week will include a visit to the University engineering department and a local biofuel plant.

Significant drop in the water level

Souly and the leaky water filter

The new brick built 'ward'

Things are not looking too good for you

The erosion caused by the rains has now exposed the dome of the bio reactor

Master Khamous wife Noi ( wearing same shirt)

Another view of MK's surgery showing how much water level had dropped.

Sundry cute kids

View from River back towards Don Can hotel

showing extensive modernisation of river bank

Same spot looking West

One of the many shops at Talad Jean ( Chinese Market ) showing the scale of chinese imports
The forground are 10.5 hp tractor motors

First week in the world of Jatropha

Thanks for all your comments on my last blog, as always with Laos it has been a bit of a mixed bag since getting here. I have to admit to being mildly disappointed in the work program at LIRE, It is much more of a laptop, spread sheet, ghant chart, power point research project than actually putting something practical together(Phase 2 should be a bit more active ). So I have been locked in an air-conditioned office since I got here. On the plus side I have been locked in an air-conditioned office since I got here, which is pretty nice since the atmosphere becomes unbelievable oppressive just before the afternoon monsoon (about 3:30). It is rainy season here and Vientiane is remarkable quiet although I am astonished at the number of new buildings that has cropped up in the six short months since I was last here, and I’m sorry to say the architecture is awful.
The other thing is I have been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement with LIRE with regard to the project I am working on so I am very limited on what I can actually say about it other what I have spouted already, essentially making biodiesel form Jatropha. I can say that of the 12 people who are in the bio fuels team there are only 3 of us in the Laos office, there is a Paul a French mining Engineering student in his gap year and Edward who is English and a true academic he is the de facto team leader and is a agronomist from Oxford and seemed to have been everywhere and is a thoroughly nice chap. In a very short space of time seemed to have jelled into a cohesive unit and have a good working dynamic. We have managed to pull all the strands of the project together into something that is starting to make sense after what appears to be a inordinately long period of ‘knitting fog’ I can’t take the credit for being the catalyst for the phase one of the bio fuels project, more of just being in the right place at the right time, but hey I’ll take the credit if I can.
Yesterday I took the afternoon off to take a ride out to Doug’s place, to have a look at the new Abundant Water facility. To keep you up to speed, Abundant Water is a project run by a colleague of mine, from EWB (Engineers without Borders) Sunny Forsyth, a rather ingenious way of making water filters from local materials. www.abundantwater.org. Doug Handisides runs an engineering consultancy Lao Techno Engineering and has a compound on the North side of the city. Doug, Sunny and a few others I have yet to meet, have put together a R&D facility which is hoped to serve a duel purpose, firstly as a R&D and training centre and secondly as a tourist ‘attraction’ for Overseas visitors. This may sound a little odd but it has a good basis. Your average traveller to Laos is looking for something a little different than tourist travelling to Phuket or Koh Samoui, If you do a quick Google of Laos tourism it is difficult to find a trip which does not have the word ‘adventure’ in it somewhere ( which sums the place up quite well). Consequently, the overwhelming response you get when you ask talk to visitors here is a. they want to do something constructive and b. they want to do something with the locals. The plan is to offer one day ‘excursion’ to the facility bridging them out from the centre of town (about a 30 min tuk tuk ride) to AWHQ. They will meet with Nucam, who is a master potter and has been helping sunny develop the abundant water process, bizarrely her husbands name is ‘Kwan’. Have a go at making some small pots, firing them and then having lunch with Nucam and her family. Afternoon maybe an excursion (not figured this bit out yet) whilst the firing completes and the pots are allowed to cool down and then testing. Should be all do able in a day.
Anyhoo just to about to have a drive up to the RTC to meet with Master Kampu so BFN



an ice cream called 'happy face'















Somjan and son
















an oddly specific poster on hygiene













Jatropha tree growing outside Lire office



















The interior of Abundant waters HQ



















The 'museam'
















Quality signage 1















the abundant water 'office'
















quality signage '2'














much vaunted jatroha nut















more of the same - 700 kg to be precise

blogosphere return ( sorry no pix)

18th July 2010
Back to the Blogosphere on now what is my forth Sojourn into Laos.
I have added a few new e-mails on the circulation list and as always please let me know if you would like me to take you off the circulation list. I am pleased to say that nobody has requested me to do so. So that proves their spam filter must be working.
Slight change of format this time, I had a number of comments from my previous blogs that there was too much technical stuff, it’s a fair point I tend to get carried away with the finite technical detail, which at the time for me is very interesting, but being viewed remotely from a blog can be a little irrelevant. To get round this I will post the technical stuff on my other ‘technical blog’ www.erawan-biogas.blogspot.com ( no new posts yet )and reference it in this the main blog for those who have a technical interest. I am also using the technical blog as a resource and information exchange for people working on similar projects around the world. I hope this all makes sense, now if we are all sitting comfortably then we shall begin.
I have jus arrived Saturday 17th July flying Laos Airlines, the worlds only cash only airline, I got the ticket from there Bangkok office in Silom plaza which is the size of a small chemist shop, they only accept cash and then write your ticket out by hand, ‘quaint’. Then worked my way up to the airport for the one hour flight from Bangkok Suvahnibum airport to Vientiane Wattay international airport on one of Laos airline fleet of Chinese made M60’s. There is simply no reason to be apprehensive about flying Laos Airlines over that of say other major airlines, they have a reputation of bouncing around a bit in heavy weather and of course this has more to do with the size of the aircraft rather than its mechanical integrity, however although I am one of the worlds least spiritual individuals I paid a visit to the airport temple to make merit and keep good Karma on my side. What the hell whilst I’m about it I went to the chapel and the mosque as well. Might as well go for the trifecta.
Now feeling very at home in the country which has still not made the technological breakthrough of keeping the shower head in one position when you are having shower; I am sorry I am winging already, must break that habit. Speaking of winging, I now have managed to watch the ‘Top Gear Vietnam special’ which I did purely for research purposes. Quality entertainment I must admit but I do wonder of the ‘magic’ of television. I do remember back in my youth taking a day trip to Skegness from where I lived in Leicester a distance of 70 miles on a new Honda CD175, by comparison a luxury item to what the ‘Top gear’ squad were riding and I needed at least 3 ‘bum breaks’ there and back, the idea of a middle aged man covering a 1000 miles on a Honda C50 Cub and not complain about a sore arse ( especially when you have found just about everything else to complain about) is not in the real world. Any how my 2¢ done.
This trip only short about 3 weeks I am on secondment to The Laos institute of renewable energy (LIRE) specifically to work on a project in conjunction with the Laos ministry of agriculture and the Laos governments Poverty Alleviation Program. This is to produce biodiesel from a plant called Jatropha (known in the west as Physic nut). Never actually seen any yet but it is a widely spread plant in Asian parts. Has a number of benefits, first up it is poisonous (apparently only about 3 will kill you) because of this it is used for hedging, (livestock wont eat it), it is very fast growing and has a high lipid content (oil) and grows in marginal land i.e. does not require arable land to grow so in theory should not replace existing cash crops such as rice and ……………. rice.
My personal interest in this is two fold, firstly as part of the Laos government poverty alleviation program is to generate income to some of the more impoverished regions of Laos which put quite simply is a very fulfilling thing to do. Also gives me a great sense of smug satisfaction when I talk to HR consultants for doing something worth while with my life (oddly enough you get the same sense of smug satisfaction from HR consultants for precisely the same reason).
Secondly is to throw my hat into the ring with the whole sustainable energy issue a subject I am very passionate about.
There are many pro and con arguments for and against biodiesel manufactured from arable feedstock, all of which have validity. My own personal belief is it is not the answer but could be part of the solution if handled correctly. One of the good things I have found working at Lire is the focus of the programs, As part of the proposed solution is not to fall into the trap of the Indonesian palm oil fiasco, something which seems like a good idea can soon turn into a complete nightmare for everyone except for a handful of commodity brokers and speculators in the financial capitals of the world. Nothing new there then.
The primary focus for the project is poverty alleviation so I can’t see the hillsides of Laos being slashed and burnt for the production of Jatropha anytime in the future; Laos State Oil Company is not going to challenge BP or Exxon for market share.
I am part of a team comprising of about 10 individuals who have been communicating so far via a Google group. (We are spread pretty far and wide). And as far as the program goes we are early doors. My involvement specifically, although I am sure I will be cajoled into performing other tasks, is the processing the oil produced by the Jatropha into a biodiesel which is not only useable but to a high enough quality to be recognised by an international standard. The process by which this is done has the ridiculous name of ‘Transesterification’ a process which removes the long chain fatty acids which occur naturally in the oil by loosing a proton somewhere (have you looked down the back of the sofa). Anyhow won’t go into too much detail here see Erawan-biogas.blogspot.com but I do no it involves the use of some unpleasant chemicals, vast amounts of hot oil and extremely tight quality control. If you picture the places where all this is going to take place i.e.: small isolated villages in deep jungle, you start to see some of the ‘challenges’ that lie ahead. ‘Quality control’ and ‘OH&S’, it has to be said in all fairness, are not phrases which are banded around in Laos very often.
Anyhoo
I will start on Monday, Tomorrow picking up my wheels and hopefully getting some laundry done.

TTFN