Marketplace - Bike Trip Part 3

       Ban Hin Heup

       Early morning market place as the village awakens. Not having skipped a beat, patriotic clips on the communal television set: the road scenes of the country de-garbagified to reflect the perfect Homeland.

       Buses come to stop here and the market people come out waving sticks of barbequed meat or eggs impaled on skewers. A man with a broom and shovel cleans up the large gravel expanse in front of the market.

       It rained last night and this morning the mountain is full of mist, rising slowly from the forest floor as though fires were being lit to lift the steam.

       Here, in the marketplace, the smell of charcoal burning; wood of forest essences cooks the rice and meat and this ancient smell bridges the then and the now.

       The couple who was here last night is still here. She breast feeds her baby and they are still waiting. I wonder what it must be like for a man to be able to offer no more than a table and corner cot in the marketplace for his wife and infant. I sadden at the futurelessness I see in his eyes.

       The fog lifts not. I’ve had my breakfast of phở, looking forward to my lunch of phở and my delicious phở dinner. As always I am amazed at the poverty of peasant cooking in Southeast Asia. Like the French, they have everything they need to make a varied cuisine and yet they always seem to eat the same thing, repetitiously; the brutish monotony of days merging with the soul-crushing monotony of their diet.

       This is the Wild East, where people struggle and make do. Why do any of these people leave their dirt villages and dusty trails? Wasn’t life simpler there? The cooking fires burn just as hot there and the surrounding forest cover protects them without outside help.

       Second cup of coffee. I brought instant coffee and milk with me from home. Other buses come; the vendors hold up their wares like crucifixes.

Sugar Mountain - Bike Trip Part 4

       …and then there’s the sheer miraculous nature of it; the razor sharp mountain peaks creeping out of the wide rice-fed plains. The roads are difficult, sometimes sand and sometimes gravel.

          Every now and again heaven and a local Central Committee send a perfectly paved stretch of road in the middle of nowhere and life breezes along – huts and villages, side roads, rice paddies and mountain views pass by in dust free bliss.

       Villages of wooden huts, a stream, most times with not even a temple. Last night’s rain patted the dust down for a while and the sky is still overcast, but now the air is again filled with the red earth. By the side of the road the dust cakes the shrubs and trees but you can see how quickly the leaves grow because at the end of every branch there is one leaf, pristine and new, standing solitary and bright green above its darker damaged siblings.

       I pass by an abandoned roadside market, bamboo stalls crumbling and falling at odd angles back into the earth. Falling roofs, rotten planks – the strategic placement of this market has evolved and soon nothing will be left of it save vague memories in the minds of a few old ladies. This is the archeology left for thousands of years by the Lao. No stones, no mason bridge works, no ancient brick structures. Only now are they making a less temporal claim to the land by using concrete and bricks and mortar. The rest has been left to decay.

Two Kilometres North of Ban Tha

       I awaken after a long and dreamless sleep; the mountain now backlit by the rising sun presents her steep cliffs to me, a wall of massive strength and power.

       The streets are already beating with children on their way to school and agricultural machinery en route to fields, matinal fires are lit to stave off the morning’s encroaching hunger sending their smoke rising in a profusion of activity through holes in kitchen roofs. The sweet burning smells of bamboo and jungle wood fill the air periodically. They come in snippets, with the passing of a breeze before giving way to the fresh morning scent of dew rising off the meadow.

       In the distant valley beyond the garden, mist rises and hides the body of another mountain, there in the distance, her shoulders are barely covered by the morning misty lace and her face is a thing of beauty rarely seen; sometimes glimpsed and often guessed at in the miraculous distance.

       As you can see, the play of smoke and mist, light and shadow play a large part in the hide-and-go-seek of these mountain mornings. All throughout the plain there are these mini-mirages, tiny ephemeral temples of mystery obscuring a view for a second or more before being dispersed by a wind or left behind to haunt the place while our own movement takes us down the road to yet another white smoky pillar of forgetfulness.

Savannakhet

Here’s the scoop, the low-down and the update on Savannakhet : it is a (presently) dry, sleepy provincial town with nothing to do and nothing to see.

In other words, it is a delightful place to be, to walk around and admire the crumbling French architecture, views of the Mekong and time passing.

The Savannakhet market is a huge sprawling affair, with rows of soup vendors. The Zeph and I enjoyed a wonderful chicken soup for breakfast and let ourselves be caressed by the sights and sounds, smells and flavours of this delightful urban gathering.

New Year’s Eve dinner was eaten at the Dao Savanh Restaurant. We reserved a table but it wasn’t necessary. The upstairs dining room was elegant, tastefully decorated and totally empty. Excellent food and wines, nice music, excellent service.

Walking through the nighttime streets after dinner was a treat; the Lao are party animals and we were invited to dance, to drink, to dance and to drink in the spontaneous outpouring of joy and generosity we have come to expect here. Human relations in this country are a treat.

Now that we have been back a few days, a sort of physical nostalgia is setting in for Savannakhet – it is a smaller Vientiane where time has stopped, traffic is less oppressive and the old French villas are allowed to crumble rather than being replaced by tasteless and gaudy Chinese pink cream pies. The river flows by it peacefully and time stands still.

Tomorrow I off on a bicycle trip: fresh country air and a bit of roughing it. Updates to follow.

Many thanks to my brother-in-law, Marc Boneu, for some of his photos and allowing me to use his wonderful camera to take others.

Savannakhet - The Frenchness Within

They are still here, the French. Just below the surface of any untouched urban space in Laos are the majestic villas and churches left by them. There are even some funky art-deco cinemas!

A peaceful provincial backwater like Savannakhet will boast an excellent French restaurant. Vientiane may be raging battle to wipe out this legacy but the French were here and they will always be here.

We spent some time in Savannakhet church. Calm, quiet and untouched except for the new floor tiles which belong in a bathroom.

Here are some images of The Way France Was.

What is left of her is beautiful, tragic. Sometimes you get glimpses of electric fixtures from the fifties, awnings and colourful brick walls. She always strikes a chord, leaving an echo in my heart.

Many thanks to my brother-in-law, Marc Boneu who took many of these photos and allowed me to use his camera.