Sloop John B

 

 

 

 

 

If I would have thought about it more clearly I guess I could have figured it out for myself. As it is, I had to learn the hard way: there are several different types of roads in Laos, some of which deserve to be avoided.

There are the tiny little red dirt roads leading in and out of picturesque villages full of happy people. Women sit under their stilt houses weaving ethnic scarves while men are engaged in manual labour. Children call out “falang! falang!”, running out of the protective shade to wave at you.

The views are sloping terraced rice paddies and field salas. You don't mind the dust because life is flourishing so beautifully all around you.

Doesn`t that sound nice?

To get to roads like that you often have to take major roads, largish paved things with bits of macadam chunked out of them. You have to negotiate the bike between the roaring diesel dams and the gravel. The sides of the road are littered with filth.

There are also paved roads that are surprisingly pleasant, like the road between Hinheup and Ban Tha.

But the road I took after Ban Tha, the one leading down to the Mekong was really a shithole's shithole. Paved in parts, hot dry and dusty in others, it was a major artery with major road dust inconvenience.

In fact, I had planned to leave that road and climb West over a cordillera to another very minor road, but Charlene's dérailleur began to malfunction and I felt I couldn't take a chance with it. So I just kept heading toward the Mekong.

The area was filled with unfriendly people, some of whom were thieves since they tore the speedometer off Charlene when I was enjoying a lovely meal of 'steak Lao', morning glory and sticky rice at a local eatery. The meal was pretty nice, actually.

When I complained to the 'guest house' (closed concrete boxes, malfunctioning fans, spit marks on the walls...) owner she called the police who came post haste. The next morning I was invited to the police station to make a formal complaint and admire the cobwebs and dirty dishes. To give the guest house owner credit, she proposed giving me 1,000 Bhat to compensate my loss, although this I refused.

This was indeed a strange part of the country. For the first time since being in Laos I was also physically threatened, as kids in the bamboo houses behind the guest house threw rocks on the roof of my room. I showed the police the guilty houses and explained to them that the people therein were in a perfect position to see when the falang was going out and coming back. They looked at me and smiled.

To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, 400,000 Kip went up in smoke.

And the road went on. Dust and trucks, roadside bordellos and restaurants. Imagine visiting France and being stuck in Châteauroux or Vierzon or visiting the United States and only seeing Buffalo and you will get an idea of my state of mind.

The natural beauty of the landscape was made all the crueler by its destruction. Large machines were eating into mountainsides, garbage was either strewn on the side of the road or being burnt. You could close your eyes and know you were near a village by the smell of burning plastic...

All this time I was able to consider map reading, trying to learn my lesson: Small roads through ethnic minority areas – yes. Larger roads providing the only single arteries through an otherwise unserved area – no. Roads with ratty guest houses and roadside bordellos – no. Areas with no tourist accommodation other than the kindness of strangers – yes. Bolaven Plateau type places with comfortable resorts, clean sheets and bacon and eggs for breakfast – yes.

This trip left me with the impression of being in a country that was slowly raping herself and I felt the urgency of seeing her while she still existed.

 

Re: The photos on this update. I have decided to spare you the roadside attractions...

 

 

 

 

Jet Lagged in Indochina

 

 

 

 

The slightly psycho-rigid on flight staff on the Royal Thai flight from Paris to Bangkok were just fine, really. The real challenge is travelling with a nineteen-month old.

Running up the aisles, down the aisles, up the aisles and – wait, this should be fun! – down the aisles as you are flying over Europe and Asia would be anyone’s idea of a good time and this Sayo understood perfectly.

 

Coming home; and the taxi ride with the excitement of seeing our Vientiane again. Our streets, our traffic, our shops and secret corners. Home.

But all of this happens in a fog, as though the body were disconnected from the spirit and all one’s being has been soaked in a sponge.

Sleep comes blessedly. On again. Off again. Midnight awakenings. Three o’clock in the morning. The house sleeps yet murmurs. We are vibrating together. A slow easy mumble.

I spend the first 48 hours at home, marvelling at everything. The Internet works, there’s water in the cistern, the toilets flush. I can take a shower. Light plays off the floor, art hangs on the walls.

And then on morning three the sun rises after a tropical rain has washed the garden clean. Leaves as big as television screens shine like mirrors; the morning sun whisking off the moisture with a whisper.

On that morning three, the first miracle happens in this fresh world as mind and body find each other again and you step out of bed into a new dawn, back home, and walk downstairs to the kitchen and make a cup of coffee. Hot coffee, add cold milk and the hazel brownness warms hands and soul on the veranda.

Look! The garden!

 

 

 

  

 

Bolaven Is For Lovers

This was the perfect place to visit during the beginning of the rainy season. Unlike my other bike treks, I was able to stay on sealed roads the whole time.

This also carried with it a fair bit of frustration because I know that Laos, the real Laos, the vanishing Laos – can only be accessed off dirt roads. Sadly, most of the dirt roads I saw were already hopelessly flooded or in a state of muddiness.

And so I was condemned to have an easy time of it.

Having said that, my reaction to the Plateau is to return in the dry season when I can discover the little parts of it, the people parts of it. The main axe is a Vietnamese colony. Not in the sense that the Vietnamese rule the roost, but rather that everybody is Vietnamese: the barber, the repairman, the waiter… And so I will return in the dry season, hopefully with Marie-Do.

Bolaven is for lovers. In everyplace I chose to stop, save one, I was able to sleep in a resort, on a waterfall, and slumber away my aches in clean, ironed sheets. I was able to enjoy excellent foods and that ultimate luxury: bacon and eggs for breakfast, real coffee and toast and English speaking staff.

The climate on the Plateau during this season was Southern European in August, although it did rain every day. Just a little bit, never too much. At the beginning of the drizzle, a simple raincoat would keep me dry and gliding along deserted asphalt road. Listening to the light rain hitting the flat rice fields or the leaf large forest trees was refreshing, a pleasure. Heavier rains could only be dealt with by seeking shelter.

The landscape is very reminiscent of Europe, as well. Gentle hills and valleys, cows grazing in pasture. A soft green sweet land…

One dry morning I took a dirt road and what I discovered was a troop of several hundred workers planting coffee trees on what looked like newly cleared land. They stood or shovelled, made holes in the wet red earth; the eternal stances of working men and women of all time. Some smoked a cigarette, babies were carried on hips; and on the other side of the road the new plantation stretched over hills.

Surely there is more to this story than I can see with my naked eye. Like many other pleasant destinations, the soil of Bolaven is surely soaked with all kinds of mischief.

BTW, my new camera really sucks. I cannot get the thing to take pictures without some incorrect date stuck in the corner, and I haven’t got the patience to figure it out.

The Lao take one day at a time, you know, to such an extent that many of them have already forgotten about last year. The monsoon comes every year and so I wonder why I see so many hamlets that are already flooded out. Satellite dishes they have, but raising the road to keep it dry no one has thought of.

Smithy shops line the road.  It doesn’t take a huge leap of the historic imagination to remember a time when such things were common in Europe and the Americas.  Everybody here is making the same object: a machete which is perfect for most basic agricultural jobs, such as cutting down fruit. We can also remember a time when waste water was just thrown in the streets in Europe, so there is hope that one day the Lao will stop burning their garbage.  Most of the time, it must be said, living in a time machine is a unique privilege.