Signs of Laos

And you also better watch your step!

This sidewalk is in the capital city of Laos, Vientiane

The bridge to Don Khon Island.

If you decide not to jump after all, this awaits on the other side:

We spent an afternoon walking around Don Khon Island after driving through a road between rice paddies to get there. It looks like a place to go back and stay for a few days. There are lots of guest houses, it feels beyond relaxed, and unlike what the guidebooks say, it DOES have electricity (and cold Beer Lao). Power came to Don Khon a year ago.  We spoke to some people who stayed there and apparently it's a good base to visit the Irrawaddy dolphins on the Cambodian side of the Mekong and hang out on the river. Don Khon is on the Mekong in the far south of Laos, near the Khon Phapheng Falls and the Cambodian border.
Speaking of Falls...

This scene is from the observation deck at the Khon Phapheng Falls, which actually stretch 13 km long in a series of  huge rapids that make the Mekong impassable.  The French sent expeditions up the Mekong looking for a way to navigate the river all the way up to Tibet where it begins. A clear river trade route through French Indochina to China would have been a very valuable thing to have. But they were thwarted by these huge and powerful falls. We were there in February which is dry season and the river was very very low. It must be even more amazing during rainy season. The French eventually tried to solve the problem of the impassable falls by building a railroad alongside them to transfer goods from one part of the river to the other. It operated for a little while as a very imperfect solution. We saw the old French locomotive abandoned on Don Khon Island.

Speaking of dry season, here's a shot of the road we travelled in the Bolavens Plain, visiting coffee and tea plantations and a few of the waterfalls.

Tat Yuong ("Tat" means "waterfall" in Lao)

Pharmacist

This is the pharmacy at the ethnic market in Bolavens. An impressive variety of dried seeds, twigs, leaves along with dried wildlife body parts and potions. Our guide was able to translate and tell us what a few things were and what they were used for.

Every part of the forest is used by the upland people of Laos and for sale at the market along with all the things "Made in China". Away from the markets, for those in villages too far and remote for their people to regularly travel to market,  traveling peddlers bring the market to them.

Traffic. A shot through the van window as we passed by on the road.

Old friends - A retired mahout and his former charge. Paul Wager

Kawy Hak Muong Laos - I Love Laos

People have asked me why I go back so much. The perfectly logical question is "What is it that you like about it?" I'm always caught at a bit of a loss for a succinct answer - I say that I must get around to creating a "sound bite" answer. After some hesitation the words "quiet" and "peaceful" come out. It feels peaceful, it feels quiet.

Although as Kelly will attest to when we arrived, unknowingly, at the time of the the national festivals last October, the Lao people may be peaceful but they can be very far from quiet.

The view across the river from our hotel in Vang Vieng December 2008 - peace and quiet

The same river bank at the festival October 2010- our hotel room was right at the finish line for the boat races. Lao pop music played all day long and into the night. Two volumes - off and full blast.

Cows wandering in front of the stage, looking completely befuddled. The guy in red ran over to chase them away.

My "mission" on this trip was to figure out why I like it so much and why I keep returning to Laos. especially as there are still so many places in Southeast Asia I haven't been to yet. It is always a question of competition for money and time. Where to go next? Somewhere new? Or return to somewhere known?

“Why” questions are always problematic as answers are elusive. For example, why do I cringe and draw away from churches, yet I visit temples? Why does the sight of poverty in the Philippines drive me crazy yet I walk through it in Laos without the same kind of reaction? Why does lousy service make me nuts elsewhere but here I am ready to let it pass?

Laos is a country of great beauty. A country of lush mountains (and stripped mountains). A country of many many rivers, including the mother of them all, the Me Kong. "Me" is the word for "mother". It is a very wet, nautical, water dependent country despite the fact that it has no border with the sea. It is a country of waterfalls and green rice and vegetable gardens, of plains and karst mountains and stunning views.

But that doesn't explain it. This whole planet is gorgeous; where it is ugly is where people have made it so. Why Laos?

Well speaking of people, that could be a clue. There are none in Laos, relatively speaking of course. This country is the size of the Korean peninsula (73 million people) or Great Britain (62 million) but it has a population of less than 6 million people. This suits me. We've spent quite a bit of time on our travels driving through the countryside where there weren't that many people around. These mountain areas of the north are tough lands, not really conducive to larger groups living together. Rice fields are way up on the steep slopes of the mountains. Only one crop a year and for all the work of growing it in those conditions, the yields are lower than that of the rice grown in the lowlands. Not much has changed in some of these villages for hundreds of years, if not a thousand.

Village along the road to Luang Prabang

In these lands are trees. Lumber. A natural resource eyed by the country's neighbors. Also in these remote lands are minerals  and the potential of building mines to extract them, also eyed by the neighbors. What could China or Viet Nam or Thailand or even further afield, South Korea possibly be wanting? Land and natural resources. Guess where most of the aid that is allowing Laos to develop is coming from?

Laos has a feeling of hope to it. That's the only way I can think of to describe it. Hope. And by that I mean hope for a better future. In the cities the changes are happening so quickly. Even in the few years that we have been going there, we see change always from one visit to another. Change that will ultimately transform the look and feel of these urban places significantly.

One huge project going on in the capital of Vientiane is the shoring up of the riverfront. When we first went there 3 years ago, the riverfront was quite charming in its way, with little barbeque open air eateries and places where you could recline on mats and mattresses and drink Beer Lao and watch the sunset. At Christmas a few years ago we lay on our backs and watched thousands of paper lanterns drift up into the sky. (Even these "fireworks" were Lao peaceful and quiet.) During a daytime stroll along the river we watched kids playing soccer on the sandbank revealed by the low water levels of the Mekong that time of year. Peering down the side of the bank toward the river you could see kitchen gardens along the banks of the river and small fishing boats tied to land's edge. Gorgeous bright red chilies drying in the sun caught the eye. Women cooked sticky rice or barbecued fish along the edge of the riverside road for sale to passersby. Vientiane take-out. It was all really charming.

The Vientiane riverfront in 2008

Charming yes, but the riverbank was eroding and flooding every now and then. The Koreans have donated $30 million worth of equipment and expertise to build up the riverbank and it is now unrecognizable from earlier days.

Double take. Here is the Vientiane riverfront in October, 2010 still under construction.

4 months later. Vientiane riverfront February 2011

 The good news is the riverfront has been developed as parkland not condos. The little barbecue joints are gone but they seem to have relocated to the sidewalks on the other side of the road, including the reclining mattresses, but somehow I don’t think the experience is quite the same when you are lying on the sidewalk beside the road instead of on the banks of a river. Why do they bother, I wonder, passing by I never saw anyone on them. No doubt once the riverside is complete, the shops and buildings across the street will be the next target of change. Now, although really vibrant shops line the street, street food stands, convenience stores, clothing, travel agents, ATM's, and there is a lot of activity, the buildings are kind of run down. That side of the street facing the new waterfront is ripe for development of cafes and boutiques and shops to cater to the growing number of tourists visiting Laos.

There were four months between my visit to Vientiane in October and February and the difference was so apparent. As well as the riverfront development, on the side streets running off the river road, lots of renovations had been completed, new restaurants opened and new construction begun, including our own charming brand new hotel half a block from the river.

I have a Canadian friend who lives in Vientiane with his Lao wife. His house is not far from the river and his neighbors in the village on the river's edge  used to infuriate him with their habit of tossing all their garbage in the river. He tried to get a garbage disposal system going with them, getting the elders on board and even providing waste containers and paying for garbage pickup. It didn’t last long. They started to use the bins for bathing instead and kept tossing the trash in the river. These neighbors are now being relocated as the land by the water has been expropriated for the riverside reconstruction project. Turns out this has actually worked out quite well for my friend as not only are the messy neighbors gone, his own property is now instant waterfront!

For now, you can still walk along the quiet unpaved streets just 10 minutes from the hotel to find local villages along the Mekong, very peaceful. As of now, but likely not for long, there are still places where we can sit by the Mekong and watch the sunset over Thailand from our Vientiane riverside watering hole.

Grumpy

Thai Tour Bus - Pakse

Luang Prabang was very different this February trip,  high season for tourists. My last two trips were in October and July, another story entirely. This time there were lots and lots of tourists, which I expected, but what was even more apparent was that there appear to be a lot more tour groups. People traveling in packs. It was not just in Luang Prabang, we saw the same thing in the south in Pakse and places beyond.

A couple of years ago when I first started visiting, I was very nervous about all the articles coming out in American and European magazines and newspapers about Laos being the "hot new destination". Seems I was right to be concerned.

The old town of Luang Prabang is a World Heritage Site and it's supposedly not possible to build new hotels within the boundaries (although from the look of things some "renovations" may be stretching the term). This part of the town is a peninsula, bounded by 2 rivers, the Mekong and the Khan and accommodation is mostly guesthouses and small hotels. This is where we like to stay, right in the middle of town, in a little hotel has only 8 rooms, therefore not many other guests. $80 a night. On the outskirts of town are where all the new, fancy, expensive hotels are located, so if you like the pool and the space and all, that's where you stay, and that is indeed where most of the tour groups put their customers. It's a hike from there to get in to town, hence the tour buses and vans and tarted up hotel "tuk tuks" that now line the streets. Instead of the single or pair of travelers doing the "Luang Prabang Stroll" along the streets of the town, now there are also the groups of people following their guides in and out of temples and whatever.

One night we walked into a restaurant known for some pretty good Lao food to find that on the first floor there was one long table set for about 22, and upstairs two tables of about the same size. The noise levels from groups that size are intense. Intimate dining anyone? Well, not in February it seems. Lao has become trendy.

Table for...20?

My biggest problem with all the travel I've been doing is with the other travelers. For the most part I have zero interest in them. It brings a chill to my bones to hear that inevitable opening line, “So, where are you folks from?” Oh shit, here it goes.  As far as I’m concerned people just talk too damned much. Endless blah blah blah. When in Laos I’m far more interested in talking to Lao people or at least foreigners who have lived in Lao for awhile, than listening to foreigners natter on about their own lives back home. Sounds of silence are best.

Source

This leads me many times to some pretty anti-social behavior. Don't make eye contact. No smiling allowed (this is a tough one as I usually have a huge grin on my face in Laos). Don't appear approachable. The second best present I ever received was my noise canceling headphones, a must-have for traveling in boats or vans or buses with other tourists. I spent an entire afternoon in the lounge of our Mekong boat, tuned out, listening to Led Zeppelin on my iPod (had almost completely forgotten how great they were). I keep iPod and headphones close. On one horrific bus trip a couple of years ago from Vientiane to Vang Vieng I was forced to listen to a bunch of travelers natter on and on and on about their real estate in California, their probate problems with Mom's estate and, of course, a critique of everywhere they had been so far on their Southeast Asian adventure. Where was my iPod? In my suitcase strapped to the roof of the bus!

The temple across from our hotel in Luang Prabang - Morning Alms

One of the things that Luang Prabang is known for is the monks' morning alms procession. There are more than 30 temples in this small town and the monks are a very visible presence. At 4:00 a.m. the temple drums start up, presumably to wake everybody (!) up to call the monks to early prayer. Then at around 6:30 the gongs start gonging and the monks leave the temple complexes to walk the streets, barefoot, with alms bowl in hand to collect sticky rice from the local people. There is a ritual to it. The women get up very early, wash and dress up in their sinh skirts in preparation for the alms giving, which is a way, in their Buddhist religion, of making merit. Women cannot stand above a monk, so they sit on mats, with feet tucked behind them, reaching up to put an offering into each alms bowl as the monks pass by.

The trip last October was the first time I bothered to get up so early to see the Luang Prabang morning alms. Our new-found hotel was just behind the main street and in front of a few big temples, so the monk walk passed right in front. It was cool from the night air and still pretty dark with only some dim street lighting, and there was a heightened feeling, a sense of anticipation as the few people out on the streets waited for the monks to show. All of a sudden, out of the temple gates they came with a  swishing of those distinctive orange robes, the "sun in the dark", as my new ex-monk friend told me the robes were called (Ock Pok Tok). I can see why. The monks move at quite a brisk pace through the dark streets. It is not slow and stately, not at all. I think I may have an idea why. The monks have a morning meal after the alms. They eat again at noon and then that's it. They don't eat again until the next day - only water, tea or coffee (no milk). My theory is that they are so hungry that they move quickly to get it over with so they can have breakfast. These are, after all, mostly teenage boys.

There were some funny moments. At one point 3 bunny monks came running out, late for alms. Running, trying to adjust their robes on the fly, they came to a screeching halt at the opening of the wall, stepped on to the sidewalk pretending to be decorous, and then power walked their way down the street to catch up with their compadres. If you also look closely, you just might happen to see a bit of boy pushing and shoving. It reminded me of that time in Vientiane when I saw the monk alms for the first time and thought of Halloween (Pak Bat-Morning Alms). On that peaceful morning in Luang Prabang last October there were a few other tourists like me watching the scene from the other side of the road, a respectful distance away.

This past trip to Luang Prabang, in February, I once again got up early (as I was already awake) and went downstairs to the street in front of our hotel to watch. This time the scene was very different.

The monks were still there doing their morning alms walk as they have done for centuries, the Lao people were there, cleaned, showered and shaved, passing out sticky rice. The difference was the tourists. It was a fucking nightmare.

Van loads of tourists are brought into the town from their hotels to view the spectacle. Unfortunately they themselves become the show and not in a good way. The sight was so horrific I turned around and went back to my room. I was so upset I couldn’t even bring myself to take a picture. No worries, others have:

Source Lauren Girardin

Long lines of tourists were taking part in the ceremony as well as observing. Their hotels had provided them with mats and bowls of sticky rice for those who wanted to participate. They were yakking away, you could hear every word from across those dawn streets. Some women were standing up doling out the rice, and of course as western giants were heads and shoulders over the monks heads, a big and I might say well-known no-no. Those who weren’t themselves giving out “alms” were up close, some on the same sidewalk as the monks getting in their way with camera flashes going off in the monks' faces. It was a revolting human circus.

This was not part of a Buddhist ritual, rather it was 'let’s get up early and feed the monks'. No understanding of the ritual, no sensitivity, no manners. After it’s over, pile back into the vans and let’s go off for cappuccino. Or better yet, let’s go visit the morning wet market and gawk at all the yucky things the locals eat. Then when we return home we can tell all our friends about how we experienced the authentic Lao experience.

Wait, a rant is all well and good sometimes but allowing these people to upset me does no good whatsoever. Hell, they have no idea I'm upset! They don't even know I exist! Deep breath.

So, when in Lao…bor pen nyang. It doesn’t matter. No problem. I will let this go and get over it. Release this angry heart.  Perhaps in their next lives these rude clueless people will return as grains of sticky rice, squished in the chunky, grimy fingers of other tasteless, heartless tourists.

"Serenity Now".

Note to self: Stay away from Luang Prabang in high season.

Ock Pok Tok - East Meets West

One of the things I've been doing on my travels is taking classes in whatever catches my fancy including cooking classes in Hoi An-Vietnam, Luang Prabang-Laos and Istanbul-Turkey. They've all been great experiences - learned a lot, had fun and ate well.

This trip to Luang Prabang I did something I had been wanting to do for some time, but never quite got around to it before - a day long class in silk thread dying and weaving at Ock Pok Tok. I had never even touched a loom before so this was going to be all brand new.

Weavers at Ock Pok Tok - the Professionals

My ride

The first hint that the day was going to be outstanding was when I showed up at the shop in town at 8:45 a.m. to be transported by tuk tuk to their weaving center a few kilometers away on the banks of the Mekong River. I found, to my complete delight, that no one else had signed up for the class this day – meaning I had a day-long private lesson with the total attention of the weaver teacher and the English speaking assistant. What a treat. And no fellow foreigners to have to talk to or, worse, listen to, a subject I will no doubt return to "in the fullness of time".

Win, the interpreter, is a former monk in Luang Prabang. He left the monkhood, or whatever you call it, just a few months ago after spending 5 years at the temple as a novice monk. He is 19 years old and wants to go to university, which he couldn't do had he stayed to be ordained. He misses being a monk, but monks can’t go to university. He wants to study IT or “electricity”, which I think he meant electronics or electrical engineering or something like that. This job as guide at Ock Pok Tok is his first job ever, and I think he probably got it because not only does he speak English, but he also knows quite a bit about weaving as he used to help his mother who was a weaver of cotton in the north. "Such a different life you have now!" Yes indeed. I asked him what the monks thought about all the tourists at morning alms in the town. Did it bother the monks to have all those people being around and taking pictures of them (and behaving like assholes, I didn't say)? Oh no, he replied, it doesn't bother them. They realize the visitors like to take home souvenirs in their photos. How tolerant. How very monklike.

Win offered to take me on his day off, Sunday, to visit his friend who was still a monk so I could learn about the monks' lives and ask any questions I wanted. What an opportunity! Alas, we were leaving Luang Prabang before then so I couldn't take him up on it. It reminded me that I had seen organized "Talk to a Monk" programs in some places, where for a specified couple of hours on an afternoon a week, you can do exactly that for, I'm sure, a small donation to the temple. One of the temples in Chiang Mai had a sign promoting it. Would be interesting I'm sure.

Boiling cocoons and removing the silk threads

At the weaving center, Win and I  started the day by going through the silkworm process, which I had seen before in earlier visits to silk manufacturers in and continues to fascinate. The silkworms are fed mulberry leaves for a number of days, then when they started raising their heads, it's a sign they are ready to start wrapping themselves in silk strands to form a cocoon. These natural strands are either white or yellow. Before they become moths and bore their way out of their cocoons, thus ruining them for silk production, the cocoons must be boiled and the strands unwound.

Pounding annato seeds to make orange dye

Then the silk is dyed using all natural dye ingredients in the outdoor dyeing "kitchen" where pots of water are boiled over wood stoves. I learned to dye my own silk threads. For one batch I sliced and pounded turmeric root with a mortar and pestle to make a bright yellow. I made the orange monk’s robe color (known as “Sun in the Dark”), by taking annatto berries off a tree, removing the seeds and pounding them as well. Then we boiled the bark of a flame tree adding a few iron nails to make a deep red color.

My 3 silk strands drying in the sunshine after dyeing

There was a busload of 29 tourists there for a private visit and lunch that day, which meant that I lost my guide for awhile as all hands on deck were called for to serve the lunch. I was afraid that my wonderful solitary visit was to be disrupted but it seemed the best was yet to come. Instead of having to eat lunch with 29 western travelers from the tour I was to have lunch with Mrs. Keint, as her name tag identified her, my weaving instructor behind the kitchen in the staff "dining room". I had a wonderful time sitting low to the ground with the weavers, none of whom spoke a word of English nor I Lao, eating a Lao meal, Lao style. I was in heaven. Eating sticky rice by hand which is the only way to do it, spooning soup out of a communal soup bowl, watching everyone really closely to learn the dining etiquette. I didn’t have a clue what anyone was saying so I just sat there watching, as they chatted away solving all the world's problems, all the while with an enormous big smile on my face. It was perfect.

These 3 at the end of the table were having an intense conversation on rice quality. She is examining the sticky rice container (the lunch box) of the gal in red and comparing it to hers. They each bring their own rice in its woven container and then share the dishes on the table prepared there.

Keint set me up on the loom and sat beside me as I learned to weave my two-color placemat with center design, moving things up and down, side to side this way and that. No real clue what I was doing but lo and behold, by the end of the day not only had I actually completed a woven placemat with center design on the loom, I had also learned how to count to five in Laos to keep track of the pattern I was weaving. I taught Keint the English phrase “No problem”, which is the equivalent of the Lao “bor pen nyang”, and learned all about the life of my young ex-monk translator. I also have a new appreciation of the effort and skill that goes into all these beautiful silk weavings we’ve been collecting these past few years.

Great day by the side of the Mekong.

Win and Keint and my finished masterpiece

Flying Colors

Jon Anderson- Fimo clay

The first time I walked on to a Thai Air plane, going from Manila to Bangkok, I flipped out. Visual overload. The cabin was a complete riot of color. The seats and carpeting was a mix of deep purples, fuchsias and golds and the female flight attendants were dressed in gorgeous long skirts of woven silk topped with snug fitted jackets or shorter purple suits with bright pink blouses. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It's the colors man. As you land and taxi to the terminal, you are presented with a corsage of 3 purple orchids.

That was almost four years ago, only a week or so after arriving in Asia. Thai Air was my first taste of Thailand and since then Thai design has always blown me away. Even the airport is, well, as wonderful as an airport can be, with heaps of orchids everywhere and huge statues of costumed performers arranged in vignettes of scenes from the Ramayama. I love the gold kineree statues  and the bursts of bougainvillea along the highway on the way in to Bangkok. Once there it just gets better and better with fantastic art and interior design greeting you everywhere you look. Or so it seems.

On this latest trip on Thai Air going from Manila to Vientiane, Laos, I stumbled on to the plane after the usual excruciating airport experience, sat down, fussed with my stuff, pulled out noise-canceling headphones, silk wrap - all the usual in-flight stuff - and it was a full ten minutes before I remembered where I was and looked around at the surroundings. I hadn't even noticed any color at all but there it still was. Oblivious. Am I getting jaded? Am I looking without seeing? (Moron)

I've been visualizing Thailand and Laos as colors. Thailand is vibrant, the brights of the color wheel. Last time I was in Bangkok I ordered dozens of silk pillowcases in a whole range of gorgeousness that I associate with the place and that I completely adore. They are piled on couches and beds and we change them up every month or so, finding that the different hues change the look of the room in interesting ways and highlight certain art pieces differently.

The bed doesn't really look like this, there is SOME editing of color. I collected pillows  from elsewhere to line up for their portrait.

Laos is full of color as well but it is a different palette. Still rich, it is more subtle and, I feel, more connected with the earth. I see Laos as earth-centered, with its mountains and forests and rivers and gardens. Terra cotta and smoke, temple maroon and gold. Laos produces the most outstanding silk weaving and we find outselves collecting beautiful pieces on each and ever trip over these past years. The silk threads used in the weaving are colored with natural dyes in our weavings at least. Turmeric root, rosewood bark, annato seeds, betel nut, breadfruit, ebony tree berries, tamarind leaves, indigo, iron nails and lac insect scum are all used to boil the silk thread into the most wonderful colors.

I've been doing an inventory of our Lao silk weaving collection (along with our other possessions) in preparation for the coming  move and have been photographing each piece. (I'm using what is turning out to be a pretty good inventory program, developed by a guy in northern Virginia, for Mac only, available from him directly or through the Apple App Store). Here are close-ups of some of the wall hangings:

The Colors of Laos...