Chapter 10: Surreal times 4 and Real...

Vientiane, the capital of Laos, I mentioned at end of last blog. Nothing to add except the MaeKhong river here is now so low that you can only just see it on the Thai side of the river bed.

Then I flew up to the north east mountain plateau called the Plain of Jars in a province called Xieng Huang toward the Vietnamese border. A bleak place in winter, some sun during the day but always a cold wind blowing over the plain, gives the provinial "capital", Phonsavan, a real frontier feel. Bloody freezing at night too, and no heating in the guest house! To bed fully clothed again, I really must head south.

This place has about 60 sites of over 600 jars where some civilisation about 2-4,000 years ago (they can't agree) rolled huge lumps of sandstone from a quarry 15km away, then carved them into enormous stone jars on vantage points on the plain. There is also a nearby cave with 3 carved vents in the roof, which was used as the cremation site. Three theories:

1. They are funeral tombs (they had close fitting stone lids before the Chinese armies raided them in 12th century, I think) as ashes and a skeleton were found.


2. They are offerings jars seated on top of tombs, as ashes and belongings have been found under them.


3. Folklore says that they are giants' lao-lao (rice spirit) jars from when a legendary king celebrated victories in battle, and the cave was the distillery! My favourite.

Fair enough, and stunning they look too. Anyway, to the surreal bit, bear with me here, you need some context.

But, roll forward in time to 1965-73 and the Vietnam War, well actually the Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia War. Laos particularly was dragged into the conflict as they allowed the North Vietnamese to create the Ho Chi Minh supply trail right down the mountain ranges the length of the country, and so into the back door of South Vietnam and Cambodia.

Now, both sides agreed under the Geneva Convention that no combat would be fought in Laos - both sides secretly ignored that, the Viets carried on using it as a supply line, so the Americans thought they would close it down. But they couldn't do that publicly due to the Convention, so they created a CIA project to secretly carry out this "alternative theatre" (couldn't name Laos). They put volunteers in from the USAF pilots (the scouts became known as Ravens) and Army trainers, removed their uniforms and dog tags, and built an entire secret city (Long Cheng) in the mountains, which could only be approached by air. Then they recruited a tribe, called the Hmong, who did not like the pro-communist Laos government, 50,000 of them, and armed / trained them and set them as the army to face the Communists. The USAF then scouted by air, and bombed the trail and any communist army troops / bases to bits. Millions of tons of bombs, much of which onto the Plain of Jars area - the Hmong then followed up with land battles there (40,000 killed from both sides). About 30% of the bombs and shells failed to explode, add in the landmines by the armies and you have a place which is still lethal today.

So, there I was in amongst the jars one minute in pre-historic times, then being guided along a signed UXO (unexploded ordnance) / mine-cleared path to the next jars site, passing trenches, tank traps, foxholes, bomb craters by the hundreds and above all live ammunition still coming to the surface! (see pics) Add in the sounds of controlled (hopefully) explosions by the UXO Lao (Lao government agency) and Mines Advisory Group (a British charity) teams and there we have surreal days spent on the plain and in the villages.

You can actualy pick up pieces of metal and equipment as you go. Went to a shot-down T28 fighter crash site where you can just pick up pieces of the plane! Very small pieces as the locals have taken everything for scrap, which sells at 3,000 kip (about 20p) per kilo.

This brings me to the third part of the surreal days: scrap metal at 20p per kilo is worth risking your life for here, and there is a cottage industry (illegal but noone does anything) here where kids and adults scour the bomb craters and battle sites for scrap or UXO's. Now UXO's need defusing, and people are getting killed trying it on a weekly basis - a single bomb can weigh 60 kilos and more! There is a picture in the MAG office in town of 3 guys, 2 dead and 1 blinded when trying to defuse a SAM missile they found in undergrowth! MAG are still clearing farmland to enable it to be used again and therefore get people earning from farming instead of scrap metal hunting. We came across 2 kids digging outside of the cleared areas, so the we wandered over (our guide didn't seem to mind going off the path, so we followed his footsteps) to see what they had collected - pieces of shell casings, live bullets, bits of equipment. Then he said we could go over the fields back to the path, and there we saw live artillery and mortar shells just lying there being walked over by the local cattle (and us)! Took pics and walked on rather quickly.

Part 4: what the locals haven't sold, they use. So, there are cluster bomb casings (which were made to split in half on impact to release hundreds of bomblets) being used as flower pots for onions, etc or as stilts for the villagers' pig pen or rice store, bellows made from mortar shell casings used by the village blacksmith, the farm tools being mnade by the smithy from pieces of iron, aluminium cut up for cutlery. And then the "piece de resistance": a 200lb defused whole bomb had been rigged up as an air pressure tank for the local garage to blow up tyres.

But still we kept coming back to the jars, sitting there for thousands of years, now bullet marked in places as they were used as shields, but still like Stonehenge, a place of real history. Against a war that never was admitted to be happening.

Also went for a trip to a Hmong village in the mountains around the plain. Most aren't open to tourists, you need a permit to visit. The majority of Hmong joined with the Americans for the money and free guns / uniforms, but some villages opted out and stayed on their farms and many got blown up there. All told the reckoning is that 1 million Laos people lost their lives out of a population of 3 million at that time.

Back in Vientiane now, on to central Laos tomorrow to try to get to see some limestone gorges, waterfalls and cave systems.

And on a lighter note, some of Murphy's Laws on Combat Operations (thanks to Craters Bar):

• Incoming fire has right of way
• Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammunition
• The enemy diversion you're ignoring will be the main attack
• If your attack is going well, its an ambush
• When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy
• Never draw fire, it irritates those around you
• Never share a trench with anyone braver than yourself
• Everything being equal, the side with the simplest uniform wins
• The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire, is incoming friendly fire
• Each side is convinced that they are about to lose, they are both right
• Always remember, your weapon was made by the lowest bidder!

Photolink is: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Laos_2008_Chapter_10

Cheers!

Mike

Chapter 9: Laos, lousy weather

Crossed into Laos by longtail boat across the MaeKhong to Huay Xai and after much confusion and paperwork and money by bus into the mountains near the Chinese border at Luang Nam Tha.

The idea was to base there and do some trekking which is just taking off here in conjunction with various country's agencies all designed to aid the hill-tribes and to preserve the forests from extensive logging (mainly by the Chinese). However the weather deteriorated and we got rain and cold winds, all from the Chinese weather system which dumped tons of snow on them! So I left, without even a picture.

You can't go much further north from there, so I shall be heading pretty much south-east following the MaeKhong river right down Laos and then down Cambodia for the next 2 months or so. The weather has been either dull, cold but dry with others sunny once the cloud is burnt off. I need to get south!

Anyway, Laos:

• the French colonial influence remains not only in old colonial-style buildings but also oddities like baguettes, petanque (French bowls), bakeries and cafes. This is mixed with old Lao architecture and buddhist temples, and now with tourist hotels and demands. The people are really friendly and laid-back, and everything is written up in western (French or English) as well as Lao script.
• Lao food is good, a little less spicy than Thai but pretty similar, and having French bread sandwiches is a treat. Beer Lao is really good (they even do a dark beer of 6.5%!) and lao-lao the local rice spirit is eye-watering.
• Everything is even cheaper than Thailand outside of the tourist hotspots. Beer 0.55GBP for 640ml bottle, a double room with own bathroom is about 3GBP (but up to 11GBP in Luang Prabang and Vientiane for same - see below), a meal costs me about 2GBP. Spending 11GBP per day for everything including buses on average!
• Geography is 75% mountain and river gorges with only real towns along MaeKhong river. Lots of exploring to be done, I hope.
• Apart from subsistence farming for the majority, there is a lot of weaving in silk and cotton, and then there is tourism.
• Transport is funny, buses are old Chinese things and they operate a "we are never full" policy for people or produce. I sat on sacks of potatoes for 6 hours the other day, the entire floor of the bus was covered in them before anyone could get on! The main roads are ok, but if it not a trade route along the MaeKhong or across to China or Vietnam then it is unpaved and bone-shaking, and slow (4 hours to do 70 miles).
• Currency: 17,000+ KIP to 1GBP, so maths is required here. But nothing costs less than 1,000 to a foreigner so forget all the zeroes, but you do end up with wads of notes, and i'm now a millionaire!

Tourism has hit here big time, two types: the tour groups in minibuses or planes on "SE Asia in 3 weeks" tours or something; and the independent travellers, of which loads are ex-University having a party before starting work (or ex-school before going to Uni or ex-Israeli conscript soldiers getting over their time).

The government is trying to keep it under control with all pubs closing by 11.00, licensed clubs at 12.30 or so but the party town of Vang Vieng has an island in the middle of the river where the party carries on without alcohol (supposedly; although "Happy" Fruit Shakes and Pizzas are on the menu which contain both alcohol and your choice of drug - opium, marijuana, mushrooms, etc)! A couple of interesting evening of people watching.

So the mix is one group doing the architecture, temples and art / handicrafts, the others wanting bars, music and clubs - weird in what is still a communist country with hammer and sickle flags flying everywhere. But money talks. Laos is apparently like Thailand 15 years ago, still relatively small hotspots of tourism but those are developing very fast. The volume and rampant capitalism has taken me by surprise, I have to admit, and prices in the hotspots are at least double of elsewhere but the number of hotspots will always be limited by geography and there are no beaches so the party people are starting to move on to Cambodia and Vietnam as the weight of mass tourism takes over apparently.

Luang Prabang, the original royal capital of the kingdom - a world heritage site and quite beautiful, on a headland by the MaeKhong. The historic part is quiet and beautifully laid out with temples, palace, and colonial houses (many now boutique hotels and restaurants (auberges even), the south end is the cheap end for the travellers with bars, markets, guesthouses and food stalls galore - good fun.

Vang Vieng, the party town, was just a crossing point over the Nam Soi river, but set in amongst limestone cliffs, cave systems and forests - really pretty, when the sun shone. A ghost town during the day as people sleep it off / laze in the bars watching loops of reruns of "Friends" (true! trust me) or are caving, kayaking or tubing on the river (with a stop at every bar on the way!), comes alive at night. Went kayaking, but tubing on your own didn't sound the same somehow.

Now in Vientiane, capital city and another mix of French and Lao plus new communist monuments. Big number of Europeans working in aid agencies, charities and teaching. Quite a good mix of bars and restaurants down by the river. Yet to explore more but I only have 3 more weeks here and still in the north, something will have to be dropped off the wish list.

Enough! Photolink is http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Laos_2008_Chapter_9

Cheers! Mike

Chapter 8: The Last Post....

....well from Thailand anyway for the time being. Off to Laos tomorrow, crossing at Chiang Khong by ferry to Huay Xai then head north east to Luang Nam Ta where there is a National Park that does trekking trips (weather permitting).

So, this post really covers my travels back to the north of Thailand with various stops along the Mae Khong (shortened to Mekong in English) river which forms the border for much of the way and up into the mountains of the Golden Triangle.

Mae Khong river is impressive even now in dry season, imagine it 13 metres higher in October! Still deep enough for 500 tonne Chinese barges to come all the way down from China.

The Golden Triangle, well the Thai side is now just a tourist label. No opium grown in Thailand any more, well not publicly, but chatting to a Chinese guesthouse owner, many of the older generation locals are still hooked so they get it from somewhere. The Thai government persuaded them to grow tea and coffee instead, and they draw Thai tourists for the products, so seems to be working. I found a coffee shop advertising brownies too, but all I got was a sugar rush (yuk). Great place though on balcony overlooking the plantations, but played smooth lounge jazz mmmmm Nice.

Mae Salong was founded in the mountains by the remnants of the Chinese anti-Maoist army, the Kuomintang. They originally took refuge in Burma in 1949, but they chucked them out in 1961 to keep in with China. Thailand have accepted them as full Thai nationals now, but you hear Mandarin spoken and Chinese lanterns and food everywhere. Everything is written 3 times: Thai, Chinese and English!

Anyway, enough for this post as I probably bored you silly with yesterday's effort (Chapter 7, no photos). It has stopped raining so I'm going out to play.

Photolink: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/laurentmik/Thailand_2008_Chapter_8

Cheers! Mike

Chapter 7: Rain Stopped Play...

Yes, bloody rain in the middle of the dry season. Chinese bloke in Mae Salong (in the northern mountains) told me that it was only the second time in his memory. Might be linked with the weather system that is dumping snow all over southern China, causing mayhem there. And it is like English rain, murky, grey, cool and a consistent drizzle not your tropical downpour, 1 hour and done.

So, today's post is a dump of stuff until play resumes. No photos, just stuff.

• Bloody computers! Trying to be a good boy and do online banking to pay the bills each month and this internet cafe system sends a bloody virus with my transmission, so Barclays blocked me out. This happened in December but I didn't know until a few days ago because they don't tell you online, just in the post - brilliant! So, beware online banking is a one-way street. PS Thanks to Jackie who is trying to sort this out for me.
• Thought I'd have a couple of days resting in Chiang Rai, a city in N. Thailand with many ex-pats, so it caters for westerners, ie it has bars. Over-rested until about 2 am, and had 3 days here. Singha beer and whisky chasers (found Johnnie Walker Red Label here (1.50GBP a shot), the best blended scotch in my opinion - not as good as malt, but hey).
• Not complaining, but: just to let you know that traveling alone is not all a bed of roses. It is nackering - planning every day, sitting in buses / trucks for up to 6 hours, finding somewhere to kip, then dumping the gear and going to see what you came to see. Then night, sometimes there are only so many night markets and noodle shops you want to see. Off the tourist trail, there a no bars as such (so I sit in the noodle shops at a plastic table on a plastic chair on the pavement, drink beer and watch the locals - most ignore you, some stare at the "farang", but I have had some weird conversations with locals more drunk than me who want to try out their English skills), and no English language bookshops. Guesthouses don't have safes either, so you either take the risk of leaving documents, camera, phone, books and money behind, so I lug it around all night, even to the loo! Thailand is very safe outside of the big cities but....And then get up next day and get on the bus (or pickup truck), hoping you are on the right one as very few have anything written in English or even any type of western script, so you trust some guy in the bus station - and everyone is milling around, shouting stuff - quite exciting really.
• Books, probably the heaviest part of all my gear - travel guides and reading. But running out of something to read at night really causes me a problem, just wish they would invent lighter ones. And don't say CD's because then I have to have a laptop, battery charger and adaptor and hope there is somewhere to plug it in, AND you can't get the bloody things here anyway! Does Lonely Planet do electronic versions?
• New Year: the Thais invent them or adopt them I think. Celebrated "International New Year" on Jan 1, then they will celebrate Chinese / Vietnamese New Year (07/02 this year), and then have their own one! Mid-April time, they have a festival, called Songhkran, which is a mass water fight from what I can tell - should be symbolic water blessings but sort of get carried away. Might try and change my flight to stick around for that.
• Thai politics! Wow, what chaos, each party claiming the other rigged or bought votes. And a full-time central control board specifically set up to investigate the claims! Then they issue red and yellow cards - brilliant, one red card and the politician is sent-off and they re-run that constituency's election! If three party people get done they ban the whole party. The General Election was in December but the re-runs are still going on and the new Prime Minister only got sworn in this week - a coalition of 5 parties, that's really going to work isn't it? Its Thaksin's (the guy who bought Man City with allegedly embezzled millions) party too who won the most seats - they reckon that he is running the show from his place in Hong Kong as he is on criminal charges here.
• Ex-pats: what a mixture of nationalities and types. Seem to fall into 4 categories though: the-happily-married-to-local ones - usually running bars (although I was told of one who didn't know his wife was an illegal Burmese migrant until he tried to register the birth of his new baby!); the old bloke seen trailing around behind a local lady looking decidedly lost and sad, and still not understanding what she is happily saying to her friends; the loners, effectively retired, drifting around the bars in their chosen home city (usually somewhere easy to get new visas by a day run to Burma); and the retired couples/ singles who have bought a house and come here every European winter, they seem the happiest.
• Buddhism: the wheel of life, as I understand it you go round and round with your various , assumed to be sinful, lives until you either drop into your own personal hell, or reach Nirvana and cease to exist at all which apparently is a good thing as then you have no earthly woes. By the way, it is Year 2551 here, marked from when Buddha was enlightened in the 6th century BC in India. So that's why there is a strong entwining between Hinduism and Buddhism, he was an Indian prince, so I believe. Strangely the year clicks over on "International New Year" not Thai New Year, how does that work??
• Drinking: the Thais really love it. They eat out a lot, and have this thing where the host brings a bottle of whisky to the restaurant, the restaurant puts a trolley at the side of the table and supplies a bucket of ice and the mixers (usually soda water) and serves out the whisky all night. Once finished the party buys another bottle or flask from the place and off they go again. The empties stay on the trolley so that there are no arguments at the end! The tourist bars now do this "Buy a Bucket" thing (but you have to buy the bottle of whisky from them of course), a big thing at beach parties - sit around your bucket and share with your mates, very civilised. The type (Thai or imported) and size of bottle is a big status thing to the Thais, Johnnie Walker Black Label seems the top, not my favourite though in case anyone was asking?
• Fermented chicken tendons, whole pickled swallows and frog curry, plus roasted chestnuts are the latest seen (but not tried yet). I'm told spiders are eaten in Cambodia! We shall see. By the way, chillis still get me. And I have no idea what is in the various steaming pots on the stalls, but some of it tastes pretty good! I can nearly order food now, many places have no English menu (or any menu!), and can count pretty well too so I can pay the bus fares and bills OK. They cook everything with a base of spices, and then give you jars of chilli, chilli vinegar, sugar and fish sauce so you can add hot, sour, sweet and salt to your own taste.
• The language: tricky stuff as it has 5 tones for words, each carries a completely different meaning! So, "mai" means "new", "burn", "wood", "not" and "not??" depending on how it is said. So, "New wood doesn't burn does it?" is "Mai mai mai mai mai?" (nicked that from Lonely Planet). And "Khao" is rice, hill, white and understand, which makes for interesting thoughts on what the hell the Thais think I'm trying to say. "Khai" is egg and "Kai" is chicken too.
• More drinking: I forgot to tell you in earlier posts about the hardships of trekking. Most nights we stay in hill tribe villages and they bring in stuff to try to sell to you, mostly handwoven hats and bags and silver / leather jewellery, not for me I have to say. Can't see me with a handwoven hippy sling bag, although I see many tourists do. But the other thing they bring for the local guides, who are all mates, is "happy water". I saw all these plastic water bottles being taken into the guides, and they cut off the neck of an empty one and were using it as a communal shot glass for water from these bottles. So, I walk over and ask and find out it is the local moonshine (usually rice or corn spirit). So, I say look I'll buy a slab of beer to share from the village store or head man, can I join you? Became quite a regular thing. Good stuff, very happy, until I see the guides next day! I leave them to their drinking games after a while, and they carry on into the wee hours, while I get some kip - it softens the bamboo sleeping platform I found.

Enough I hear you say! Aiming to get a photo post out soon too, last one in Thailand.

Cheers!

Mike