Mekong ramblings
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wotcher folks,
Thought I would pen a little missive, as I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe in Pakse, Southern Laos, with not an awful amount to do. I would describe Pakse as a one horse town, but I suspect the horse might have left to do something more interesting. Or been sold to pay for a scooter.
We're off tomorrow to the Bolaven Plateau- Laos main coffee-growing area- and then down to the ancient ruins at Champasak, so a quiet one today isn't too much of a blow.
Anyhow, here's a quick run-down of the places we've been in Laos so far since we came over the border on 2nd Jan, just to keep you in the loop:
1) Luang Namtha- Waaay up North. We went straight there from the border to do some trekking for a couple of days in the Nam Ha Protected Area, which was really cool. We stayed in a Lanten minority tribal village, which was interesting although they were very shy. They don't even speak Lao, let alone English, so it's not really surprising to be honest. This is where we first discovered the magic of jeow- a Lao dip eaten with little balls of sticky rice, and made from chilles (and sometimes aubergines) blackened in a fire and then pounded in a pestle and mortar. It. Is. Awesome.
2) Luang Prabang- UNESCO World Heritage- listed town on the Mekong. Lots of Buddhist temples and French colonial architecture. Really pretty place, and manages to retain its charm despite the fact that everyone there is either a tourist or working in the tourist industry. We did an ace cooking school there, so I now have a fantasy about setting up a hugely popular Lao restaurant in London when I get back. If I don't, doubtless that bastard Jamie Oliver will beat me to it...
3) Phonsavan- Ah, Phonsavan... One day sure to be mentioned in the same breath as Florence, St Petersburg and Paris.... Not really- it's a bit of a dump, but it does have 2 extremely redeeming features.
Firstly it's the nearest town to the Plain of Jars, an important archaeological site consisting of loads of massive jars (surprise surprise) strewn around the landscape, whose purpose remains a mystery. Personally I prefer to side with those who believe they had a burial purpose, as it seems more dignified than the explanation offered by our guide, who was convinced they were big distilling pots for making rice whisky (or "lao lao") to get smashed on. The problem with this suggestion, to my mind, is that if any civilisation produced enough lao lao to fill all these jars, it wouldn't remain civilised for very long.
The second reason Phonsavan is interesting is because the excellent Mines Advisory Group (MAG) have an office there giving loads of info about the work they have done clearing unexploded ordnance (UXO) from around the jar sites.More on MAG in a moment...
3) Vientiane- Laos' capital city. To be honest, there isn't that much to say about Vientiane. It's OK. Er... I had a really nice breakfast there?
4) Thakhek- If you'd told me before we got there that we would spend 6 days in Thakhek I would have probably looked at you a little funny (although to be fair, I do that to a lot of people at the moment). However, 6 days we did indeed spend in this really quite small and unremarkable town.
We did do some really good stuff in that time though. Such as a 2 day trek into the Phu Hin Boun National Protected area, which was awesome. Amazing landscape, and we stayed in a really lovely village full of very welcoming Lao people. Fran, our guide (a 16 year old girl called Moddam, who was a force of nature), and I played football with the local kids, we ate a traditional Lao dinner, and then the villagers gave us a traditional welcoming ceremony that involved holding a boiled egg, a banana and a candy bar (don't ask), while they took it in turns to pour shots of rice whisky for us to down and tie pieces of string around our wrists. After this they sang us a traditional Lao song, and invited us to respond with a song of our own. Stirred by their welcome, I decided to give them a blast of "My Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" (the Welsh national anthem, for all the Saesneg out there). It was pretty stirring stuff- think that scene in "Zulu" if you want some context.
So far, so National Geographic, you might think. Well yes. Where it took a slightly weirder turn was the point at which they sang us another song and invited us to respond again. We were all out of culturally significant airs, so had to scrabble around in the cupboard a bit to be honest... Four rounds of back and forth saw us respond to traditional Lao songs with "King of the Road". "Ring of Fire", "Message in a Bottle", and perhaps most innapropriately "The Bear Necessities." I'm not sure I've ever been in a weirder situation, and would like to place at least some of the blame on the rice whisky. (Luckily, it turns out the villagers though our ridiculous duets were one of the funnier things they had ever seen, so they all turned out to give us a big goodbye the next day.)
5) Mahaxy- To flog the dead horse of the "one horse town" metaphor used earlier, Mahaxy doesn't even have a horse. In fact it can only dream about having a horse. Apparently one old man in town remembers a horse coming through once, but it was on the bus and decided not to bother getting off. By which I mean: Mahaxy is small.
This time we went there specifically to visit MAG, whose office for Khammoune Province is based in the town, because Fran is writing an article about the work of the UXO clearance teams out there. This meant that we spent an absolutely fascinating day visiting some of the MAG teams working right over by the Vietnam border, in an area of Laos that very few tourists get to see. I'm sure we will say more about this at another point, so I won't dwell on it now, but suffice it to say that we saw a piece of the actual Ho Chi Minh trail, and saw the controlled detonation of a cluster bomb. In fact, Fran got to push the detonator...
And so we come up to the present, and Pakse. And since the humidity and the fall of darkness are telling me that it is time for an icy cold Beer Lao, I shall bid you adieu. More of our occasional ramblings soon.
Rhod
Thought I would pen a little missive, as I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe in Pakse, Southern Laos, with not an awful amount to do. I would describe Pakse as a one horse town, but I suspect the horse might have left to do something more interesting. Or been sold to pay for a scooter.
We're off tomorrow to the Bolaven Plateau- Laos main coffee-growing area- and then down to the ancient ruins at Champasak, so a quiet one today isn't too much of a blow.
Anyhow, here's a quick run-down of the places we've been in Laos so far since we came over the border on 2nd Jan, just to keep you in the loop:
1) Luang Namtha- Waaay up North. We went straight there from the border to do some trekking for a couple of days in the Nam Ha Protected Area, which was really cool. We stayed in a Lanten minority tribal village, which was interesting although they were very shy. They don't even speak Lao, let alone English, so it's not really surprising to be honest. This is where we first discovered the magic of jeow- a Lao dip eaten with little balls of sticky rice, and made from chilles (and sometimes aubergines) blackened in a fire and then pounded in a pestle and mortar. It. Is. Awesome.
2) Luang Prabang- UNESCO World Heritage- listed town on the Mekong. Lots of Buddhist temples and French colonial architecture. Really pretty place, and manages to retain its charm despite the fact that everyone there is either a tourist or working in the tourist industry. We did an ace cooking school there, so I now have a fantasy about setting up a hugely popular Lao restaurant in London when I get back. If I don't, doubtless that bastard Jamie Oliver will beat me to it...
3) Phonsavan- Ah, Phonsavan... One day sure to be mentioned in the same breath as Florence, St Petersburg and Paris.... Not really- it's a bit of a dump, but it does have 2 extremely redeeming features.
Firstly it's the nearest town to the Plain of Jars, an important archaeological site consisting of loads of massive jars (surprise surprise) strewn around the landscape, whose purpose remains a mystery. Personally I prefer to side with those who believe they had a burial purpose, as it seems more dignified than the explanation offered by our guide, who was convinced they were big distilling pots for making rice whisky (or "lao lao") to get smashed on. The problem with this suggestion, to my mind, is that if any civilisation produced enough lao lao to fill all these jars, it wouldn't remain civilised for very long.
The second reason Phonsavan is interesting is because the excellent Mines Advisory Group (MAG) have an office there giving loads of info about the work they have done clearing unexploded ordnance (UXO) from around the jar sites.More on MAG in a moment...
3) Vientiane- Laos' capital city. To be honest, there isn't that much to say about Vientiane. It's OK. Er... I had a really nice breakfast there?
4) Thakhek- If you'd told me before we got there that we would spend 6 days in Thakhek I would have probably looked at you a little funny (although to be fair, I do that to a lot of people at the moment). However, 6 days we did indeed spend in this really quite small and unremarkable town.
We did do some really good stuff in that time though. Such as a 2 day trek into the Phu Hin Boun National Protected area, which was awesome. Amazing landscape, and we stayed in a really lovely village full of very welcoming Lao people. Fran, our guide (a 16 year old girl called Moddam, who was a force of nature), and I played football with the local kids, we ate a traditional Lao dinner, and then the villagers gave us a traditional welcoming ceremony that involved holding a boiled egg, a banana and a candy bar (don't ask), while they took it in turns to pour shots of rice whisky for us to down and tie pieces of string around our wrists. After this they sang us a traditional Lao song, and invited us to respond with a song of our own. Stirred by their welcome, I decided to give them a blast of "My Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" (the Welsh national anthem, for all the Saesneg out there). It was pretty stirring stuff- think that scene in "Zulu" if you want some context.
So far, so National Geographic, you might think. Well yes. Where it took a slightly weirder turn was the point at which they sang us another song and invited us to respond again. We were all out of culturally significant airs, so had to scrabble around in the cupboard a bit to be honest... Four rounds of back and forth saw us respond to traditional Lao songs with "King of the Road". "Ring of Fire", "Message in a Bottle", and perhaps most innapropriately "The Bear Necessities." I'm not sure I've ever been in a weirder situation, and would like to place at least some of the blame on the rice whisky. (Luckily, it turns out the villagers though our ridiculous duets were one of the funnier things they had ever seen, so they all turned out to give us a big goodbye the next day.)
5) Mahaxy- To flog the dead horse of the "one horse town" metaphor used earlier, Mahaxy doesn't even have a horse. In fact it can only dream about having a horse. Apparently one old man in town remembers a horse coming through once, but it was on the bus and decided not to bother getting off. By which I mean: Mahaxy is small.
This time we went there specifically to visit MAG, whose office for Khammoune Province is based in the town, because Fran is writing an article about the work of the UXO clearance teams out there. This meant that we spent an absolutely fascinating day visiting some of the MAG teams working right over by the Vietnam border, in an area of Laos that very few tourists get to see. I'm sure we will say more about this at another point, so I won't dwell on it now, but suffice it to say that we saw a piece of the actual Ho Chi Minh trail, and saw the controlled detonation of a cluster bomb. In fact, Fran got to push the detonator...
And so we come up to the present, and Pakse. And since the humidity and the fall of darkness are telling me that it is time for an icy cold Beer Lao, I shall bid you adieu. More of our occasional ramblings soon.
Rhod
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