The Mekong and Us


21 - 24 Jan, Ian

Our last guest house in Thailand faced directly across the Mekong River. We could see it from the dining terrace and it was worth stumbling out of bed in the morning a few minutes early to see the mist hanging over the water with the hills of Laos still in grey silhouette behind.

Our last destination in Thailand was the Hall of Opium. This was a very modern and impressive museum funded conspicuously by the royal family to encourage Thais to feel proud of the way they have overcome the scourge of opium that, like all bad things it seems, came from another land. The first set of information panels show estimates of output from all of the opium-producing countries, and proving at a glance that Thailand has no significant place in the trade. Since it gives figures over time, the same charts also show the story of Afghanistan: when the US funded the Taliban in order to sweep the Soviets out of the country their intolerant and harsh regime swiftly reduced the production of opium by 94%. When US interests changed so that they bombed the country and replaced the Taliban with tribal warlords the opium trade resumed and Afghanistan is now the world leader in opium production.

The history of opium in the region is given in a narrative that depicts the Chinese as an empire in decline, too backward to defend their interests militarily and too decadent to resist the lure of the drug. One in thirty Chinese came to use the drug. Thus the British, portrayed as a brutal but effective rising power, were able to profiteer from generating a nation of dependants in China to whom they sold opium imported from their colony of India. All that the Chinese government tried to do was impose high import taxes, and in response to this the Brits skewered them cruelly in battle. Hong Kong, I learned, was taken from the Chinese as the spoils of one of these opium wars. A little vignette in one showcase tells of how Lord Elgin, who must be the marbles robber, took cruel reprisal, burning a culturally invaluable palace to the ground to teach the Chinese a lesson, Israeli-style before its time. The enlightened countries of the world began to recognise that opium could be a problem, and to address it decided that some sort of controlled legalisation was best. Thailand signed up to the consequent treaties and thus opium became a tradable asset with which its enterprising people could improve their lot. And when it became evident that more aggressive measures were needed to counter the social problems caused by the drug the Thai royal family toured their land and paid for the peasants who were growing opium to convert to other income sources.

I'm envious of the way that the Thais can publicly offer such a benign and rosy account of themselves. But at the same time the cynic in me feels that even if everything they say is factually correct it's still phoney, which is why we Brit's are destined never to give ourselves the same self-love treatment. Whatever you think of the commentary, the museum is beautifully laid out and is, I think, the best single topic museum I've seen.

The next day we crossed the Mekong into Laos, feeling sad to leave Thailand after almost four excellent weeks. Our itinerary, predictably, took us to see another hill tribe, and generated the strange possibility that we might get hill tribe fatigue. We bumped our way along a partially graded road, sending up clouds of red dust that billowed in through all sides of our open van. According to Mike this poor unsealed road is the main route from China down into South East Asia. The village itself was nice enough, especially as many of the houses were still made with wood and bamboo under thatch rather than concrete and tin. We were shown around by Somsy, who is apparently the village chief. He took us into his mother's house, which was similar to that of Mr Pa (described previously) and after taking us to see the school we had a welcome and refreshing cup of tea (it was getting hot) outside his own house.

The range of skills that the villagers have is impressive. Every family has its own loom, which they make themselves from wood and other materials at hand, and these are used to make their clothes. The clothes are dyed with indigo - the women's clothes are died blue and the men can use blue and also black. We also saw them making their own paper from bamboo. Somsy says that this is mainly for their own use, giving the example of its place in their ceremonies to communicate with their immediate ancestors - they are animistic rather than Buddhist.

One photograph that I meant to take but didn't was of the women's hair - it must be very long for they wrap it in a braid tight around their head. They also remove their eyebrows when they're around 15, since, one of them told me, the men wouldn't find them attractive if they didn't. Somsy, touched no doubt by western influence, claimed that he wasn't encouraging his daughters to do this.

The highlight, though, was unplanned. While we were there a van came in carrying a couple and their many suitcases. They joined us for lunch, also served outside Somsy's house - we had rattan (the same rattan that furniture is made from), chilli sauce, pork, morning glory, mange tout and rice, served with rice wine that tasted like sake. Followers of US foreign policy will not be astonished to learn that during the Vietnam war the CIA were in Laos, which they of course denied, building airports from which their planes could refuel and paying tribes people to fight against the Vietnamese. In 1975 the Communists came to power in Laos and so many people felt unsafe in the country that fully 10% of the population went into exile overseas. One of these was the guy who had just arrived on the van with his bags. He and his wife fled to the US - first to Michigan then to Ohio and then to Wisconsin, where they now live. I admire him for making the move when his English, even after 27 years there, is quite hard work. I loved talking to him. I can't imagine what it must be like to move from such a simple community to Michigan. Many people do, of course, and to understand this is, in my opinion, necessary to understand the USA. He didn't want to leave Laos and has a clear affection for his village; equally, he's not sure that he'd move back if it were safe - his children are, as you would expect hyper-American. (I recall a study in New York that found that recent immigrants exaggerated the local accent - coffee becoming a more pronounced corfee for example - noticeably more than established residents.) He seemed genuinely pleased that we had taken time to visit his village and to find out how his friends and family live there.

I asked Somsy whether he prefers the wood and bamboo houses or the block ones and without hesitation he told me that he preferred the former. God only knows what he would have made of the room where we spent the night. It was a gallery to pastiche: the lino alluded to a mosaic-tiled Roman villa, the cheap mirror to Modernist steel and glass, the tasselled curtains to velvet drapes, the ply TV cabinet to real wood, the plastic flowers to flowers, the fair-stall-prize picture to the Himalayas, the flamboyant lengths of cabling stapled against the walls to reliable electricity.

When we planned our trip we added in Thailand and Laos at a late stage, having originally overlooked South East Asia. I had thought that Thailand would be travel-friendly and easy, and Laos would be the difficult country, exotically less advanced. I was only half right. The country is yet another redundant case study of the established fact that Communism doesn't work. There are few souvenirs of the French colonial period - left hand drive being the most obvious, and the ability to get proper bread and croissants where we are now; mainly the French influence seems to have gone.

Our experience of Laos continued as we travelled down the Mekong to Luang Prabang. Our itinerary promised a boat journey but with a couple of days to go before we made it Mike explained that this meant pounding along in a speedboat that was so noisy that you need head phones to protect your ears, so wet and fast that you can't take a photo and so violent that there is no prospect of moving from your seat. And it takes six to seven hours. Alternatively, for about £200, we could charter a "fast slow boat". This would take all day but would be covered and leisurely and we would have plenty of space to walk around. Having not had any income for the best part of a year, my gut instinct was a bloody-minded determination to stick with the speedboat, but after a few hours Paula's wiser council prevailed and we asked Mike to book us the humane alternative. Without enumerating all of our complaints, I can tell you that at this point for all that we liked Mike the Laos leg of this trip was feeling like a rip-off. When we came to board the boat the next day, having got up at 5:30 a.m. to give ourselves time to get to Luang Prabang, we had another disappointment - there were none of the comfortable reclining seats that Mike had described (we saw them on the next boat) and we instead had simple upright wooden benches. Not only had we only been given Saddam-class transport they hadn't allowed us enough time to pay for a reliable upgrade.

As we set off the morning looked perfect but soon the river ran between mountains on either side and here the fog gathered densely over the water. We pulled over to the bank and waited for the fog to clear, frequently hearing the sound of a speedboat somehow thumping past. I couldn't understand how they, travelling twice as quickly as us, could make it through. Paula found the answer in Lonely Planet: "Serious accidents, sometimes including fatalities, involving these speedboats seem to occur on an almost weekly basis... we recommend that you avoid all speedboat travel unless absolutely necessary."



When the fog lifted we set off again - perhaps too quickly for before long we heard the horrible sound of the boat grounding on the river bed. It stopped. The owner rapidly stripped down to his underwear and jumped into the Mekong, taking a rope that he seemed initially to think he might drag the boat with, and then which he used to secure it to some nearby rocks. The owner's son had been steering and got a very angry earful. The rest of his family, who live in the back of the boat and travel with him when they're working, jumped over too, the women still in the long skirts worn by all Laos females. Next, he told us, through Mike, that we had to leave the boat, taking with us a few valuables, because there was the possibility that it might capsize as he turned it around. We waded over to a little island - more just a few rocks - in the middle of the Mekong with about 200 metres to either bank. I was apprehensive - and this held me back from offering to help, for fear that the dressing on my leg wound would get soaked. Once on the island I took photos instead.

Presently the cavalry arrived, or at least a slender fishing boat full of young guys who helped the owner to manoeuvre the boat around. In all it took about an hour and a half, but they managed it and the boat didn't overturn.

With our bad luck all played out the rest of the day was superb. Despite the hard seats we had loads of space to move around and it was a fantastic journey. As well as the owner's family we'd given a lift to a few more locals, who were smiley and jolly even if we could only communicate in simple questions through Mike. We stopped at a checkpoint (this being a Communist country) and a girl got on hawking bananas. It was difficult to place her age - by height you'd have guessed she was around six but she displayed Dickensian street smarts. She was nine. Another woman came on, also selling bananas, and she practised her English on me. "You are beautiful", she sang - for Thai and Lao talk, unlike their singing, sounds like singing. "I love you. Do you love me?" If I loved her too much I could apparently get banged up in prison, for the Laos have their taboos round the other way from the Thais' sex good, drugs bad attitude. If you want to transgress, choose your country carefully.

The journey showed us a people for whom the Mekong played several roles: they fished, panned for gold and washed in it, and they used boats on the river to transport timber logged near its shores (sadly we saw no elephants). Our day turned out to be a great highlight. We'd lost too much time to make it all the way to Luang Prabang. In the last light of the gloaming we steered into the shore by torch light, arriving at one of the few places accessible by car. The road was even worse than the one we'd rattled along the day before, but it only took us about 40 minutes to get to Luang Prabang.

My first sight of the town was quite favourable, and it benefited from the romance of the night. While Paula and the girls rested at the disappointing hotel selected by our tour operator, I walked into town with Mike to get food to bring back. The central road is a strip of restaurants and shops having a "shabby chic" appeal. And it's packed with Europeans - some backpackers but many more couples. In future, alongside other considerations of cultural impact, we're going to have to work out how we can come to these places without retreating into our own family bubble and contributing to the general assassination of social ambience effected by wealthy tourists, especially couples.

Paula saw the place for the first time this morning, and without the benefit of candlelight the town looked less appealing. I wonder if I've made a mistake insisting that we come here for a couple of weeks, especially now that our operator has inexplicably extended this to almost three (we were too overwhelmed with travel bookings to notice).

When I got up today I took off the dressing on my leg to find that the gash under the steristrips, which had seemed to be healing nicely, has opened up again. So our day began with a walk that took in about 600 steps. From the viewpoint that we reached there's a great view, almost 360 degrees, across Luang Prabang and its environs. As well as Mike we had a local guide with us and this one provided some good information. Like most men in Laos, he had spent a month in a monastery in his teenage years. Many stay longer, and it's an alternative to school for the very poor. The streets of Luang Prabang are full of boys with shaved heads in orange robes. I inquired about the unusual situation of having so many well-attended religious centres in a Communist state and was told that when the Communists came to power monks were banned from attending monasteries for about a year. After this time the Buddhists and the government achieved a rapprochement and since then there doesn't seem to have been any conflict. Before seizing power the Communists had even agreed to retain the monarchy, but quickly reneged on this. Declining a consolatory post as special advisor, the king fled.

Today's guide showed none of the love for his leaders than that the Thais continually report for their king. The government is, I was told, riddled with corruption. Last year, for example, Japan alone sent $65 billion to Laos and only $5 billion of this made its way to genuine development programs. Meanwhile the men in government and all of their families get huge homes, and snap up new cars, paying cash, the moment that the latest models are advertised.

There are, though, some benefits of government by command. My guide reminded me that Luang Prabang is a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site, and you can see the investment that's being made to protect it. The electricity went off without warning today and only came on just before 5 p.m. This was not a poor country infrastructure failure as we thought but a planned consequence of tearing down the overhead power lines in order to hide them underground. And we can see ugly concrete pavements being replaced with nice, herringbone brick. No new buildings or renovations are allowed without gaining prior assent that it wont imperil the UNESCO standing. In contrast, Chiang Mai in easy-going Thailand had World Heritage Site status until about a decade ago when it was withdrawn as high-rise buildings exploded around the city.

While protecting its heritage, the government is not too proud to make a bit of money from foreigners: they've recently sold a 30 year lease on a house on the main street to a French guy for $100k. Workmen are all over it, presumably modernising it to an approved plan.

Heritage protection is also reaching out to touch me. After my last blog I can confirm that my search for bronze Buddha is over since even if I found one to buy it's illegal to export them - another sign of patriotic pride that I wish had some echo in England.

Posted: Tue - January 24, 2006 at 04:27 PM              


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