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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Published On: Jan 24, 2006 10:31 PM
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