Dong Kralor

(Dong Kralor is the border crossing into Cambodia, and given that we spent a significant amount of time there, waiting, I think this is the most appropriate place name for this installment)

Getting from Laos to Cambodia is easy. You just purchase a ticket to Kratie, the first larger town down the Mekong in Cambodia, in Don Khone, $15, no big deal. The price includes boat transfer to the main land, a VIP bus from the boat landing directly to Kratie, without the need to change anywhere, and guide services to help with departure from Laos and with Cambodian customs. A piece of cake, really!

Right! The boat transfer worked well, we left on time, and connected effortlessly with the bus. Which left half an hour late, and not with 15 but with 50 passengers – all foreigners; indeed, a common communication issue here, but it meant that a few people had no seats, and where standing in the isle. Only for all of us to be dropped at the border 15 minutes later: end of the line, as far as this bus was concerned. All luggage offloaded, slugged to Laos customs, “you must pay 2 dollars now”, get a stamp, slug luggage to Cambodian health desk, “you must pay 1 dollar now”, then to Cambodian customs, “you must pay 2 dollars now”. No sign of support from a guide here! So I asked what was this for, “ah, stamping fee”, then asked for a receipt and suggested that if I didn´t get one I would take a photo of the gentlemen in question, and send this together with my complaint to the embassy, or ministry, or whatever. The guy looked at me, for a while, and then just gave me my money back! It is all a big scam, they just ask whatever they want.

Incidentally, the Laos side is building a huge border crossing station, to replace the little shack they use at the moment. A huge white elephant, obviously, to handle the two busses per day that show up – unless they include restaurants and coffee bars for the waiting crowds. Waiting for the connecting bus into Cambodia, that is, because the timing of this is less than ideal, at present. There was no bus. The waiting area now consists of a number of small stalls outside selling drinks, coconuts and instant noodles. Everything 1 dollar – this is clearly a dollar economy, forget about kip, or its Cambodian equivalent, the riel. Not surprisingly, the area around the stalls is one big garbage dump, interspersed with ad-hoc traces of used toilet sites.

 (1) The current customs office on the Lao side, (2) a busload of foreigners, literally, and (3) the White Elephant under construction.

 (4) Customs official on the Cambodian side.

At a certain stage a bus did turn up, very comfortable, good seats, air-conditioning, but obviously too small for the horde of tourists. So nothing happened, for two hours, because nobody could take a decision; yet this cannot be the first time that they sell too many tickets. Two or three minibuses then appeared, and it was declared that those for Kratie, the nearest stop – many passengers continued to Phnom Penh and other locations -, had to leave the big, comfy bus and squeeze into the minivan. These are 8-seaters, but in this part of the world hold at least 10 passengers, plus copious quantities of luggage, which is perhaps just OK for the smaller-built Asians, but big fat white Caucasians, that’s another story. Let me just tell you that we had a very uncomfortable two hours to Kratie, which was not exactly compensated by the Karaoke screen and music, in Cambodian, or Thai, altogether unintelligible for the foreigner-only crowd in the van. But at least we were not as uncomfortable as the people we met later that day, who had not managed to get into the minivans, and were forced to stand in the isle all the way from the border. As I said, it is all a big scam.

But we got to Kratie, in the end, we managed to find the only bottle of gin for sale in the whole town, and we enjoyed the sunset from the boulevard in front of our hotel.

(5) Has anybody been counting the number of sunset photos in this blog? This is the Mekong in Kratie.

Don Khone

Si Phan Don means “4000 islands” in Lao. And Don Khone is one of them, located pretty much to the southern, downstream end of this Mekong area, and just above the Li Phi Falls. Together with the Khon Phapheng Falls, which as far as I can see are caused by the same rock formation, a little further to the east, this forms the monumental obstacle to navigation on the river that the 1866 Garnier expedition early on must have realized ended the prospect of a major waterway trade route to China. Yet, the expedition continued, and ultimately made it to Yunan, some two years afterwards; a largely futile exercise, even though they had adjusted the objective to mapping the Mekong – the upper reaches of which they were prevented from doing by the Chinese -, but, once again, an interesting read.

The falls aren’t that high, but do push a significant amount of water through the many channels in the rock, to the extent that the Khon Phapheng Falls are considered the largest falls in South East Asia by volume. No surprises here, we all knew that the Mekong was a big river. The 4000 islands are obviously upriver from the falls, and many are only an island in the dry season, when the river level falls significantly; in addition there are a few larger, permanent islands. On Don Khone and neighbouring Don Det the French built a short railway to facilitate transport of goods that were offloaded and hauled up from the downstream side of the falls, to be brought by train to a port facility on the upstream side.

(1) A small part of the Li Phi Falls, which stretch over a significant distance, and (2) another set of falls, probably the start of the Khon Phapheng Falls. Not so high, huh? But it kills a trade route.

(3) The French railway bridge and (4) the port, an attempt to keep up the same trade…. In the process achieving the construction of the only railway in Laos – so far (remember the plans for the Bullit train?)

These days the islands are largely a chill-out facility for backpackers, many of whom spend their days smoking pot, wiling away in hammocks – “vertically challenged”, as the Lonely Planet calls it. And I must admit that there is a certain tranquility hanging over this place that invites slowing down a little further even from the already pretty relaxed general Lao pace. We enjoyed it, too, doing a short river trip in between the islands, cycling and walking a little across the island, and eating and drinking well in the only slightly more up-market hotel, situated in the converted former French railway office building. Except that the gin and tonic tasted like alcohol-free gin and tonic-light.

(5, 6) All traffic is by boat, obviously, in between the 4000.

(7) …of which some are not occupied by tourists.

 And except that everything in this environment is tourist oriented, money-focused and not very authentic, but I suspect that is not different elsewhere in tourist-dominated areas. Except that the Lao people, in general, do not seem to be so friendly and helpful as many of their neighbours are. Just an observation, admittedly from only three weeks in Laos. Let’s see what Cambodia brings us, our next destination.

(8) Some fishing is still going on, despite the easy tourist bucks

Champassak

We had come to Champasak for the nearby Wat Phu festival, one of the main Buddhist festivals in Laos. Once a year the local temple complex, Wat Phu, attracts thousands of pilgrims from around the country, who for four days make offerings in the mornings, and attend and participate in more secular and mundane activities, like various games and music performances, in the afternoons and evenings –including kick boxing, buffalo fights, boat races, and a significant amount of drinking. Every website we have checked for the last four months indicated that the festival would be the first weekend in February. However, it was remarkably quiet when we got to the temple – and it turned out that the festival is in fact, in 10 days time. Right, this is Laos, after all! In the event, we had the temple almost for ourselves.

And perhaps this was for the better: Wat Phu is a remarkable complex, active – although perhaps not through an annual festival – since the 6^th Century, as a Hindu site from a pre-Ankhor Khmer civilization, later turned into a Buddhist temple during the Lan Xang empire, the one of elephants and a parasol, in the 15^th Century or so. Wat Phu means Mountain Temple, which sort of implies some climbing: after a stone path towards several buildings at the river valley level, a steep flight of stairs leads up the mountain, to a small temple and a shallow cave. Along the stairs numerous Frangipani trees provide a wonderful sight, and smell, creating a very special, spiritual atmosphere – although the Frangipani smell is occasionally crowded out by incense, which is being burned a various intermediate offering sites. The Frangipani tree is the national tree of Laos, even though it doesn’t originate here, but has South American roots. Even more confusing, in Spanish it is called Tree of Cambodia. Never mind!

It is hard to believe that the town of Champasak is the former capital and Royal Seat of Southern Laos. There is little of the grandeur left, if it ever existed, in this little over 12000 inhabitant village on the banks of the Mekong; everything happens along the only paved road, but it is charming enough, friendly, low key. How it is ever going to manage the influx of festival goers, I have no idea – kind of difficult to imagine – but I am afraid we won’t stay to find out, next week.

(1) The stone path towards the temple.

(2) The lower part of the stairs, in between the Frangipani trees, and (3) Frangipani flower

(4) Temple window, and (5) Sculpture on the outside, clearly of Hindu origin.

(6) A sneaky view inside, where prayers and offerings are ongoing the whole day.

(7) A window of what could well be the former Champassak Royal palace.

Tha Kaek

You see many signs of the 25^th Sea Games in Vientiane, quite confusing, as Laos is a land-locked country - until I realized that SEA stands for South East Asian. Outside the capital are the various venues, in fact quite attractive stadiums, not too big for this country – built by the Chinese for the 2009 tournament, in return of who knows what, probably another logging concession or land rights.

Further Chinese initiatives include a Bullit train from Kunming in Yunan via Vientiane to Bangkok. The marketing slogan is “turning Laos from land-locked to land-linked” (a euphemism, according to one of our friends here, for super highway). I wonder how Francois Garnier would have reacted to this plan. Garnier was the driving force behind a French expedition in the 1860s, which set out from Phnom Penh trying to prove the economic potential of the Mekong as major trade route in and out of China, and thus the strategic importance of Laos for France. The expedition makes for interesting reading, but quite quickly proved that the trading concept was a non-starter, due to the many rapids and the highly variable water level of the river with the seasons in general, and the falls near the Cambodian-Laotian border in particular. Despite the expedition’s failure the French incorporated Laos anyhow, in their Indochina empire, for the colony never to return a profit.

We left Vientiane around lunch time, and arrived in Tha Kaek at the end of the afternoon, just in time for the sunset over the Mekong. The trip was not particularly interesting, passing through quite boring, dry and dusty landscape – this is what happens in the dry season, when the rice paddies are empty -, but certainly comfortable, with our friends in an air-conditioned four-wheel drive. Tha Kaek is a small town, right across from Thailand, and it shows, in the activity level in town, in the attitude of the people, and in the availability of smuggled goods in the shops. As so many towns here, it was built by the French in the early 1900s, and the architecture, in the main square and along the streets, reflects this. The most pleasant place is the boulevard along the river, where terraces serve soft drinks and Beer Lao, but also Thai whisky – not that much better than its Lao variant. Regrettably, no gin and tonic…

(1, 2) French colonial architecture at the central square in Tha Kaek

(3) and the terraces along the Mekong, with limited choice only, (4) OK, they serve roasted crickets, but how are you going to swallow that without G&T?

Next day, after a short stroll through town, we departed for Champasak, further south along the Mekong, once again a fairly boring but comfortable drive, with a lunch stop in Savannakhet. This is Lao’s second biggest town, after Vientiane, but apart from the occasional French colonial building, and an excellent French restaurant, there is not much character here. So, on to Champasak,  which is on the east side of the Mekong, involving transfer by a small ferry boat that requires a leap of faith, especially when it gets dark at night. We survived the crossing, and soon after arrived in our hotel, where, thanks to a sharp purchasing policy implemented immediately after the Tha Kaek experience, we were now entirely self-sufficient when it came to the gin and tonics.

 (5) The ferry across the mighty Mekong River…..

(6) Mighty it is.

Vientiane (2)

Vientiane is just waking up, slowly. It is a very friendly, indeed sleepy town, but so here and there you see signs of development, some taller, larger buildings are going up, a new department store, the occasional international hotel, a flashy park along the banks of the Mekong. The Laos stock exchange, a modern white building with dark glass, opened just a few weeks ago, with no less than two listings, apparently both heavily over-subscribed. But the majority of downtown Vientiane is still very low-rise, a mix of run-down French colonial architecture, a few newer Chinese buildings and Laotian construction, along narrow tree-lined streets; all together not very organized. Cables everywhere, traffic slightly congested because of tuk-tuks and scooters, and a handful of 4x4’s  – but not too bad, nothing compared to Bangkok or Jakarta.

Many of the once attractive colonial buildings have a new role, nowadays, as National Library or Museum, like the former French Governor’s residence. They are clearly in need of some restoration, but the priority in this Buddhist country is with the many temples; there is obviously more money available for religion than for a questionable national heritage. Unlike in Luang Prabang, the temples in Vientiane are all from after 1828, when the Thai (the Siamese, at the time) destroyed the city because of some minor disagreement with the local ruler – I told you earlier, history in this part of the world is not so different from European history.

(1) The old French Police Headquarters is now the National Library

That said, there are some quite attractive Buddhist temples, active and inactive. The oldest one is the Wat Si Saket, a mostly wooden structure, in a compound that distinguishes itself through the many small niches filled with miniature Buddha images, collected over hundreds of years. Another one, Haw Pha Kaew, has been turned in a museum, the collection of which is much less interesting than the building itself. Visiting those temples one does with quite a few other people, busloads literally, as they are high on the tourist must-see list, whilst in fact it is much nicer to wander through the lesser known temple complexes, peaceful, quiet, or perhaps only accompanied by some chanting of resident monks.

(2, 3) Wat Si Saket,

and (4, 5) Haw Pha Kaew.

It is Chinese New Year and Vietnamese Tet, this week, and although Laos has its own festival, in April, the Chinese and Vietnamese resident population does celebrate. This is obvious in the markets, with an unusually high availability of roasted piglets, and in the streets, where houses and courtyards have been decorated. In one neighbourhood the traditional dragon, accompanied by drums, was performing (four people in a dragon suit, that is); upon completion of the act, all packed into two tuk-tuks, to go and entertain the next shopkeeper that paid good money for the show – and anticipating good fortune, no doubt.

(6, 7, 8, 9, 10) The main market in Vientiane, geared towards Chinese New Year, including roasted piglet and red lanterns.

(11) Dragon performance

With a few hours spare – after all, there is not that much to see in Vientiane – I got myself an hour-long Lao massage, very pleasant and professional, and by far not as sleazy as many of the Thai massage parlors, and a haircut. I was the only customer in the shop, but soon after the lady hairdresser started cutting my hair, the place started to fill up, with neighbours wanting to see how you do so on the fa’rang, local terminology for foreigner. Soon the place was packed, I should have charged an entry fee.

(12) View from the balcony of our luxury accommodation private guesthouse in Vientiane, the best of the trip so far, and unlikely to be beaten, complete with gin tonic, superb food, exquisite wines, power shower, laundry services, travel agency  and excellent company – although the waiter showed up two days late….

Vientiane

Vientiane is the French-ification of Viang Chan, as the capital of Laos is called. However, before I vilify the French, the Dutch made it even worse, when they set out for Wincjan in 1641. The VOC, the Dutch East Indies Company, had established a trading post in Cambodia in 1632, which rapidly expanded over the following years, thanks to the Cambodian king being favourably disposed towards the Dutch. In 1641 the Dutch, always eager to get to the source of their trade ware – mostly forest products like dyes and resins, in this case – treated some of the Lao merchants who traded with them in Cambodia to an all expenses paid trip to Batavia, today’s Jakarta, then the overseas headquarters of the VOC. And sure enough, the trip paid off, and they were invited back, to come to the Royal court in Wincjan.

Under the leadership of one Geraerd Wusthof a convoy of four barges and nine prahus – not sure what this is, I suspect large canoes or so – packed with trading goods, and with generous presents for the king and his entourage, set off from Phnom Penh for Laos in July 1641. After what must have been an arduous trip up the Mekong (Meicon, in the journal), across multiple rapids that required frequent offloading of the boats, and sometimes carrying the boats over the waterfalls, and various unscheduled stops due to overindulgence and drunkenness of the local crew members – they must have discovered the Lao whisky! -, they arrived almost five months later as “the first representatives of a Christian nation” ever to visit Laos. They received a grand reception, with many elephants and thousands of soldiers as a guard of honour, and everybody was happy. But when the Dutch wanted to return to Cambodia, they were forced to leave one of them behind, because the King hadn’t yet collected sufficient presents to send back to the VOC Governor General in Batavia. Here already, you see the first traces of Please Don’t Rush! In the end, the last Dutchman left only in August 1642.

Long did the Dutch not benefit from this potentially profitable exercise, because the Cambodian king who liked them so much was killed somewhere in 1642, and his successor was somewhat less impressed with his Dutch guests, to the extent that he ordered the murder of all Dutch Phnom Penh in November 1643. And so it happened, and that was the end of our involvement in Cambodia, let alone Laos.

Well, not entirely, because in 1644 the VOC send a “punitive naval expedition”, but this one was slaughtered, as well. Of course, greed ultimately won from anger and indignation, and in 1654 a new trade mission was opened, but by then the competition had grown much stronger, not in the least by the Chinese, who decided to ransack the Phnom Penh, instead. What about unfair competition?

Anyhow, so much for  history, tomorrow (or so) more about today’s Vientiane.

(if you believe that I did remember all this from primary school history lessons, check out a little book edited by one Carool Kerstens, called “Strange Events in the Kingdoms of Cambodia and Laos, 1635-1644”, a, introduction to and translation of an original Dutch text published in 1669 by Pieter Castelyn, called “Vremde Geschiedenissen in de Koninckrijcken van Cambodia en Louwen-Lant, in Oost Indien, zedert den Jare 1635-1644, aldaer voorgevallen”)

Muang Sing

We had high hopes of Muang Sing. A lot less touristic than Luang Nam Tha, and the heartland of minorities in Western Laos. And less than two hours away, in a packed minivan on an attractive road crossing a protected forest area, this was a piece of cake compared to any of our previous transfers, except that the lady in the back filled no less than four plastic bags, audibly.

Disappointment! Muang Sing is the pits, really, an utterly unattractive dusty town – the tribal museum and one old French colonial house cannot change that. If I have called previous accommodation basic, here we do another step down the ladder, and restaurant-wise there is very little choice (although the Muang Sing fresh spring rolls, in the local foreigner hang-out, were absolutely superb). But most annoying, however, are the people, basically unfriendly, and totally single-mindedly focused on getting to the tourist money. This is obvious in restaurants, understaffed and unresponsive in the knowledge that you don’t have another option anyhow, and with any of the three trekking agencies we tried; in one the guy couldn’t be bothered to be drawn away from his computer game, the second suggested one tour, take it or leave it (we left it), and in the third there was nobody present at all. In the end we found another utterly unfriendly lady who was prepared to rent us two bicycles – even smaller than the ones in Luang Nam Tha, and no gears at all – and sell us a walking tour. I suspect people have gotten used to too much easy money in too short a period of time, with the rapid opening up of the tourist industry here.

We spent the afternoon cycling, to a few villages in the neighbourhood. It was hard going, sandy un-surfaced road, and only when we turned around after a while we realized that we had been going uphill all the time: peddling on the way back wasn’t really necessary! In the mean time we had been burned to death by a very strong sun and covered in dust by a big Chinese truck. Had we seen a lot? Not really.

The next day we did better, on our walking tour, which in fact turned out to be very nice. An easy five-six hour walk took us along a series of villages, some from Akha and some from Yeo tribes. The villages, especially those further away from the road, had still quite a lot of authentic features, including thatched roofs and various offers of opium. More importantly, some of the minority people still dressed in their traditional cloths, women with elaborate headdresses and the men, well, with a black cap. Once again, the photos tell more. Incidentally, here no surprises when you show the LCD screen, on the contrary, they have all seen it before. And children speak even better English than in Luang Nam Tha: ‘Photo? Money!’ is the opening and closing sentence. 

(1) Pumpkins in the village

(2) Village woman

(3) Akha woman and her children (four of those are hers, apparently)

(4) Even children don’t escape, this type of hats is quite common,

 and a popular item to sell to tourists, too.

(5) Yeo woman, and (6) Yeo man.

(7) Local transport

We came across a small Buddhist temple, with a range of animal carvings outside, and in reliefs. Buddhism is easily mixed here with animist beliefs, like the spirit bridge – a bamboo bridge designed to allow the spirits to bypass the village – and the spirit gate, to stop the spirits from entering the village, complete with wooden cut-outs of guns pointing outwards. In another village a man – shaman - had been called in to drive out the spirits, and the ceremony was in full swing when we passed; a hundred meters further a children’s fair was set up with darts and balloons, unrelated, I suspect.

(8 and 9) local Buddhist temple attributes.

(10) The shaman, and (11) his attributes.

(12) the spirit bridge.

(13, 14 and 15) the spirit gate.

Women were working the fields – men obviously had better things to do. It was the time of sugarcane harvesting, and like in Phongsaly, all the produce is straight away taken to China –evidenced by hundreds of fully loaded trucks driving in the direction of the border -, as had happened with most other crops as well, apart from some corn and manioc left in the villages. Apparently, the Chinese even come into Laos to grow rice in the dry season, being equipped with better seeds and with irrigation kits they rent the paddies from the locals for an extra harvest. The Laotians are pretty laconic about this: they sell the produce to China, and get electronics back, mobile phones and the like.

We got back from our walk earlier than expected, and in time for the last bus – minivan – back to Luang Nam Tha. We didn’t think twice. We made our way to the bus station, and out of Muang Sing. No regrets here.