Tour of the Bolevan Plateau.

I’m putting the “tour” in tourist today. I haven’t yet gone on a bonafide tour while on my travels, but today’s the day. I am going on a tour of the Bolevan Plateau. A Spanish couple, a couple from Holland and a girl from France and I will share a minibus with an English speaking tour guide named Boun (meaning luck in Lao).


Boun.
We will see coffee and tea plantations, visit two ethnic group villages (one coffin makers and one weavers), and see three waterfalls. It has been raining non-stop for three days, and today is no different. It’s the rainy season in Laos and we are near the part of Laos that gets the most rain. The couples complain a bit about the lack of sun, but the rain doesn’t seem bad, just appropriate for the season.

The first stop is at Tad Fan, the highest waterfalls in the Bolevan plateau. Boun suggests that we skip these falls, even though they are the most magnificent, because the rains will obscure our view of the falls. As a group, we decide to visit anyhow on the off chance that there is visibility. When we get there the mist curtain is so thick that it's like we are in a cloud. The falls are completely invisible, but I can still feel the force of falls in the deafening sound and I can smell the mist. In my mind's eye I can imagine the 120 metre drop and the water carving sharply into the rockface and then hammering down into the floor of the valley below. It was still worth the visit to hear the falls.

The second falls are visible, but the winds and mist are intense at the bottom where we want to go.

None of the other tourists want to go down the final set of flooded rocky and slippery steps with me as we near the foot of the falls. One girl already fell and we are all slipping on the mossy rock surface - all except for Boun in his flip flops of course. I am concerned too because I can't see anything as I get closer. I give my glasses and camera to Boun and tell him that I'm heading down. The glasses are of no use cause I can't see anything in the blinding white mist water. He tells me to be careful.

All I can do is squint to keep the pelting water out of my eyes. At some point during the descent it becomes difficult to breath because the water is getting so thick. I cup my hand over my mouth to create a pocket of air. At some point I can no longer see the steps in front of me and I stop my descent. I am by myself and very near the bottom of the waterfall - I feel a huge thrill as I grip the slimy wooden railing to prevent myself from getting swallowed into the falls...I try to breath the water-air without drowning. The water takes away the sound of my laughter and I feel so alive.

I am drenched now, and the raincoat becomes a joke but keeps me warm.

It's been raining for several days and the dirt roads are very muddy. Our minibus gets stuck on an uphill and we all get out to push it. Gwladys from France slips and falls front first into the mud. This is just two minutes after we had talked about how the red mud acts like a stain. She's a bit upset but tries not to let it get her down. The van just spins and spins in the mud and doesn't progress any higher on the hill.

Then Boun gets the idea to tie a rope to the front of the van and get us to pull it.

The girl from Holland refuses to pull and gets frustrated and says "This is stupid, it won't work. Why are the Lao people so full of pride. He can't admit that it won't work. We're stuck." I'm not sure it will work either, but we really don't have any choice but to make it work. Boun is still very positive and full of cheer and he's barefeet in the mud at this point and encouraging us all to pull harder. Eventually the van moves out of its rut and up the hill and we all let go except for Boun who continues to pull and run up the hill. I laugh because he looks like he's flying a kite, except that it's not a kite, it's a two ton van! He doesn't seem like he's full of pride; he just seems like he's a person who's determined to make things work, even in the face of adversity, and he's not about to get too worked up over it, especially if solutions are possible. If this is pride, then this is the type of pride I like!

The last falls are also beautiful as you can see.

We pass by some women selling produce on the roadside and I stop to buy some cute minibananas. I notice that a couple of women are passing something back and forth between each other. They are smoking something in what looks like a bamboo bong. I crouch down to get a closer look and the woman atomatically passes it to me. I think...what the hell...

I have no idea what it was, (most likely tobacco mixed with something else?), but it actually was pretty smooth and enjoyable.

In one of the villages we have a chance to see an ethnic group do some weaving. The loom is made up of a few sticks and the extended legs of the woman make up the frame to form the loom. I buy a piece of fabric from the woman. I'm digging myself into a deeper and deeper souvenir hole.

Piglets.

A child holding a child.

Another child holding a child.

This is a common sight in rural Laos. There are so many kids being born that they have to take care of each other and don't question this responsibility as well as others. I wonder if I will be less tolerant towards my own students after seeing so many kids here being independent and resourceful. It just goes to show that if given responsibility with a set of expectations (implicit) they live up.

Alone. I love bike!!!!!!!!!!!! Roach Attack.

Today is my first day in Laos without So and Ramsey. They went to Bangkok to run some errands and I decide to deposit myself in Pakse for the two days they're gone. I don't have a sense of Pakse yet, so I decide to rent a bicycle ($1.50) at the hotel I'm staying at (for $8.50/night). It's my first time on a bike since I left Toronto. The bike is way too small for me and the seat is at its lowest point on the post. I feel like one of those clowns in a circus riding a tiny child's bike. It is also candy pink. Despite these setbacks, I can't help but smile stupidly as I ride around. Man, I am always surprised at how I am always surprised at how much I love riding my bike...if that makes any sense. I love cycling, but don't know how much I love it until I'm not doing it for a while. I'm wary of the many unpredictable motorbikes swerving around the streets and this adds a bit of fear spice to my ride. I have a heightened sense of my environment. As I ride around Pakse, that cool thing happens where the brain begins to draw a map of a new place as it becomes more familiar with it. (This doesn't often happen at home because I don't usually go far from already familiar neighbourhoods.) Pakse begins to take shape - I slowly begin to figure out the orientation of the main drag and accompanying services, the ATM machine, bank, food and hotel establishments, the post office, the market and grid pattern of the city, and the waterway that shapes the town into a cul de sac. My bike route is like the lines of an etch-a sketch populating the screen and drawing me a picture.

I manage to find the market and spend an obsessive-compulsive three hours deliberating and haggling for handcrafted textiles. Textile laden, I don't look forward to my uphill ride back to the hotel on little pink pee wee, so I take the bike to a nearby motorcycle repair shop and pantomime my need to raise my seat at least nine inches higher. The mechanics look at each other and laugh. To my defence I point out to them that I am taller then all of them, and damnit, I need my seat raised. I think they felt a bit embarrassed, like it's beneath them, as if they are brain surgeons being asked to lance a boil on a buttock...but one guy finally does the job.

On the way back I stop for the BEST PAD THAI eveh! It's not slathered in sickly sweet red sauce.

I stop at that "Best Indian Restaurant in Pakse" to get an ice-cream. I've come to the conclusion that an Indian restaurant is a sound business idea in any part of the world where you have Western tourists. Most big Western cities have Indian restaurants and Indian food has become a well-loved cuisine for most cosmopolitan palates. Many of the tourists here forego the more unfamiliar (and therefore scary) Lao food for the Indian food. Every seat in the house is taken while Lao establishments across the street look empty in comparison. The owner said he came here eleven years ago from India and has Lao relatives in Vientiane.

I'm at the internet cafe now and this is not worth mentioning except that my emailing is accompanied by a giant two inch flying cockroach dive-bombing me and causing me to scream and make a complete fool of myself. Some of the other internetters laugh at me, but I can't help it...I'm now really hyper-sensitive (two levels below hysteria) and my startle reflex is on high. The giant flying roach has flown by me a couple of times and now it lands and scuttles and hides and scuttles in and around my computer terminal. I try to concentrate on my typing but I step on a piece of plastic and hear it go crunch and I scream. A loose strand of hair brushes by my bare arm and I scream. I can't take it anymore, my nerves are on edge and I get the internet owner guy to come remove the creepy arthropod and he laughs and just steps on it. It's so protected in its tough exoskeleton that it doesn't even squish; it just flops on its back with its shiny sectioned legs akimbo. I keep on eyeing it periodically to ensure it's dead - I have this paranoia that unless you see a roach's guts splattered about, they can always reanimate. After twenty minutes, I see its antennae begin to move about and it's somehow moved from its last "dead" position. Is this the immortal soul of the grasshopper I ate in Bangkok come back to avenge itself? Damn Southeast Asia and Karmic Buddhism! I'll take the four inch spiders, scorpions, ants and moths I've been sleeping with every night in the library over these two inch flying (flying!) cockroaches any day.

Phew...safe in my bug-free hotel room...I hope.

To and from the Waterfalls

Today Ramsey tells me he's taking me to see some nearby falls...they're ten minutes from the school. So doesn't want to go, because she generally doesn't like hiking, or getting dirty. It's only ten minutes, how dirty can we get? As we make plans, So reminds us that Ramsey can't go with me alone because it will look improper to the villagers without a chaperone, Ramsey refuses to take students out of the snacks workshop to accompany us, and in the end, So reluctantly agrees to come along. She is not overjoyed, but it doesn't kill my enthusiasm.

Ramsey's idea of ten minutes turns out to be forty...fifteen of which is spent trying to cross a fast-moving stream with slippery rocks. Did Ramsey even mention this stream crossing to me? Nope...of course not...that would've been too easy. At the stream edge, Ramsey tells me to leave my camera behind because I am going to fall in. No way am I leaving my camera! I strap my sandals onto my belt loops and tie my camera close to my neck and wade into the water. I am determined to surmount the stream with a bone dry camera. At one point I get submerged up to the shoulders and have to hold the camera strap with my teeth, but of course I make it - did you doubt?! Crossing is a little challenging and a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to re-crossing the stream on the way back.

On the other side of the stream, we pass by coffee plants - the Robusta variety they grow around here. (There seems to be a lot of controversy and misinformation about Robusta vs. Arabica vs. Robusta-Arabica hybrids in the West. A book I read about the history of coffee, called Black Gold, may have misled me a little. A lot of the mainstream Arabica out there, though claiming a more refined lineage than Robusta, and marketed as superior, is actually inferior to many Robusta varieties at this point in their domestication and cultivation.)

We see children all going to the stream to collect water in various containers. I swear, parents have so many children here just so they can collect water and steal fruit from trees.

We trample through woods and farmland and each pick up two pound of mud on the bottom of our feet. So eventually takes off her flip-flops and walks barefoot.

Corn on one side and rice on the other.

Pretending to be a rice farmer...um...I think.

I always love the approach towards waterfalls. Before you can see them, you can hear them, and as you get closer the soft buzz of them becomes increasingly louder, then before you know it, the last scrap of foliage parts before you…and there they are…the roaring sound of them enveloping your head. In this case they are small, but still nice. I see a thin little bridge that some villagers have put across two rocks for crossing. It doesn't look like it would support human weight. Ramsey suggests we try crossing the falls and I agree and feel intrepid, scared and excited. So tells us it's a really stupid idea and Ramsey looks reluctant and decides not to go ahead and I feel both relieved and disappointed. I think we could've done it.

At the falls, So washes her feet. I find this silly and tease her.

Why is she doing this when she knows she’ll have to walk back in the mud on our return. She tells me because washing her feet makes her feel good. All the Lao people have a foot washing obsession. They brush their feet with this extremely harsh brush very vigorously when they bathe. I can't even stand the feel of its abrasive bristles on my skin. It feels like my skin is being ripped off by tiny hooks. Many of them use this brush on their whole bodies. Lao skin must be different. I refuse to use the brush - I'm content to be only as clean as my hands can make me.

On the way back, Ramsey machetes the trunk of a rosewood tree to reveal the "blood" sap that gives rosewood its colour. It truly looks like it's bleeding. Rosewood is being harvested from "protected" forests at an alarming rate. This poaching goes unabated as more affluent Lao create a market demand for rosewood furniture.

I hear laughter and squealing and I turn to see this perfectly quaint and delightful Huck Finn moment. A bunch of cute, shoeless and carefree kids running and rolling tires up the hill with sticks. Am I in a movie? They get shy when I ask them for a picture, but they like it when I show it to them after.

We take a different pathway home through Gong's village to see how he's doing. I'm a bit disappointed that there's no need for another stream crossing .

Here's a family in Gong's village.

Gong says his foot is a bit better, though he is still limping badly.

Here we see his pouty little sister again. It's pretty uncharacteristic for children to be so emotionally coddled in Laos, and this kid is going to be spoiled for sure. Her father is the chief of the village, her family is the richest in the village, and she's the youngest of eleven kids. She's going to be a heart breaker.

Coconuts and Blind Candy

In the afternoon, Ramsey challenges me to do more "agricultural tourism". It is my turn to open a coconut with a machete. As you can see, the side by side comparison of my attempt to open a coconut and Ramsey's attempt reveals a deficit of sorts on my part.

It is difficult to hold onto this little round coconut with one hand while needing to put all your might behind the downward thrust of a machete in your other hand. I keep on feeling like I'm on the verge of cutting off my digits and this takes the force (and effectiveness) out of my chops. I have to concentrate quite hard to aim at the same cut twice and not gravitate towards my fingers. Eh...though it's not pretty, I am happy with my success. Coconuts of the world, beware.

This evening I decide to lead the students in a directional kinesthetic activity. In this game they learn the English words for turn left, turn right, go up, go down, big step and small step. So the aim of the game is to learn these words by both giving and following directions in English. They get into teams of one direction giver and one blindfolded direction follower. All directions must be in English. Their goal is to find candy that I have placed somewhere in the school. They compete in pairs. It is pretty ridiculous and fun as the followers blindly try to find the candy.

The last hidden candy is put high up in some vines growing on a pillar in the school. Fullmoon finds it and looks really happy.

I haven't seen Gong all day, and at night his mom shows up at the school and says that she wants him to come home. She found him in his house crying - he's in a lot of pain. She won't allow him to have his toe lanced because she thinks this type of injury, if punctured, will lead to an infectious pus that will cause other areas to become infected. She makes him traditional Lao medicine instead as a poultice for the wound.

Bugs, Snacks, Boils and Oral Sex

There is this cool iridescent blue bug I am fascinated by here. Evidently it's very common, but I still can't help examining it closely and being excited. It's very beautiful and cute. Look at its multi-sectioned foot pads!

So and Ramsey have paid for a five day workshop for the students. This whole week they will be taught how to prepare and make eighteen different snacks. This is something they can prepare in their own village for sale.

At night Gong limps into the kitchen, his face looks tight and he doesn't have his usual smile. He shows us his toe. It is swollen, and throbbing and hot. I think it's full of pus and it’s headed for a lancing. Gong is very afraid of this suggestion and quickly limps away. He then sits back down and lets us examine it more closely. It is very tender and painful. He said it's been hurting for about a week but has gotten really bad today. I am worried and afraid it might go septic. Then everyone in the room tells stories of how they have had similar things. Evidently boils, or something like boils, are commonplace here. Even Ramsey's had some. They all seem to swell and burst on their own or just subside after a while. No one goes to the doctor. San said she had one on her foot that caused her to cry in pain for three days. Shitty. My fingers are crossed I don’t end up with one.
In the evening So, Ramsey and I hang out on the floor of the library. We talk about sex and Lao culture (which is many different cultures because of all the ethnic groups). But in general, though Lao culture is conservative regarding male-female touching before marriage, they joke about sex a lot. There’s almost a slight undercurrent of male conquistador machismo here. So's mom has talked about sex to her children and is not shy about talking about it with friends...I'm not sure if that's just her mom's openness or if this comfort with sex talk would extend to more Lao people. So says that she will teach the students the following method of birth control: sex is allowed during a woman's period and for the week after, then no sex for ten days, then sex again. This formula is a bit crude, but if followed, it should be effective in cutting down eleven children households to two or three - which would be a huge improvement on quality of life. Many women in the surrounding village have expressed a desire to learn this method, but they are too shy to come to the school. I think it may be good idea for So to go to the villages and do workshops for the women there.

So says that this method of birth control is difficult for couples to follow because of the men. It's a culture where men dominate sexually. I tell her to tell the students that though they can't have sex during the ten days, they can "do other things" that don't lead to babies. She says she can't do that. I ask her why not and she says she can't "teach" them these "other things" as options. I found this odd. Then this funny thought occurred to me and I asked. "Do Lao people have oral sex?" I felt a little foolish asking that question because I had assumed all cultures would have that as a part of the sexual repertoire and psyche. After talking for a while, I got the impression that oral sex isn't that common, and only with the infusion of Western media have the city youth begun talking of oral sex, anal sex (only among homosexuals), or even foreplay. Ramsey points out, that they never joke about these aspects of sex though they do about others. I'm still left wondering if Lao people just don't talk about oral sex, or if it just doesn't happen much.

Many of the men in Lao are not very faithful. Both Ramsey and So feel that Western men actually trump Lao men in faithfulness. It seems par for the course that Lao men will visit prostitutes before as well as after they're married. So says that a few of her female friends just accept that this is what naturally happens. It also seems common that men will leave their families to take on second wives and have more children with them. Two of the students, Wen and Compeng, both have fathers who have left their families to set up new households. This is such a weird additional misfortune to the cycles of poverty in rural (and urban?) Laos.

The Cat, the Lotus, the Bra, and the Basket.

A note about the school cat. His name is Sutlaw which means "maximum attractiveness" in Lao. I rename him something more appropriate...Keecan...meaning "lazy". Other than the one time I saw him slowly ingest the bottom half of a mouse (no chewing, just swallowing like a boa constrictor would), he cries all the time for people food. They sometimes cook him eggs mixed with rice, and if it's not cooked right he won't eat it. So spoiled! I've never seen this breed of cat before. He has a short curly-cue tail. I want to squeeze him just a little too hard - he's kinda cute and very amenable to being picked up.

Ramsey comes back from Pakse today with a fistful of some odd looking plant. It's a lotus plant. In Toronto, I've only ever eaten the seeds, (they look like green embedded acorns in this picture) but I've never seen them in their plant context. They look alien...really cool.

Ramsey says that he spotted me running this morning while he was waiting at the bus stop. He overheard a Lao woman say “Why isn’t she wearing a bra?” The answer to that question is that I forgot to pack one so I’ve been running in my not very supportive bikini top...eh...it sorta works.

One of Gong's relatives has been commissioned to make for me a bamboo basket with a handle to hold my bathing supplies when I bathe at the stream. All the Lao people have one, but these days it's more likely than not to be a cheap plastic container made in China. Ramsey advised me to get one of the traditional bamboo woven ones to help out the local economy here. When the old man comes by to give me the basket and collect payment, he requests less than a dollar for his efforts. I give him more as a tip even though I know Ramsey disagrees with the policy of tipping. He thinks it breeds a disingenuous interaction between service provider and client. It causes people to work for tips instead of being what they already naturally are - very friendly and helpful without tips.

At night there’s a bit of an armwrestling game going on. Ramsey defeats all challengers including me as well as Oye in this picture. At 6'2", He's the biggest person here by far! Let's just say he uses his longer levers to his advantage.

I, of course, beat all the minigirls.