Hacking At Mountains

Hacking At Mountains
One of the pleasures of traveling in Northern Laos is appreciating the rows and rows of lush hills. Unfortunately, the greenery is interspersed with desolate mountains whose slopes have been ravaged by cross cutting lumber practices. the blame is shared between the government and the minority hill tribes people.The government is chopping and selling their forests to neighboring China, always hungry for natural resources. The hill tribes are just continuing their age-old farming practices. Preventing the decimation of the forest is probably harder than it seems. Traditionally, hill tribe farming involves a long cycle; slash and burn mountainsides, grow rice, wait 12-15 years for the soil and vegetation to recover and repeat. As the population in Laos has doubled over the past two generations the hill people have less and less available land. Plus the wood is used for many different functions; house building, cooking, farming (clearing the land), purifying water, heat, light and also as a source of income. Much will have to change to slow the destruction, electricity and clean water must be available, likely not possible without the villagers moving out of the hills and into towns, plus farming practices must be modernized. Changes like this will not come easily. As 'progress' comes in small steps it will make prospects worse in the short term. New roads will encourage more trade, meaning more opportunity for earning money. This is great, but combined with new tools such as chainsaws replacing axes, hacking down the forest will be easier and more profitable than before. All in all not a great picture.

Idiot Traveler
Being on the road for so long, I have the opportunity to meet all types of travelers. Some of them more equipped for a journey than others. A couple weeks ago, I met a lady who was making some of the stupidest decisions I've seen. She finished her trek the day after I did, but was panicking due to lack of local funds. Someone told her change all her money to US dollars since they are the most widely acceded currency. In fact, Lao Kip is the most useful- who would have guessed?! Finding herself with less than a dollar of Kip she freaked out. I can imagine this was an uncomfortable situation, but she had two very reasonable options. Go to the tour agency, where she just spent $100 to change some money or catch a ride to the nearest town with an ATM, only 90 minutes away. Instead she hitch-hiked a ride back to the border town where she entered some six hours away, all the time in the bed of a Chinese pick-up truck filled with loose metal. Idiot!

Two weeks alter on the other side of the country, I saw her again. This time in a travel agency trying to buy a ticket to Hanoi. She was having difficulty because she didn't have a Vietnamese visa. The agency was explaining this to her, but she just didn't get it. Again there were two options; back to the capital and apply for a visa in person or have the travel agency take care of it for a small fee. Convinced there was a third option, she tromped off determined to find a ticket to Vietnam. I can only imagine her getting turned back at the border. Idiot!

Sam the Bookseller
Vientiane doesn't have too much to offer in terms of sites, but on my second visit there I stumbled across a very entertaining bookseller. The following day, I was scheduled to fly to India and I planned to spend my last day in Laos running some errands. My hope was to swap my growing supply of books (current count being four) for a single, fat, India guidebook. Anton had found a shop that was willing to trade books and had a copy of the India one. Perfect!

Not only did I accomplish my goal, but I was thoroughly entertained in the process. After quickly conducting our business, we began discussing our time traveling in Laos. We related our experience of being offered Laos girls and Sam the bookseller was very interested. "Oh, you want a Laos girl? I can get you one no problem. In fact we can go together." Not this again, we chuckled, and this time coming from a man who had just finished proudly describing his family- he has something like ten kids. After we declined, Sam began to tell us about how he was trained by the CIA in the seventies. This intrigued us and we were eager to hear about his experiences.

Sam chose to focus on the lighter side and told us about a wonderful trip he took to Hong Kong. While there, he was wined and dined along with his colleagues and eventually found himself in one of the many redlight areas of the city. Incidentally, this is easier to do than it sounds. As the night proceeded Sam got the courage to ask one of the ladies to sample her expertise. In Sam's words, "WOW! WOW!!!" followed by hysterical laughter on both sides. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to learn exactly what was so incredible about this night, only that it was nothing that he had ever experienced before. He was so enthused that he went back the following night. Naturally we assumed he would go back to the same girl, seeing how he had such an amazing time. But Sam is a true adventurer and was interested in trying out another girl and "WOW!!!! I mean Wow!" again followed by hysterical laughter on both sides.

As if this wasn't enough to prove the sexual proclivities of this man, he then motioned for us to come over and look at some pictures on his phone. Picture 1: Smiling Laos girl, Pictures 2-5 same Laos girl is very states of undress with certain body parts being the particular focus of the frame. Once again this was followed by boyish laughter and exclamations of delight on his side, we merely smirked.

At this point, we were ready to leave. I got my book, shared some laughs, saw a naked girl.... all in all, a positive bookshop experience. But Sam wasn't having it. Before we left we HAD to see a special magazine that he had stashed somewhere in his shop. Like a teenage boy foraging for his naughty delights Sam was giggling in anticipation of finding this special publication. He hid it so well that he was convinced that one of his boys had taken it from him. Just moments before we were set to leave, Sam arose, victoriously holding a Thai porn magazine from some past decade. I'm not familiar enough with this literature to assess which decade, but suffice it to say it was pre-mellenial. As we were politely flipping the pages (I mean who in there right mind would take pleasure looking at a Thai pornography magazine?), two local (older German) customers entered. Sam motioned us to hide the magazine (apparently he didn't feel these old timers were worthy of such fruits) as he exchanged pleasantries with his guests. We took this opportunity to duck out of the shop. For sure the next time I'm in Vientiane, I'm going straight back to this shop.