Helllloooo Lao! (again)

Back to Lao! It’s a good thing I like Lao, because I’ve been spending a lot of time here lately. I have two more trips to run in Laos before the season slows down. The first is a corporate Charity Challenge for a group called Computershare. They are raising money for Care Australia to use on one of their projects in Laos. They are apparently raising $150,000! That’s a stack of cash in anyone’s language. When I first heard of them, I thought they were some sort of charity that shares computers with the less fortunate.

I head down to the ticket office to get myself a train ticket to Nong Khai where I then cross the border to Vientiane where we start the trip. It turns out that there is one ticket left and only in first class. This is OK. I’ve been keen to check out first class sleepers as I imagine they will be something like the ones that used to run between Sydney and Melbourne for which I have a nostalgic soft spot. This would mean sharing a cabin with one other person, but how bad can that be? I will undoubtedly be sharing with a quiet, polite Thai person.

In the meantime, my good friend Mr Paul Harrison is coming to Bangkok from Melbourne for some sort of Rugby game. He will stay with me for night before his team arrives the next day. This works out well, because it is the last night before I need to head to Vientiane. I thought originally that I would have to leave before he arrived, thereby missing him. But thankfully we overlapped. Well… when I say thankfully… in hindsight maybe I should not be so thankful. Being overseas for a while might give one the feeling that things have changed greatly and maybe for some strange reason may increase one’s impression of their own invincibility. The truth is that the only thing that seems to have changed is that he can drink far more than me. This has always been the case, but only marginally so. There seems to have developed some sort of gulf however, where my lifestyle has ruined my immunity to the drink and his has somehow increased his. So needless to say, I got quite drunk and in the haze of various beverages I do remember thinking to myself that we should probably stop drinking from buckets as this is likely to assist with the surplus consumption.

The next day is not pretty. For various reasons, Bangkok is not a good place to have a hangover in. This is magnified by the fact that I live in the same building as a children’s nursery. The little blighters start screaming their heads off around 7am. Paul decided that when he was feeling sick, a good place to spew might be over the balcony into the courtyard that I share with my lovely landlord and landlady. This must have been a wonderful surprise for her when she came out to tend to the garden in the morning. So a fairly sick looking Paul bids me farewell and heads for his team accommodation. I then have a few hours to contemplate the evils of drink before I have to get on the train.

At five thirty I drag myself, my bike and various bits of gear to a tuk tuk and then to the train station. I have some time to grab a noodle soup at the station, and as I am enjoying it, I think to myself that despite how bad I feel, I am in a good place with great food around me and really friendly people. Just think, as soon as I get on the train I can relax, out my feet up and read my book in the company of my polite, quiet ad friendly fellow train traveler.

In reality, my train companion is a little different to my expectation. He boards the train about an hour into a journey at Ayutthaya. He is a large Thai man with a large belly, well dressed in a polo shirt and business trousers with shoes so shiny that they match the greased and neatly combed black hair on his head. He looks shocked at my presence and proceeds to request of the carriage attendant that our beds be prepared immediately. He says nothing to me as he presumably doesn’t speak any English and my initial, pitiful attempt at Thai probably embarrassed both of us. I did actually feel for this man. Here he is… probably worked very hard and has over time managed to elevate himself to a point where in his fifties, he is able to travel in marginally greater comfort in first class. And here is a young upstart foreigner dressed in shorts, thongs and a t-shirt and looking decidedly unhealthy due to possibly some excess alcohol consumption.

Any feelings of sympathy towards the man evaporated very quickly. Maybe it was the snoring the whole night or maybe the guttural throaty sounds as he punctuated each snoring session with, snorting, groaning and sniffling every ten minutes or so. He actually sounded at one point as though he were a Cow in agony. He was like a fog horn! At some stage I went to the toilet at the end of the carriage and I could hear him halfway down the hall! On top of this, he must have taken something to help him sleep, because none of my attempts to wake him and shut him up worked. He only woke when carriage attendant shook him violently and told him that we were at his stop and that he needed to get off.

So I arrive in Vientiane all bright eyed and bushy tailed to start a new trip. Lack of quality sleep two nights in a row will at least mean hat I will sleep like a baby tonight. Some of our group arrives in the evening. Two of them have been victims of lost luggage at Bangkok Airport which is not unusual with the new airport. Hopefully it will turn up in good time.

It is about four thirty in the morning that I wake in a sweat. Shit I think, I have malaria!!! Shit… no hang on…. I have the flu!!! Damn it. This is what a few nights of sleep deprivation and unhealthy living does to you… you get the damn flu when you are about to start a big trip!!! No good! So I have to spend the first two days on the bus, watching everyone else ride. By the third day I am good to go though. The other tour leader Eric is one of the best in the business so this makes things easier.

The group size is proving to be challenging. In a lot of the smaller towns that we stay in they are unused to catering for large groups, so meals are late, rooms in insufficient supply. All this is being made even more difficult by the fact that my local guide Khian seems to have lost the plot a bit. He is normally good, but seems not to be coping with a large group. This might be partly because they are so into each other. It’s funny. Most people that come to Laos are really into Laos. They want to know everything and see everything. This group are interested in Laos, but they are really interested in the team aspect of the challenge. This is probably because they are from the same company and they have common ground and have some steam to let off.

The participants are from all over the world. The UK, Canada, USA, South Africa, Germany, Australia. This makes for really interesting group dynamics. The usual stereotypes do not apply. Quite often a big personality will hog the attention of everyone and the quieter ones might get lost in the craziness. In this group everyone gets to have a say and everyone participates. Those that have additional challenges such as lost luggage are surprisingly resilient and patient. Ursula from South Africa was without her bag for four days and simply got by on borrowed clothes and a bought helmet. Even when she spoke to the airlines, she kept an air of patience. This is good to see. It is certainly the way to get by in this part of the world. It is just not cool to lose your cool. I unfortunately cannot keep my cool when we get to yet another hotel that has insufficient rooms for despite our having booked them well in advance. This time it is because one of their guests decided not to check out. But we are bringing them a substantial amount of business with a big group. They should tell the bozo to check out or else! But this is Lao and the international rules of business do not apply here. You only do something if you could be bothered here. There is no need to get worked up about anything or go out of your way for anything. There is this word called “Sabai”. It means relax and you hear it spoken constantly. Even the greeting “Sabai Di” is basically saying are you relaxed? It is a really endearing quality of Lao people and makes them some of the friendliest you will meet, but when you are trying to do business it drives you bonkas!!!!

Anyway, the trip is going well asides from this. We head to Muang Khua up in the far north east near the Vietnamese border. From here we are traveling two hours by boat to a small village on the Nam Ou river then trekking for two hours to an even smaller village where we are visiting a Care Australia project. Muang Khua itself is a charming small town, untouched by tourism and with only a handful of buildings. The trip up the project is fantastic. The trip up the river is great with hairy moments through rapids and spectacular scenery. The trek is just as good and gives a feeling of true remoteness. When we arrive at the village, they put on a ceremony for us that involves sacrificing a chicken and tying some string around our wrists. It also involves the drinking of Lao Lao, the local home brew rice wine. Drank all over the country in varying strengths, Lao Lao is hard stuff and can make a mess of even the strongest drinker. The group have now discovered it, so happily, there are lots of Lao Lao moments for what is left of the trip.

So it’s an eight hour bus ride back to Luang Prabang where we have our final dinner and then hit the only bar in town to have some celebratory drinks. They close at midnight which might ordinarily put an end to the night, but not for the Computershare people, they take the party to the top of our hotel where there is a lovely rooftop garden. There is much revelry and drinking of Lao Lao. The next morning I am too ashamed to show my face to the reception staff Boun and Voung. I’m sure they will be annoyed for the late night noise and the mess that would have been left. To my surprise they are as friendly as always and simply want to know when I am coming back through. You see… this is Lao… you don’t want to get too worked up about anything.

Poipet - Land of dried fish

The blog has obviously been suffering from blog neglect. It’s been a while since I even thought about writing in the blog and even when I did think of it, I was just not of a satisfactory mood for it Whilst the blog is intended to be an accurate diary of sorts, there are things that the blog audience should be spared. There have been happenings recently of a sad nature, that now make me partner-less. I’m sure that nobody really wants the details though, so I shall spare you.

The following entry was actually written some time ago, but fell by the wayside in the hectic mash of trips etc.

Poipet! Even the sound the name makes on your tongue as you utter it sounds horrible. The place in the flesh is truly worse. You arrive on the Thai side into a jumbled market area. In our case, we have eleven bicycles in boxes on the back of a ute that we have traveled from Bangkok in. Ben and I are taking the freshly serviced and packed bikes to Phnom Penh to use in the next tour that starts in a few days. Typical of most places in Asia, a tout is the first to approach us. He is offering to secure a Visa for us to enter Cambodia and will only charge us $30 USD. The standard price for a visa is actually $20, but according to our new friend, it takes a long time and you have to que for ages. I have been in this part of the world long enough to know that this is probably for lack of a better word, horse shit. So Ben and I grab a few ratty looking blokes pulling carts and load our boxed bikes onto them. We trundle off towards the border with the smell of dried fish hanging in the air.

If I describe the Thai side of the border as a jumbled market, then no man’s land is just in-describable. It is dusty and dirty and there are vehicles trying to swap sides of the road with no real provision or system to do so. The hand pulled carts are the main method by which to transport anything across the border and they range in size from one person pulling them to a huge one that is being pulled and pushed by about twenty people. Many of them are operated by children and weather children or adults, all are very skinny and dirty.

We arrive at the Cambodian Visa window, where there are a number of Khmer men with fat bellies hanging around the window. One of them informs me that the Visa cost is $20USD plus 1000 Baht ($40AUD) “processing fee”. I tell him that the sign above the window says $20USD and so that is all I’m going to pay. He then offers to discount the processing fee to 100 Baht. I tell him to piss off and he tells me that it will take a long time. I’m sure it will, but there is no way that this sloth is getting any money out of me. I push past tubby and hand our passports and money to the uniformed man behind the window. We then have a seat and the visas come to us within five minutes.

We march off towards where the bikes are parked on the trolleys only to find that customs are looking at them with some suspicion and a another look which I have seen before… it’s the “oh shit I’ve never seen this before, maybe I should get the boss” look. It’s not a great one, because the boss of any department is always harder to deal with and less of a push over than his subordinates. So we are told to have a seat and wait for “the chief”. The chief appears after some time with a different look, but one that I have also seen before. This is the “what the fuck have I been dragged out here for and what the fuck are these foreigners trying to pull over me?” Look. This is fairly quickly progressed to the “I’m going to ruin your day” look.

Our story is that we are transporting the bikes into Cambodia for other people to ride. The other people are not in the country yet, but are flying in shortly. This is pretty much the truth. We could elaborate more, but why bother? The more details, the harder they are going to find the comprehension of the story. The chief informs us, by talking to his interpreter, that we are bullshitting him (or words similar) and that we are actually taking the bikes to sell in Phnom Penh. After trying for a while to convince him that we would not dare to lie to him and that our story is 100% genuine, he decides that he would like to see one of the bicycles to see if they are in fact used. So we go to pull Ben’s bike out of the canvass case that it is packed into. Ben’s bike has recently been ridden from Thailand, through Laos, Tibet, to India and has more than a few marks to show for it. The chief is not going for that though, he tells us, to open one of the others. It occurs to me as I am cutting the tape on the top of the box, that our man Ae at the bike shop that services and packs the bikes, is obsessive about cleaning the bikes and that last time I got my bike back, it looked new. I am praying that he has not done such a good job on these, but alas, as the shiny blue bicycle hits daylight, all is lost. Ae has not only made it spotless, but has also managed to pack it in the original packing that bikes come in when they are new. It’s like a goddamn beacon! The chief is furious, and he now really does believe that we were bullshitting him. He tells us that we have to leave the bikes here. We can build two and ride them across the border, but the others have to stay until we can get some sort of proof from an embassy that the people that are using the bikes are in the country. This is of course an absurd demand, but we are not actually in the strongest of bargaining positions.

So we build one bike while we desperately try to contact our fix-it man in Cambodia. If anyone can save us, this man can. He tells us to sit tight and he will send someone. In the meantime, the customs blokes have been getting creative and have decided that they want to type up a five page document in Khmer then get Ben to sign it and then fingerprint him to each page. This is starting to get scary.

The fix-it guys arrive after about half an hour and the serious negotiations begin. For the most part of the next three hours, Ben and I have the pleasure of watching the chief bark orders and petrified staff. Upon visual assessment of the chief, we ascertain that he is a man of expensive tastes. He has a gold, diamond studded ring, accompanied by a similar bracelet. He sports a large gut which is topped by a loose flabby neck, supporting a bulbous head with greedy looking eyes. These eyes are partly hidden behind jewel encrusted glasses. We can guess what this man has been up to. We are a mere distraction. He must milk a lot out of his job. You don’t dress like this on a public servant’s salary. Ben dubs the chief and his team, the “The Fat Boy Brigade”. Quite fitting really. They are an exclusive but far reaching club, with members all over Cambodia, sitting on street corners on arm-chairs under umbrellas, in bars of questionable repute, shooting past in cars that are worth more than 500 ordinary Cambodian’s annual salaries. The Fat Boy Brigade! They are milking this country and anyone trying to get ahead, or even those that aren’t.

These fat bludgers are surrounded by the Casinos of the Poipet no-mans land. Golf carts with names like “Golden Paradise Casino” painted on the side, wait eagerly to snap up cashed up cosmetically altered gambling patrons from places like Phnom Penh or Bangkok. These giant structures sit surrounded by rubbish covered, dirty, dried fish smelling filth and in clear view of the wiry cart boys that slave away for a few dollars a day. There is no doubt that of the money that we pay to get our stock transported , these boys see hardly any of it,. I’m sure the fat boy brigade have seen to that.

Our fix-it guys have won! We have to pay a “$50 import tax”, but we can take our bikes. The only other thing is that to save face, they have to compile another six documents that have to be translated into written English and then signed and fingerprinted again. Ben is seriously concerned about all this fingerprinting stuff and the preparation of the documents takes hours, with the assistance of about eight staff all having their say as to how it should be done.

So we pick up our boxes, pile them onto some more carts. When we get into Cambodia, the vehicle that was supposed to be waiting for us has got sick of waiting and has presumably taken another fare. We eventually manage to get onto a bus that we share with some very tired looking back-packers. They have apparently been waiting for ages for the “VIP Bus” that they paid for. We take up half the bus and the back-packers are very understanding, while they have to cram in with bikes between them.

The road from Poipet to Siem Reap, is possibly the worst in South East Asia. This road is the main overland link between Bangkok and Phnom Penh and hence would appear to be a crucial trade route, but it is still unsurfaced. This is quite strange when you consider that all other major roads in Cambodia are now surfaced and some of them very well maintained, So why is this road so horrible? In the wet season, there are times when it can take a whole day to traverse this route. A truck might get bogged on a bridge or just simply break down. This just brings everything to a standstill. In the dry season however, it is just dusty and very rough. The bus averages about 40KMH. Every now and then, Camry’s with the steering wheel on the wrong side and no number plates flyes past, only just managing to stay on the road for the vibrations that are throwing them around. These cars are usually stolen from Thailand (hence the steering wheel being on the wrong side). The drivers just run them in to the ground using them as taxis.

So on the question of why this road is the way it is. There are a number of theories. One that I have heard is that Bangkok Airways who operate the monopoly route from Bangkok to Siem Reap, pay comfort cash to the Cambodian Government to leave the road as is, thus increasing their passenger numbers. I have heard this theory before actually traveling this route and have thought it to be fairly far fetched, but now that I see this and I have over the last few months experienced the way the Cambodian government operate, it seems maybe not so far fetched after all. Bangkok Airways operate six flights a day in each direction and all are generally quite full. If this story holds any water then, it is just another indigtment against the useless, vulgar people that administer this country. Cambodia has virtually no manufactured exports. This contrasts against most of it’s neighbours such as Vietnam or Thailand who are now big manufacturers and exporters. There are presumably a number of reasons for this such as the lack of a strong and guaranteed power supply and lack of infrastructure in many areas, but you would think that the lack of a decent road link to Thailand would have to be a factor here. If I were thinking of importing a Cambodian manufactured product to Australia, I would consider the supply chain options. Sihanoukville is Cambodia’s main sea port, but it is pretty small and reputed to be quite hopeless with things going missing or getting delayed for weeks. This means that I would have to get the stock to a Thai port. To do this, I would need to use the Siem Reap Poipet road. This would basically put an end to the thought process because of the state of the road and I would then be better off seeking the product in Vietnam which has an excellent sea port. So once again, the fat boy brigade are stifling their country’s development.

While I am pondering this, our bus gets a flat tire, so we limp into a small town to get it repaired. While they hoist the vehicle onto a stump of wood in place of a jack, we get talking to the local kids. As with any well traveled tourist route, they have good English, not from school, but from the travelers that come through. We play their favourite game, where we name a country and they tell us the name of the capital city, the population and in some cases the name of the head of state. They are cluey kids, maybe they could take over the running of their country.

We dock at the our hotel in Siem Reap (home away from home) at about eleven in the evening and have a quite beer over which we ponder our day. The next morning over Breakfast, our fix-it man explains that the chief that we came across is actually Hun Sen’s nephew. Hun Sen is the man in charge of Cambodia and has been for a long time. He is the big cheese, the head honcho, the man who shuts down whole roads when he moves around town so as to guarantee personal security.