My Travels in South East Asia
Laos

My Travel in Laos

I rode on my bicycle down wide boulevards lined with trees, past old comfortable parks, and saw old buildings with French style balconies and shutters. On the street, much of the traffic was still on bicycles. It was like visiting an era in the past, simple but charming, and I was quite moved by the whole experience.

Vientiane also spelled VIANGCHAN,is the largest city and capital of Laos, situated on a plain just northeast of the Mekong River. The city's central river port location in a country relying heavily on its rivers for transportation and its surrounding hinterland of intensive rice cultivation have made Vientiane the major economic centre of Laos. The city has a tropical monsoon climate, every month having an average daytime temperature above 80º F (27º C) and more than 80 percent of Vientiane's annual precipitation on the average falling in the five months May-September.

The town was founded during the late 13th century, and in the mid-16th century the capital of the Lao kingdom (a state known as Lan Xang) was moved to Vientiane from its previous traditional location at Luang Prabang (now Louangphrabang). In 1778 Vientiane came under Siamese control; in 1828 it was sacked and destroyed when the subject Laotian king revolted against Siamese hegemony. From 1899 to 1953, with the exception of the Japanese occupation (1945), Vientiane was in succession the seat of the French governor and the French administrative capital.

Vientiane still has some of its older wooden structures, despite its government offices, foreign embassies, and schools. Its modern industries include brewing, lumber processing, and the manufacture of brick, tile, textiles, cigarettes, matches, detergents, plastic bags, rubber sandals, and iron and steel. The Lao farmers of the surrounding area tend rice, corn (maize), and livestock in some of the best alluvial lowlands of Laos. Before 1975 the city was the principal stock shipping and slaughtering centre of the country. Since the shift in the country's import trade from Vietnam to Thailand, Vientiane has replaced Pakxé to the southeast as Laos's principal port of entry.


The Sisavangvong University (founded 1958) in Vientiane has faculties of agriculture, art, education, forestry and irrigation, and medicine. Affiliated bodies include Fa-Ngum College, Lycée Vientiane, Polytechnic, and Pali and Sanskrit institutes. Ho Phakeo, the national museum, is located in the city, as are the Dongsaphangmeuk Library and the National Library.

At Vientiane the Mekong River is navigable only by small craft; passage to the right bank and the Thai railhead of Nong Khai was solely by ferry until 1994, when a highway bridge was opened. Vientiane has an international airport, and highways link the city with Louangphrabang and Savannakhet in Laos and with Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. The Nam Ngum Dam north of Vientiane provides enough hydroelectric power for the surrounding areas and for export to Thailand as well. Vientiane's outstanding building is the That Luang, a stupa (temple), dating from about 1566 and restored by Lao civil servants under Prince Phetsarath during the French colonial period.

In the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century , Xieng Khouang was the center of a kingdom of the Hmong Meo. In 1832, it was conquered by the Vietnamese, annexing the entire region. The town of Xieng Khouang was totally destroyed during the Vietnam War. Even though it has been rebuilt in 1975, the name Xieng Khouang is now primarily used in reference to the province of the same name. The provincial capital is Muang Kham. The most important place near the Plain of Jars is Phonsavan with a small airport serving the region. The Plain of Jars is some 10 kilometres southeast of Phonsavan, at about 1,000 metres above sea level.

Scattered over the plain are hundreds of enormous clay jars, each about 1 to 2.5 metres high, with a diameter of about 1 meter. There is still no explanation as to how the clay jars found their way onto the plain, nor what purpose they served. Archaeologists have come up with the wildest theories, among them a claim declaring them brewery cauldrons. More likely, the jars are enormous urns. Many jars have been destroyed or damaged during the Vietnam War, when American planes bombed positions of the communist Pathet Lao.

The village gong awoke me at 6am. After breakfast of Chinese donuts and honey I set off to meet the little boat which I had hired for the day.

We traveled down river for about an hour to a village on the other side, where the boatman was unsuccessful in finding the motorbikes and their drivers, which were to take me to the falls. He took me further on to Ban Nakasong, which is the last village before Cambodia , where he found them.

I rode on the back of a motorbike for nearly an hour. It was quite hair raising as the track was very full of pot holes and mud and it was raining. My driver was very careful. There was no other traffic, there is hardly any in Laos, and we did not see any people or houses.

The Falls are the biggest cascades in South East Asia and with the flood water it was very impressive and well worth seeing. This is the point where the Mekong is 14km wide and the area is known as 4000 islands as the river splits over such a large area.

After returning to the boat we set off to Li Phi Falls which are near the edge of Cambodia. The scenery on the way was lovely. The river was enormous and powerful, but quite silent. There were countless tiny islands, many with a few people living on them, with their animals. Everyone came out to wave. There were also the tops of trees sticking up out of the water where islands had been submerged. Our boatman must have been very skilled and have known the area very well to be able to find his way safely.

I was dropped on an island. The owner of a guest house had drawn a small map which showed the paths to take. A monsoon started, with thunder, and we sheltered by a Wat in the middle of jungle-like vegetation. A woman joined us, and wanted to show us the way. We walked a long way down small jungle paths, crossing wobbly little bridges and planks. There were a lot of termites eating the wood here, but no leeches or mosquitoes. The cascades are where the fresh water dolphins come, but not in Oktober. We ate our packed lunch of sticky rice and omelet at the falls. It took much longer to get back because it was against the current of the river. I left the island the following day and remember the journey back to Pakse because of the frogs. People living near the road were catching frogs in the flooded ditches and popping them into sacks. As the lorry approached they would tie up the sacks and load them on. The whole lorry was full of bags of frogs. I had two piled under our feet and worried about them getting damaged them all the way back to Pakse.

I can speak just enough Vietnamese to make Lao people think that it is okay for them to rattle off in Lao at about 100 words per minute, and then I have to say in Thai, "Mai Khao Jai" or Vietnamese Toi khong biet (I don't understand). Then, they have to try and say it in English. If you go to a market, there are many open-air markets, each with many vendors. They may be under a huge tent, or inside a big building, but everyone is in one big room. They may sell clothing,handbags, and housewares in addition to food. The food they have in these markets ranges from raw ingredients to food that is already cooked and ready to eat.


There are fruits, such as papaya, oranges,apples, bananas, and pineapples, and vegetables, such as carrots, string beans and spinach. They also have grilled chicken and fish, and stews and curry dishes. They also have sweets, made from bananas, rice, or coconut milk, and which are not as rich as western desserts. There is some green stuff I really like, called namprik num. This is sort of like a salsa except it is a little bit thicker, and it is very spicy, a lot like Mexican green chile sauce, and it is eaten with sticky rice. It is a kind of rice very popular and it is not fluffy like regular white rice, but rather dense instead. As the name suggests, it sticks together so that when you grab it, you can hold a clump of it in your fingers and dip it in.

Tropical rain forests cover more than half of Laos. Its densest forests, in the southern monsoon region, contain stands of bamboo, rosewood, sandalwood, and teak. The most valuable of these woods is teak because it is hard, resists rot, and is exquisitely grained. Thus teakwood is used for building ships,wharves, bridges, and furniture. Although the industry is very important in Laos, the government recently restricted teak harvests in an effort to prevent further deforestation.