50 Shades Of Green

Yesterday

About 30 years ago, Wolf and I spent a fair bit of time riding on the Laos side of the Mekong, travelling through these parts on our bikes.

Ok, it wasn’t quite yesterday.

It must’ve been the day before.

At that time, Laos had just opened up to independent travel, and there were hardly any Westerners in the whole country.

It was a great adventure.

People were so unused to seeing Westerners that sometimes old people would run away scared when they saw us zip around the corner on our bikes, or kids would burst into tears upon catching a glimpse of the white-skinned falangs. Of course, once they realised we were actually friendly we then became living Buddhas, and they couldn’t get enough of us. They were so sweet.

There were very few towns, and not many places set up for accommodation, sometimes we slept in people’s homes in villages, or we just pitched our mozzie nets in the forest wherever we could find a spot, and kept the monkeys, snakes and the massive leeches company for the night.

One leech really wanted to take it further one night, and Wolf woke up freaked out, with a huge leech attached to the inside of his eye. It was a bloody mess, I can tell you, but he was ok.

So was Wolf.

Anyway, Laos was a relatively new communist state at that time, a fact which was anathema to the rabidly anti-communist US government. The US was determined to make life difficult for the fledgling Southeast Asian nation, because the side the US was backing in the civil war (the monarchists) had finally lost the war in 1975, and their arch enemies, the communists, became the new government.

The US had already been engaged on a massive scale in the civil war in Laos. It was all unofficial though. The horrific bombings and attacks within this country remain the largest CIA operation in history, and the bombing in the north of Laos make it one of the most bombed places in world history.

Ever.

The US strategy was straight out of the Imperial Bastards Playbook, which the country used in many places in those days (especially in Latin America), to support military dictators, or to oust a long list of legitimate and democratically elected governments, and cause huge suffering to millions of people.

And it wasn’t just in those days, I might add.

And it’s also not just the US, I might add add.

For many decades the US has operated a military academy called the School of the Americas (SOA), which was first located in Panama and was then moved onto US soil in 1984, to a site in Georgia. It still operates now, under a different name, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

When it was set up, the academy was specifically designed to educate potential military leaders around the world on how to topple their governments, consolidate their own power, and brutalise their opposition.

Military dictators such as Videla (Argentina), Suarez (Bolivia), Rodriguez (Ecuador), and many other future heads of state attended the academy, along with generals and other military officers who supported brutal dictators such as Pinochet (Chile).

Thousands of men graduated from the SOA with their Bachelors of Evil Fuckery, all generously funded by the US. Many of them engaged in extensive human rights abuses in their home countries, including assassinations, torture and widespread “disappearances,” (a euphemism for murder).

Of course the generals’ operations within their own countries were also directly funded by the CIA, and the payback was that the generals were expected to support US foreign policy, as well as allow big US corporations to suck the resources out of their respective countries and make mega profits. The generals, of course, got their cut of the cash.

Guns To Our Heads

Anyway, back to Laos. When Wolf and I were there, the government was dealing with clandestine attacks from right across the long Mekong River border with Thailand, as Thailand was (and still is) a strong US ally, with its own succession of military (or military-backed) rulers.

The conflict even resulted in a short war between Thailand and Laos in the late 1980s, in the north of the country.

Most attacks were carried out by non-uniformed mercenaries, who would sneak across the river in boats in the middle of the night, carry out their attacks, and then scoot back over the border once the damage was done.

So, even though Wolf and I were aware that there were certain areas of the country that were too dangerous to visit, and sometimes we weren’t allowed to ride our bikes on particular stretches of road, but were forced to take public transport with armed soldiers onboard instead, our political information wasn’t always up to scratch. There was no internet in those days. It was all word of mouth.

One night we pitched our mozzie nets right on the banks of the Mekong somewhere near where I am now, and went to sleep. A few hours later, in the middle of the night, we were woken in shock by frenzied shouting, and opened our eyes in horror to see a freaked-out bunch of guys who had rifles pointed right at our heads, and were shouting at us in Lao.

Fuck!!!

These guys were really worked up, especially one of them, and we had no idea what the hell was going on.

We were petrified.

They were shouting questions at us in fast Lao, but eventually we managed to communicate who we were, where we were from, and we showed them our passports. We explained to them in broken Lao that we were just hippy tourists on a bike trip, and were camping there for the night.

They searched all our stuff.

We didn’t know it at the time, but later found out what had been going on there, and realised that they’d probably mistaken us for mercenaries, and thought we’d come across the river to carry out an attack. They seemed to be some sort of local patrol group, but they weren’t uniformed either, so it was pretty hard to know what the fuck was going on.

Anyway, it was really tense, and they remained pretty freaked out (let alone us), but eventually most of them cooled off a bit, realising we weren’t actually a threat.

They made us pack up all our things and get the hell out of there.

So, despite the fact that it was about 3 o’clock in the morning, and pitch black out there, we were so relieved to get away.

We didn’t sleep again that night, I can tell you.

In a cosmic twist to the story, my sister Mish, who was all the way over in Australia at the time, had a dream that I was in some sort of real danger, and woke up really worried about me. When we eventually spoke, we worked out that she’d had the dream on exactly the same night as all the shit went down on the riverbank.

She has a lot of sense, Mish does, and an extra sense as well.

Heading North Along The River

Today was one of the quietest riding days I’ve had on this whole trip.

I took the back road from Savannakhet, the pot-holed dodgy one along the Mekong, avoiding the highway completely.

I’m so glad I did. It was beautiful.

Deer oh deer. Another sculptured roundabout on the way outa town.

I was in the sticks in no time.

Oldies but goodies. 24hr petrol bowsers.

Just bush

And rice

But mainly bush. These guys are transporting wood in their little makeshift tractor and motorbike carts.

There were quite a few dodgy bridges

And a bit of sugar cane

I hit some massive potholes really hard today, I nearly came off a few times, because I’d be going at speed on a better stretch of road and the potholes would suddenly appear out of nowhere and often be quite hidden. Where’s that Mullumbimby pothole painter when you need her?

It was super slow on that road at times too, with long stretches of dodgy dirt that you can only crawl along.

Beautiful village wat

I rode along this tributary to the Mekong for awhile, the Xe Bangfai River

Water pot

Better wait for this guy

GOAT

The mighty juggernaut, the Mekong, in all her bulging wet season glory

I found a super comfy guesthouse in the middle of nowhere. Literally. There was nowhere whatsoever to eat, not even with the family (they didn’t offer, even though I asked where food was).

Luckily I had a pack of 2 minute noodles and some large homemade rice cakes, which you can see on my bed. They were delicious, and tasted like campfire, one of my favourite flavours.

My really nice room, with its own bathroom, was again only 70,000 kip, about $5.50 Oz. Rural hicktown Laos has brought cheap bike travel to a new, crazy level for me.

And even though the Australian dollar is apparently tanking at the moment, it makes little difference out here.

Thakhek

And so I continued north, the road was super dodgy, surprise surprise.

But I’m used to it. It’s so weird how anything eventually becomes normal, and doesn’t really phase you in the slightest anymore. I love that.

I bought 4 boiled eggs, an omelette, and two serves of rice for brekky, I was starving. Nice spot to eat it all. The eggs were quite grey. Hmmmm.

Public transport

I did not order this. I ordered an ice tea, Buddhammit! The young woman nodded in agreement, and then kindly brought this out.

Oh well, falangs can’t be choosers. I was thirsty. I drank nearly all of it.

Sort of unsurprisingly, I had a major butt splash attack a couple of hours later, not sure if it was the drink or the dodgy grey eggs. Or both.

TMI?

Sleepy scene

Eventually I made it to Thakhek, a really nice quiet town right on the river, with a tiny tourist scene. That’s something I haven’t been around for awhile.

From my little plastic table on the riverfront

Wow, now that’s a first. 2 teen “beggars” just came up to me while I was sitting here at a riverside café, they both squatted, and then put their hands out to ask me for money.

The thing is, they were really well dressed (relatively), and were both sucking on expensive ice creams at the time.

When I laughed and pointed at their icecreams, they also laughed and then suddenly quickly ran off.

Go figure.

Having said that, there are actually a few genuine beggars here, people with disabilities, and poor street kids or adults. Of course, I’m happy to give those people a little cash, or even an icrecream if they want.

My local wat

The bar in front of the night markets, right on the river.

Tough work, rowing upstream at this time of year.

Rainy season clouds in the near-distance, they eventually came over and dropped their bundle

Even coconuts are getting Brazilians these days. You can tell from its mouth that it feels a bit uptight about it.

The public ferry from Thailand

Riverside shrine

And it’s naga guardian

Satay lady outside the wat

To Vieng Kham

So I continued north, along the beautiful Mekong.

I’ll be heading into these hills in a couple of days

The best general store ever. Everything from motorbike parts to bottles of soya milk.

Locally made rice noodles, made from black rice

And local snacks. Sugary green tea goes down pretty well out here.

Cute onlooker

Wow! I’m back in karst country.

Hmmm. I used up all my karst puns in Thailand, I’ll have to try and find some more.

It’s hard.

I’m really gonna have to karst my net a bit further.

Mount Happy Boob

Rubber trees. First I’ve seen in the country so far.

I rode a butterfly gauntlet for awhile. It was amazing. Wish I had a real camera.

This brown moth-bat flew past by chance

Beautiful wat ceremonial bell and drum tower.

I stayed in a little guest house in the middle of nowhere (again), with nothing much around (including food). It’s sorta like that in these parts, I’m getting used to it, I live on nutrition-poor snacks and the occasional little basket of sticky rice (khao niaw), and maybe some eggs or an omelette if I’m lucky.

Not so easy for vegetarians.

I actually feel hungry quite regularly lately. That’s a good thing, it makes me fully appreciate the good fortune I’ve had to have been born where and when I was.

And of course, it’s so good to eat a decent meal.

Steep Hills And Bad Brakes (Again)

So eventually I left the Mekong, and headed east, to explore some of the amazing natural wonders of this country. It was a magnificent road, with incredible limestone karst formations all over the shop.

I was lucky to get through. 3 weeks ago there were massive floods in the area, and there were a lot of landslips on the road. The whole area was closed, and the through road east of Na Hin remains so. I won’t be able to get to some places I was hoping to visit.

A local engineer in the town showed me a vid of the damage on that part of the road. It’s a bloody mess - mud and rocks everywhere. Northern Rivers people know exactly what that looks like.

Yeah, looks like rain, smells like rain. It is rain.

A typical scene in this magnificent verdant kingdom. Fifty shades of green.

The jungle is thick and prolific.

Beautiful views in every direction

Damaged road

There were 2 major climbs today, the second was a real killer, I had to push my bike for a bit, but not too far, luckily. The slope eased a little, and I could hop back on and pedal, which is infinitely easier.

The view at the top is unbelievable.

And then, just as I began to head steeply down, it started to pour with rain. Yikes! And, to my intense chagrin, I discovered that my back brakes were totally worn, to the point where the metal behind the rubber on the brake pad began to scrape against my wheel rim (very not good). What impeccable timing.

I’m so slack. I haven’t checked my brake pads for awhile (my bad). I had them replaced not too long ago, but I guess there’s been so many hills and they’ve been used so much that they’ve become trashed quite quickly, especially with a heavy load on the bike.

But I’ve definitely learnt my lesson now. Check your brakes!! That’s the second time that’s happened, both times have been dangerous and scary, this time more so, and I’ve made a promise to myself that it won’t happen again. Please remind me.

So eventually I made it to the bottom, relieved. It was still pouring and I was saturated. I found a spot and waited for the rain to ease, then made it to a hotel.

It turned out to be the ritziest place I’ve stayed in for weeks. I embarrassingly left a water trail as I made it to my room.

There were two lovebirds doing yoga on my bed.

Na Hin’s a cute little town, very laid back, just a little market and a few houses, no Minimart, and, of course, nothing much to do.

I like it like that sometimes.

My hotel had a cute little café out the front, and the young cook whipped up the best egg fried rice ever. What a treat! I even had a beer, for the first time in a couple of weeks. It was a Saturday night after all, and everyone was drinking (not that I needed an excuse).

The view from my balcony

Strolling to the markets

Yummy fresh produce

Sign reminding people it’s illegal to trade in wild animals or their products.

Brand new calf and mum, walking past my old car. Not sure how that got here.

The Unbelievable Kong Lor Cave

Yeah I know. I fling around superlatives all the time, but this place was completely next level, it was truly amazing, no shit.

A few people on a cyclists’ Southeast Asia WhatsApp Group that I’m a member of raved about this cave, so I had to check it out.

Unfortunately the flooding from 3 weeks ago has also caused a lot of damage around these parts, but the road to the cave has now reopened.

It was wet riding out there, but the rain stopped for me so I could change a flat tyre. So kind of it.

The views were stunning all the way, as I made my way through the relatively flat valley.

The river is back down to normal levels after the floods.

Major hole in a road, from a collapsed bridge

Poverty and Slavery

People are incredibly poor out here. There’s few shops. This one sold home made and recycled snacks, like little rice cakes and other rice snacks, and tiny packs of biscuits. Everything cost 1000 Kip, about 8c.

Because no one around here can afford to buy, for example, a larger pack of 20 small biscuits, at the shop they repackage them into tiny packs of 3 biscuits each.

Same with the other snacks.

It’s got me thinking. People are completely living hand-to-mouth out here. They really have very little.

There’s evidence of it all over the place.

People drink tea, for example, but it consists of hot water + a couple of unprocessed tea leaves floating around. You sorta just taste the tea flavour.

It’s hard to change a higher denomination banknote. The small notes in circulation are completely trashed, and look like they’ve been handled a million times. Basic arithmetic skills are lacking, it sometimes takes awhile to get the correct change, as people fossick around in their little bags or money tins for mangy notes. A boy in a shop the other day couldn’t work out change for a 5,000 Kip purchase, after I gave him a 10,000 Kip note.

So the recent flooding here must be devastating for some farmers around here. How on earth will they cope with the damage to their livelihoods?

Amazingly, despite the tragedy, they remain beautifully friendly and generous, and often refuse tips. Really.

Witnessing poverty, along with such hospitality, leaves me with very mixed feelings. Despair. Warmth. Incredulity. Guilt.

Why do I get to do what I’m doing, when others can’t even afford proper health care? As much as I try to support the poorer people around here, and the business I’m doing with them definitely helps them financially, sometimes it all feels so woefully inadequate.

Yeah, the conversations and personal connections we have together are beautiful, and special, and important, but more cold hard cash would definitely help.

Destroyed banana crops. Apparently the water sat in the fields for weeks.

This little girl hid when I asked to take her pic. She still squeezed out a wonky peace sign though.

It was a super quiet ride to the end of the dead-end road, with one particularly dramatic exception.

The Vice President of Laos, Pany Yathotou, turned up.

Maybe she knew I was coming?

Someone in town told me the VIVP was on her way, to check out the flood damage in the area, and her snazzy 20 vehicle motorcade passed me while I was off the road fixing my tyre.

And the motorcade passed me again on their way back, bright police escort lights flashing in front, a bunch of swish white SUVs passing first, and then the real VIPs, in their black SUVs with shiny tinted windows and little flags, oozing importance.

Some things are universal.

I’d already heard the Vice President’s helicopter as it arrived in town late this morning, and here it is heading out a couple of hours later. The whole visit was over in no time.

The question is whether anything will come of it.

I really hope so.

It’s a bloody pig sty in there

This would actually be a great place to collect slaves, because people are so poor, and very trusting, so therefore completely vulnerable. And there’s lots of kids around. I imagine sex traffickers and other fine people like that do their rounds in places like this.

Just FYI, at the moment there are over fifty million people living in slavery around the world, and it’s getting worse. Just over half of them are held in middle-income or high-income countries. Go figure.

About half of the 50m slaves are women who have been forced to marry against their will. 12m of the 50m slaves are children. A huge proportion of slaves are trafficked for sexual exploitation.

Many of these sex slaves are children who have been forced to leave their homes (or encouraged to under false pretences), often at the reluctant will of their parents.

It’s a major global problem, and only really exists because

1. Some people are so poor that they have little option but to jump at any chance to possibly make some money, just so they and their families can actually survive, even if doing so involves considerable risk;

2. There’s ruthless people around who are more than willing to take advantage of vulnerable people, in the most horrific and inhumane ways;

3. Wealthier people (like us) are willing to turn a blind eye to such practices, as they invariably benefit us materially, through cheaper prices for imported products we buy, like clothing and white goods, as a result of cheaper labour costs. Multinational companies pay lip service to the problem, because they make huge profits on the back of it. And we don't hold them to account.

And all of that's before I even mention sex tourists, who come to Southeast Asia specifically for cheap sex. Or people who visit brothels in their home countries, and happily have sex with slaves. Well, they might not know they're slaves, but they're not stupid, and they're not asking any questions either. Why would they? Who wants prices to go up? Didn't you hear? There's a cost of living crisis going on, for Buddha's sake!

It’s estimated that between 200,000 and 450,000 people are trafficked annually within the Greater Mekong Area alone, and many of these poor Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese citizens end up in Thailand. Most trafficking begins as a voluntary movement of people for work, who are then forced into sexual or other slavery once they’re out of their home countries.

In The Village

I found a guest house run by a beautiful old man and his wife. She kindly cooked up an omelette for me, with a basket of sticky rice. I’ve been so hungry lately, and the small serves they normally dish out aren’t very filling.

But they’re the sort of serves they would eat themselves. If they ate at all, that is.

There was no power most of the time. That’s also been a feature of this area, the electricity’s unreliable, it often goes out in the evenings, stays out all night, and comes back for awhile sometime during the day.

And the phone range hasn’t been great either.

It’s actually nice to be offline. I only really need my phone charged so I can take pics, and use it for practical things like navigation.

But no power also means no fans, which = super hot sticky nights.

For all the wrong reasons.

It was pitch black in the village, and there was a cacophony of animal noises keeping me awake during the two nights I stayed. Of course, there was the inevitable howling and growling of fighting village dogs and screeching cats, squealing pigs, the sudden clucks of startled chooks or honking geese, bleating goats, and the bellowing of cows and buffaloes.

But the main racket was happening much closer to home, just on the other side of my skinny bedroom walls and thatched roof, where armies of squealing rodents and unknown fast moving mammals were scurrying about all over the bloody place. I was very happy they couldn’t get in.

Later I heard some heavy footed yeti creature stomping around up there on my roof too. I honestly couldn’t figure out what it could be. I would’ve gone out to investigate, but I couldn’t be bothered getting my sweating body into hot clothes, nor facing the swarms of rainy season mozzies outside.

And anyway, my rechargeable bike light, which doubles as a night torch, was as flat as a tack (no power), and whatever it was would’ve been well gone by the time I got my shit together.

Going Underground

The next day I headed off to the cave with Korean Jin Song, who’d arrived on a motorbike the night before. We’d sat up in the evening and had a beer and chatted, until the mozzies drove us away. In the morning we met up with French Amelie and Klara, who’d also arrived late at night, and we decided to go off exploring together.

It was really nice to meet some tourists and speak some English, for the first time in ages. Both Amelie and Klara have just finished their Masters in Sustainability in Paris, and knew loads about the cave system, and pretty much everything else about the place. They’re so nice, Amelie’s only around for a short while, but Klara will travel around for 4 months, and is planning to go to a lot of places I’ve already visited. Jin Song has made his way here from Ho Chi Minh City, and is eventually headed to Bangkok.

Kong Lor Cave was formed over millions of years by a river, which slowly eroded a passage through the steep mountains, and which has, over the years, grown bigger and bigger. The cave itself, incredibly, is 7.5 km long, and we went by boat through the entire cave system, from one end to the other, and then all the way back again.

At times we would walk through particularly amazing parts of the cave that were accessible on foot, and then get back on our boats and carry on.

During the Laos civil war, communist fighters hid in these caves, as the countryside outside was being smashed to smithereens by US bombers. One day during that time a group of hidden fighters noticed some ducks swimming out of the blackness of the cave, and realised that there must be a way through to the other side.

They quickly explored, and discovered the opening at the other end, and then used the river as a transport route, to move people and weapons by boat through the cave system.

It was quite an incredible experience to to be in there, not only to marvel at the place itself, but also to experience it in such a wild and rudimentary way, on a very wobbly flat wooden boat, with a driver who spoke little English, and who drove way too fast, even though he’s probably known this place all his life.

The boat journey was totally trippy. It was like taking a fast ride on the ghost train at Ekky, or the Royal Show, with big surprises and scares and wonders around every corner.

It was completely pitch black in there of course, save for the very dim flashes of the driver’s old torch, constantly moving from side to side, to give him some bearings, and the flashes of the weak torches he gave us (which were pretty useless unfortunately).

And, of course, both drivers drove so fast, we’d be constantly careering straight towards huge rock walls, or the sharp stone sides of the cave, me knowing full well that if we hit them we’d be in deep shit, as the boats would easily go over, and it was completely dark in there. They’re not big on safety in these parts.

But then suddenly we’d swing around, and the unstable boat would tilt sideways, we’d have to temporarily readjust our body weight to right ourselves, and then suddenly we’d be going in a completely different direction.

The boats needed to be flat, as there were parts where the river was low, and we sometimes scraped along pebbles and rocks as we passed through.

Every place on the river looked completely the same to me, I constantly marvelled at how these guys knew where they were, and which way to go. 7 kms is a bloody long way in a dark cave, but they always knew which way to turn, and never hesitated, despite the fact that, of course, the cave isn’t shaped in any sort of uniform way, and there’s plenty of junctions and little tributaries that would probably have ended in dead ends.

But yeah, enough dramatics, of course we made it through.

The cave entrance in the distance. We were taken across the river, and then walked on the bank past the rapids, then jumped in different boats.

It’s hard to take good pics in caves with an old phone. But it was really spectacular in there. For a short part of the cave they even had lights set up, which they switched on for us. Wow. We were the only ones in there.

A stalactite that has finally met its stalagmite. Otherwise known as a pillar.

There were crazy formations in there. This particular cavern was full of sts and sms, like a magic cave.

Coming out the other end.

Incredible scenery everywhere

Flood damage.

We stopped for awhile in a food place on the other side, and ate. It was surprisingly good.

Heading back

Re-entering the cave

Back in black. This is actually what it looked like most of the time as we were zooming along. I’m still amazed we didn’t hit anything, considering the speed we were travelling in there.

More landslip damage

So much new greenery

Walking back to the village

Another short and sweet meeting. Jin Song is such a lovely guy. Maybe we’ll meet in Seoul one day. Amelie and Klara had already headed off by this point, trying to hitch a ride back to Na Hin, as there’s very little organised transport out here.

Back To Na Hin

After a late afternoon of fitting new back brake pads, and another night in the dark with yeti and her friends, I rode back to Na Hin this morning, yet another beautiful journey.

More amazing views. Ho hum.

These goats have sticks fitted across their necks, so they can’t get in and trash the rice paddies.

Beautiful stupa. Notice the eye just above the entrance. It reminds me of the double-eyed ones you see quite often on stupas in Nepal. Hopefully I’ll be looking at some of the Nepalese ones in the flesh in a few months.

The storm made short work of this one. Or just age.

In Kong Lor I’d met an old man who spoke English, who told me his son had a guesthouse in Na Hin. So rather than stay in the ritzy lovebird place again, I’m staying here instead.

The son’s away, but his wife Tik and their teenage daughter are so nice, and Tik has been doting over me like I’m her long lost son, father and grandpa, all combined.

She’s so sweet.

She keeps giving me things, like this, and then says “free, free.”

And she’s a great cook too. I haven’t had tofu for weeks.

There’s no power, but she gave me a little battery lamp and even a small battery fan.

Again, I’m dumbfounded at the hospitality of my host.

The host with the most and the least.

And she repeatedly refused my tips. In fact, whenever I offered her a tip, she would not only refuse it point blank, but then actually give me something instead.

Back To The River

So, after some amazing time in the steep hills, my next plan is to head west, back over the range, and back to the Mekong. All things going well, I’ll make my way along it, and eventually reach the Laotian capital, Vientiane.

By that time my Lao visa would be nearly expired, and I’ll need to head back into Thailand for a bit.

But only for a bit.

I have an important birthday gathering to attend back in Laos.

My own, in fact.

And an amazing bunch of dear friends from Australia to celebrate it with.

We’re gonna hang out for awhile in northern Laos, it’s the first time we’ve had the chance do something like this, all together, for years.

Aaah, it just keeps getting better. What on earth did I do to deserve such riches?❤️

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