More from between the trips

Vientiane / Kunming

I was down trying to refind my way to the Northern Bus Station in Vientiane and while looking around found this bus getting fixed at a garage. Takes three days, costs 380 renminbe or 513,000 kip. Leaves every day at around 2PM, probably that gets it to the border mid morning if everything is working out alright, bet they use new tires every chance they get. Sleeper bus.
The reason I was going to the terminal was to ask about the bus to Luang Namtha, leaves at 8:30 AM arrives 7 AM. Lot less formalities than the plane, just show up. Plane is booked out a week in advance.

Kara

This is an NGO worker I met through the internet who helped find a friends body last month in Sichuan Province China. She was working in the provincial capital when she got an email message from someone who sent emails to any organisation he could think of in the area. Charlie had been overdue on his flight home for a few days with no word to anyone. Shortly thereafter while at the bus station Kara on a whim went in a guesthouse nearby and asked if Charlie had registered there, and low and behold there was his name.
A few people from the town Charlie lived in immediately flew over and began a search. I can understand their reasoning, often climbers break a leg or something and crawl out. Happens more often than you might think. Every day that goes by the chances of a happy ending diminish. I saw the story in the newspaper, “Two climbers missing in China” and so I read on, you never know. I didn’t follow the story much after that. I was aware of the odds.
At first they weren’t sure of which province Charlie and his partner had been climbing in. The area is where Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet all come together. Lots of mountains not many climbers, good place to bag first ascents. Coincidently the last time I talked to Charlie was just before I went to live in Dali, just south of there thirteen long years ago. By a lot of hard work by Charlie’s friends and probably some luck they found the driver that had dropped them off and narrowed down the search to one mountain. They found Charlie but not his partner. Looked like an avalanche.
Kara was in Vientiane on a visa run and to relax in the warm climates a little. She was headed back through Vang Vien and wanted to try climbing on the limestone crags there, then off to a new job in Tibet with the UN. Kara if you are reading this perhaps don’t take up Alpinism. Charlie if you’re reading keep a cold one handy I’ll be right there.

Butt, Namphone, Thipalada, Hong on the porch

This last picture is of the completed shacket I built for my brother and sisters in law. Total price around $3500. A generous mom in law gave Butt here three cows to watch and he gets to keep the calves. One has popped out already. Butt’s work for the season is pretty much over until the rice is ready to cut in May, it’s about ten inches high now.
I asked Butt about insecticide and fertilizer. He said there is no need for insecticide and he does use fertilizer, 16-20-0. Lots to make the stalk and grains grow, nothing for the roots. From the rai he farms he gets about 7 bags per rai during the dry season, and maybe 9 or 10 during the wet. Right now he and his wife and baby eat 30 kilos a month. That leaves over a ton of his crop to sell, maybe just under a thousand dollars a year. Not counting expenses.

The Shackette Takes Shape

Kien and But in Their Kitchen

This is my favourite sister in law Kien and her husband But. They are both very educated for Laos. Kien has a two year accounting degree and But a four year degree in civil engineering. They both work rice fields belonging to someone else. In the USA we used to call that share cropping. In exchange for a portion of the rice they work the fields.
It’s been a pretty good year. The price of rice is up. Still they are considered not so well to do even by Lao standards. In their trash pile I saw a lot of large snail shells. I think they mostly live on the rice they grow and whatever fish they catch. Yesterday But traded one of the pups from his dog for a 200 gram bag of MSG.
Correction.Dec 28,06. That was five large bags of MSG probably enough to last a year, a few kilos. Oh, and the dog was to be a pet, not for eating in case anyone was wondering. Lao seldom eat dog.
Store bought items are hard to come by. They also have some ducks and they sell the eggs for cash money.
Their house is made of whatever materials they could find. The land the house is on doesn’t belong to them, a kindly neighbour just allows them to live there. I'll be way happy when they move into thier new house.

Shackette

This is the current state of the house. We still need walls windows and doors, as well as to string the electric wires and wire the house, brick up the bathrooms and putt in plumbing, apply a sealant to the outside walls, and who knows what else.

Kien and Namphone

Kien and But have a nine month old daughter Namphone which means rainwater. Just barely visible on the right side of the picture is a bamboo basket for babies that all Lao moms seem to have. It hangs from a rafter and is rocked back and forth to put the baby to sleep. Vientiane has pretty good healthcare as of late. Namphone has had all her immunizations on schedule, and regular check ups.

Construction Begins

The cuting tenons in the wooden posts

Construction has finally begun on our deluxe shack-et. Four small apartments each with a porch in front and a couple communal baths and a kitchen beside the house The started while we were still in the US. (incase you are confused "The" is my brother in law)The whole thing is up off the ground nine feet so. Later, if desired, people can brick in their section and have another two large rooms below.
Sengthian has been handling all aspects of the job including, contractors, materials, and dealing with the four competing interests of brother and sisters. We found we save a lot of money if we buy the materials ourselves. The suppliers have been fairly similar to construction suppliers back home. They are very busy and have little time for negotiations, they sell a good product at what is already a competitive price. They’ve also been helpful in pointing us towards value. We don’t want to spend too much on a place we are probably never going to live in, but don’t want to sacrifice quality to save a dime.
So far the well and septic have been dug, concrete posts set, beams, joists and wooden posts placed on upper floor, and for all I know roof rafters and ceiling joists set. I think they are waiting on the tin roofing, electric cable, concrete culverts for well and septic, bamboo sheeting, windows and doors.
I’ve been accused of building hippy communal housing for my extended family in a Peoples Democratic Republic. I’ll plead guilty as charged.
Here’s a photo of Sengthian in the midst of negotiations over access to electricity. By law they have to let us hook up to the pole. To bring our own electric in would be cost prohibitive with thick cables and concrete posts. The neighbour knows this and is trying to gouge us for the use of “his” pole. It’s not for nothing they called her little giant in high school. Looks like she’s about ready to wack someone up side the head.




"What? Are you pii bah? You talkin dollars or kip"

Before we build

Jit tearing up the roof


We are tearing up this restaurant to reuse the materials and make a big house for our brother and two sisters. Well actually 4 little houses connected together, with a shared bath. We’ll see how it goes.

The materials from the restaurant were donated by Lotha a kindly German gentleman. This restaurant used to be bigger but a thunderstorm with hurricane force winds struck last summer and flattened it, the structure they put back up was of necessity somewhat smaller. The wood we are taking down now has had nails taken out and put in a few times. The wood is all hardwood and much stronger, and heavier, than I am used to. I don’t know the names for all the different wood yet but will in time learn them. If I had to generalize I’d say the wood is about as dense as white oak but takes nails easier. Short grains such as the wood generically known as “mahogany”. The Lao name for the wood species is mai nyung. There is a mai nyung tree out back that is currently shedding it’s leaves in honour of the dry season’s arrival.

When new, the wood costs a lot less than oak, about thirty cents a board foot as apposed to three dollars for oak in the United States. We aren’t at all sure how much this whole undertaking will cost. I’m paying labour as a contracted cost so that there won’t be any surprises.

Work is slower here than in the US. The sun is hot and the tools are simple. I found all this out yesterday after a few hours carrying lumber and roof sheeting. The hardwood 6x6x10s were heavy. Just a little exertion and one is sweating bullets. After puncturing my feet twice with nails I went home and got my dress shoes.

Besides paying for the labour we also need to bring in an electric pole, buy pre formed concrete posts, woven bamboo for walls, electric wire, light switches, water pump and storage tank, nails, hardware, etc



Plah Dek

The plah dek has entered it’s final stages prior to being put to ferment for a year. It is already oozing juices which we tested by using it to make sour fish, kind of a fresh tasting and sour dish. Now it is being mixed with fresh brine, rice husks, pineapple peels, a couple extra large glasses of moonshine, and other secret ingredients, such as hot peppers etc.


Naman Moo?

Hydrogenated oil or not? The alternative is rendered pig fat or “naman moo” in local parlance. Canola and olive oil don’t seem to have hit the local market yet.

Rice Harvest

Rice economics as explained to me yesterday.

You can see from the photo that rice harvest is still going on from the first crop.

The way I understood it the family of six adults who owns this land eats about 100 kilos of sticky rice per month. One lai, the standard measure of land here, can produce about 1500 kilos per crop, and a lai is about the amount of land one man can work per year.

Folks often remark about how “sabai” the Lao people are. If one man can easily feed six, a husband and wife working together can easily grow the amount needed for one year in their spare time leaving lots of extra time for fishing, weaving, visiting friends or doing whatever. Before TV the whatever part led to big families.

Bear in mind the land in this photo is very good land in the Mekong valley. Many people here don’t own land. They’ve migrated in from the outlying provinces to make their fortunes in the “big city” and don’t even own the small room they rent.

Wages are steadily being pushed upwards as is the cost of everything except the US dollar which seems to have slipped slightly below the 10K mark. Construction labour now seems to be around $3 per day, double that of four years ago. The greens that used to cost 500 kip per bunch are now 3 for 2000. It seems as if the government has loosened the controls on the price of motorcycles and they are back around $500 even for the better Korean ones.

More later when I know more of what I’m talking about.