27.06.07

Stat’s Boy

Posted in Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Travel, Vietnam at 3:47 pm by Andy

You’re sat in the office on a dull afternoon reading this immensely interesting blog and quietly wondering to yourself, how can he afford all this?

This round the world trip has been a long term plan of mine ever since uni when Jon and I said we would travel once we graduated. Well that didn’t happen due to money and the fact that I was enjoying Spain too much when Jon did set off. For this trip Espe and I had been saving for about a year, helped out by a pay rise (and an unexpected bonus a month before I quit my job), a tenant in the flat and a limited social life. The later was part self inflicted in an effort to save, part due to so many people leaving Madrid (120 European ex pats worked in my department when I got there, when I left this was down to single figures thanks to the joys of out sourcing).

The real reason I can afford to be away for so long is as because it is so cheap to travel in many parts of Asia. I was fortunate to have been born British, thus everywhere seems cheap by comparison. This also enabled me, although I’m not sure why, to command a decent wage in Madrid. To give you a rough idea of prices in Asia, the following are our average daily costs for the countries we’ve been to so far. We have had to be strict on ourselves, trying to eat like the locals at food stalls rather than restaurants and settling on the most basic accommodation. Also bear in mind that this is for two people sharing accommodation, so dividing the cost for one person would not be realistic.

These are just my rough calculations and not necessarily a true indication of travel in the respective countries. For example, in India the Rickshaw Run saw us spend more money than that required for regular day to day travel, while four days volunteer work helped keep the cost down in Laos. Diving, although cheap compared to other parts of the world, put us way over our daily budget. This, however, in Thailand was cancelled out by the ultra cheap (£2 per day) meditation course that we at Suan Mokkh. The Philippines has worked out way more expensive than planned. The place does not cater well for backpackers. Most tourists are there for two to three weeks but the real reason it was so expensive was because we did nothing but diving and the transport connections are neither easy or cheap. That is not to say, however, that it has not been worth every penny (another Philippines annoyance was the lack of international ATMs leaving me to be stung with credit card charges on several occasions). Also note that these costs do not include toys such as camera and diving equipment (why are all my hobbies so expensive?).

Flight tickets are cheaper than most people think. We bought as a Round the World alliance ticket which offers savings over individual flights. Check people like STA Travel and Travelbag to get and idea of costs. Generally speaking you can get multiple flights for the same price as a return to Oz. I was however very lucky with the cost receiving news in April of a gift from my mother / grandmother that effectively cleared the debt of the tickets. Jammy bugger, I know.

Equipment costs before we left did add up (think rucksack and suitable clothing), but I’d recommend to anyone starting in Bangkok or Saigon to leave home with hand luggage only. Everything else you need can be picked up out there at a fraction of the cost. Basically what I’m trying to say here is, with a bit of effort you too could indulge in such a trip.

My only income has been from Google Adsense, which although not a great deal, is bringing in about £30 a month for zero effort on my part.

Oh look, there is one now. Interesting hey? This is clearly not enough to keep me travelling indefinitely, but not to be sniffed at. That is three free dives a month!

We are soon to enter the southern hemisphere where prices will be much higher. We’ve not had to work yet and with a few budget ideas for Oz and NZ we may not have to. Time will tell.

2 Comments

29.03.07

Hmong under threat

Posted in Laos, Travel, Vietnam at 2:04 pm by Andy

I’m really not in a writing mood so you’ll have to wait a bit for more America bashing along with my latest experiences in Vietnam. Heading in the direction of Cambodia tomorrow up the Mekong delta.

For the time being, as a follow on from my Secret War post, have a read over this Amnesty International article about Laos.

Thanks to Jordi and Nuria for sending the link over.

Comments?

17.03.07

The Secret War

Posted in Laos, Travel at 9:07 am by Andy

Everyone has heard about the Vietnam war, but what do you know about the secret war waged by America in Laos?

The 1954 Geneva Convention established Laos as neutral. This was recognised at the time by the USA, yet in 1955, the CIA created a special programs to replace French support of the Royal Laos Army against the communist Pathet Lao. The US kept their hands clean using CIA trained local Hmong tribesmen fighting against the Pathet Lao. This escalated and with the start of the Second Indochina war (The American Vietnam war ) America took the opportunity to run bombing raids on Laos under the shadow of what was happening in Vietnam.

The bombing raids were targeted against the Ho Chi Minh trail which supplied the Viet Cong in South Vietnam and against the Pathet Lao headquarters up at Viang Xay. Aid packages, food and weapons were dropped to the royalists and with hundreds of thousands of bombing sorties run, per population, Laos is the most heavily bombed country in history. Take into account the area of Laos bombed and you are looking at over 3 tonnes of bombs dropped per person.

As I’m not a writer, have a read over the Wikipedia’s version of the aftermath of the war.

After the American withdrawal from Vietnam (1975) the war was openly considered a geopolitical disaster. The botched operation in Laos was barely mentioned, as people attempted to keep Vietnam in the past. With the citizens’ help, the American troops were able to come home from “Nam”. The 30,000-plus Hmong who assisted the Americans were not so lucky. Considered a group of “traitors” by their government as well as the Communist Viet Cong, the former Hmong soldiers and their descendants began being exterminated. They fled into the mountains as many of them were hunted down and killed. Reports of the Hmong people being mutilated, raped, and tortured continue as recently as February 2007. The international community has done little to nothing to assist the families of those who helped the Americans during the Vietnam War.

Wikipedia - The Secret War

Over thirty years after the conflict unexploded Bombs remain a huge problem in Laos. There are many land mines but the biggest problem are the countless “bombies” that litter the country. Bombies are the small bombs that make up a cluster bomb. I’d always wondered why there was such a fuss made over cluster bombs. Why are they considered so bad and why is the Geneva Convention so concerned with banning them?

Having spent a day in Phonsavan I can now say why. Cluster bombs are anti personnel weapons. They are design to kill many troops in one go. A single B52 bomber could carry thirty cluster bombs, each bomb over a metre in length. At a predetermined height the bomb casing splits open releasing over 600 “bombies”. These small tennis ball sized bombs then fall to the ground spinning due to attached fins. Depending on design these bombies, once reaching a certain rpm / total number of revolutions a fuse will trigger, exploding the bombie sending out 300 plus ball bearings at ballistic speeds. A single ball bearing at that speed is more than enough to kill a man. If you can begin to consider the sort of damage a single cluster bomb can do, now consider this. Between 10 and 30% of the bombies fail to explode and lie un-detonated in the ground. These often buried slightly under the surface are left to be found and often triggered indiscriminately by whoever discovers them in years to come. Our tour guide in Viang Xay, for example, uncovered one in his garden back in 2004.

Bomb craters litter the ground in and around the Plain of Jars (zoom right in on the my google maps page near the Phonsavan marker and you can see them. They look like golf sand bunkers). People live in constant threat of discovering unexploded bombs (their biggest fears live with their children - the bombies look like toys and hundreds of children have died and been injured playing with them). Agriculture and social and economic development remain affected to this day due to the unexploded ordnance. Consider the extra work involved in ploughing a field or laying a new road with the risk of unexploded bombs all around.

Both a Laos goverment organisation (UXO Lao) and NGO’s from the UK and Australia are working to help the problem of unexploded ordanance (see MAG, yet these bombs will pose problems for many years to come. Many criticise the lack of American involvement, however they say their offers of charity are turned down. That said there is American involvement in Laos, searching for MIA pilots (over 2000 planes were shot down by Russian supplied anti aircraft guns), in which some describe as part of a big cover up. A secret Military city with an airstrip big enough to serve B52s is still off limits to locals and tourists alike. It is said that many American GIs who landed here were told they’d landed in Thailand and travelled overland to fight in Vietnam. Many of these only ever saw Laos, yet believed that they’d served in Thailand and Vietnam.

What was committed by the United States in Laos is considered by many as a grave war crime. Yet so few people know about it (even US senators of the time claim they had no idea) and no one has ever been held responsible. It even remains very much a taboo subject in Laos itself. Schools gloss over the history and many seem oblivious to the past (accept those who live in constant threat of death by bombie). Cynics say this is because there is US money coming in to the right people in power in Laos to cover this up.

All of the above comes from what I picked up from speaking with people in Phonsavan and Viang Xay, visiting historic sights (such as the Pathet Laos cave headquarters in Viang Xay), a British documentary we saw in our guesthouse in Phonsavan, the history section of my Rough Guide and of course Wikipedia. Believe what you will, but even if only half of it is true, I find what went on here quite sickening. Especially when it essentially comes down to differing political opinions of a few powerful men. What could such indiscriminate bombing ever achieve? What good would anti personnel bombs do against the heavy trucks and armament moving along the Ho Chi Minh Trail? How can the death and suffering of so many peasant locals (during and after the war) possibly be justified by America’s containment policy?

Having got that off my chest, I can explain that in actual fact the main reason we went to Phonsavan in the first place was to see the Plain of Jars. Several historic sites littered with ancient large sandstone jars. Impressive in a Stone Henge kind of way, but as I discovered at school I’m much more of a modern history man (Much to the chagrin of my mother… “That’s not history, that happened while I was growing up”).

The tour we did in Phonsavan was excellent. Opting not to visit three “Jar” sites we instead went to see many of the bomb craters, a local village with many useful items built from cluster bomb casings, took a trek to a waterfall for lunch and finished off at the largest “Jar site” for sunset. This standard tour was transformed by our animated tour guide. Possibly the best guide I’ve ever had. Clearly with a political agenda (his grandfather went crazy in a “re-education camp” after the war in which he was in the employ of the CIA) he filled us in with many details and theories. Lots of food for thought, and the basis of this post. Even at the end of the day he still had the gaze of all of us locked on as he talked about Laos’ past. An extra nice touch was that our transport for the tour was a 1972 CIA jeep.

After Phonsavan we moved on to the Pathet Lao Caves in Viang Xay which proved to be even more interesting than I’d imagined from our Rough Guide (helped once again by a good tour guide who’s English was not so good yet who made a concerted effort, dictionary in hand, to answer our constant and complex questions). The caves set in Limestone casts provided natural shelter from the bombs. Each of the Pathet Lao leaders had their own caves from where they worked and there was also a huge communal cave which house the local population. Many of which had to farm at night if they were to survive the aerial onslaught.

Other highlights of my time in North East Laos were the long remote mountain bus rides and meeting so many other travellers. One person who deserves a mention, for among other things his interest and tact in extracting as much information from our guides, was Jonathan. A BBC journalist (sshhhh, don’t tell anyone) taking a sabbatical and travelling around the world. Another one of the inspiring characters I’ve met on this trip.

Want to know more? I do, so I’m looking out for these books:

• The Ravens: Pilots of the Secret War in Laos - Christopher Robins
• Shooting at the Moon - Roger Warner
• Tragedy in Paradise - Charles Weldon

1 Comment

13.03.07

Vang Viang

Posted in Laos, Travel at 10:43 am by Andy

We were relaxing by the river in Vang Viang watching the sun set over the mountains. Espe is currently battling her way through Orwell’s Burmese Days (which is full of words that I’ve never seen before). She stopped to look up the word “shabby” in her Spanish - English dictionary.

“Shabby - Desaliñado / Zarrapastroso” she read out loud.
“Zarrapa que?” I responded.
“Zarrapastroso”
“Quien usa esta palabra”
“Pues yo no”
“Yo tampoco” came a response from the guy sitting on the riverside bamboo platform next to ours. And that was how we met Nuria and Jordi, a Spanish couple from Catalunya. We spent the afternoon chatting with them and met for dinner later. Another fascinating couple, also on a round the world ticket like us. Check out there blog at rodaworld.blogspot.com.

Vang Viang is a place for relaxing. The only reason it is on the tourist map is due to it’s location between two major cities and the wonderful activity of Tubing. You hire a tractor inner tube, take a tuk tuk 4km upstream and then float down the river in your tube. On the way down there are countless river side bars that hook you in on large bamboo sticks offering free Lao Lao whisky with every purchase. Additionally there are large rope swings and aerial runways. Great fun for swinging into the river from a height, albeit a little scary.

Just before starting tubing one day I spotted a very impressive Land Rover. Fully equipped for a hardcore overland trip. After talking with the occupants I discovered that this French family of five were on a three year road trip around the world. They are educating their children as they go following a syllabus and exam timetable from home, yet the kids are getting the benefits of seeing the world at such a young age. A fascinating adventure, but that is someone else’s story. Check it out in French or in English.

We spent four days in Vang Viang either relaxing by the river or floating down it. The majority of that time was spent with Mike and Claire, a British couple we met in Luang Phrabang while searching for people to accompany us on our cave tour. Another cool couple with whom it was a pleasure to spend time with especially considering Mike also shares my obsession with the Simpsons. Something I discovered in the Simpsons bar (at least that’s what we called it).

Vang Viang is a real backpacker hang out. Loads of bars serving Italian, Israeli, British and Thai food of varying standards and offering a choice of films (all pirated with terrible attempts at subtitles. For example Take “when I went to Hollywood there were no block busters” subtitled as “when I went to Hollywood there were no black bastards”. Several bars went further by only showing one series all the time. i.e. Friends or Simpsons.

A nice place to relax for a few days, but there are just too many young drunk westerners there (am I getting old?). The place is too western. If it wasn’t for the tubing there would be nothing there. I’m not complaining as I slept well ($3 a night for a nice room) and ate well (despite suffering some nasty heart burn like side affects of the Malaria pills I’m taking), but I’m grateful that everywhere in Laos isn’t like this.

One final note, do not buy local brand sun block. Soy una gamba.

1 Comment

08.03.07

Luang Phrabang

Posted in Laos, Travel at 11:03 am by Andy

I’m not going to apologise for this post which is sure to be rather long. I’ve just got too much to say. We’ve been in Luang Phrabang for a week now. We’d only planed to stay two or three days, but for reasons that will become apparent shortly we’ve stayed longer in this quaint little city. French colonial architecture sitting along side many ornate Wats surrounded by saffron clad novices makes for a pleasant place to be.

My first impressions were of how much slower the pace of life is here in Lao. Everyone is so friendly, novices (trainee monks) approach you in the street to talk to you and everyone will return a smile along with a Sabadee. After visiting Thailand I always thought that talking to Monks or Novices was not done. Socially taboo, if you will, but in Lao at least that couldn’t be further from the truth. With 34 temples each housing 20 or more novices, Luang Phrabang is full of them. All, seemingly, friendly.

On a negative note, costs seem higher than in neighbouring Thailand and considerably higher than those in the book. Figuring costs out is made even harder by the ludicrous Kip at 19000 to the pound. Despite this, on the days we were not following the tourist trail, by eating baguettes from street stalls and vegetarian buffet every evening has seen us getting by on less than five pounds a day.

On our first full day Espe and I were exploring the city when we came across a photo exhibition. Upon entering I was blown away by the photos, even more so having read information about the photographers. All of the photos in the “Laos through our own eyes” gallery were taken by 14 to 24 year old Lao youths from the area who have been captivated by the creativeness of photography and the opportunity it gives them to show of their culture and lifestyle.

It became clear that this wasn’t the average photo gallery. As we later found out, this place known as “My Library” was part of The Language Project who’s aim is “creating community libraries in underdeveloped areas”. We were welcomed in and shown how computers, cameras, books, language aids, CDs and films are made available to the local youth. The emphasis is on self study, however language classes are given in English, Japanese, Korean and now for a limited period only (thanks to Espe), Spanish.

Very keen to help out and interact with the locals I found myself volunteering. I figured with computer and photography skills along with being a native English speaker they might find some use for me. They did, and I spent the next four days there. Although at times I felt I didn’t make much difference, just by speaking with the youths there was beneficial. A lot of them were very shy, especially when it comes to talking in English yet Carol, the founder, says she sees their confidence growing everytime they speak with foreigners.

I also took two of the keen photographers there out on a night photography course around the night market. Although limited a bit by the equipment I think they picked up some new techniques and ideas. Furthermore I’ve left a permanent mark at My Library. Carol had placed a set of fridge magnet words (the type you can arrange to make sentences) up and was surprised at how popular it had been in the first few hours. The problem was, without a fridge, the board supplied was simply not big enough for all the words. Out came my DIY hat and after a visit to a hardware store and a short time spent on the roof with a hammer, screwdriver and ruler I’d produced a large “fridge” board which was mounted in the library. For the next couple of days I saw people sitting around the board making sentence. No one sentence stayed for more than a few hours before someone else tore it down and made some new ones.

All this while Espe gave daily Spanish classes. There are two guys at My Library who want to be tour guides. They have been studying Spanish from books and using software to increase their chances of landing a tour guide job. Competition is tough and even the basics in a language can give one an advantage. There are already many French and German speaking guides along with ubiquitous English, but the demand for Spanish is starting to grow.

One of the most impressive aspects for me during the few days I spent at My Library was how motivated the students are. Attendance is free but completely optional. It is provided on top of the education provided by the state which is of poor standard and not at all interactive. Many of the attendees see this as a great opportunity to better themselves through self study and seem genuinely grateful for the opportunity. Something that I fear is not the same to youths given the same opportunities back at home.

While I was there I met some wonderful people. Below are details of a few that I feel deserve a special mention:

Sansany - On my first full day there Sansany, a 20 year old accountant student, approached me to practise her English. Very capable in speaking, she told me about the forthcoming Speech Contest at the center where contestants have to talk for three minutes in English about why they love their home town. Sansany’s speech was fantastic. Clear and well delivered from memory it was full of feeling. I will be amazed if she doesn’t win the competition.

Vatthana - One of the great photographers there. Upon reading about me on my “introduction card” he immediately started talking to me about photography. This guy has talent. Not only an eye for composition and diverse subjects, but he’s very good and finishing the pictures in Photoshop. Vatthana wants to become a tour guide. He kindly arranged for one of his friends to take us to one of the local caves and while there he talked us through loads of details about local customs. A lot of it way above and beyond what your average tour guide covers.

Interestingly many of the students aspire to be tour guides. The average Lao earns about $50 a month. Compare that with what the average tourist spends in one week in Lao and you can see why tourism is big business, and hence and good career choice. Vatthana is waiting to hear if he will receive a grant to study Hotel Management and Tourism in Bangkok (yet another advantage to the locals that The Language Project can offer). I for one hope he gets it.

Keo - One of the many Novices who attends the self learning center. Keo started talking to me the first day I was there and despite his limited English he made a real effort and even invited us back to the temple where he lives. Once there we were shown around the temple and into the living quarters. Keo filled me in on the daily routine for a novice: Up at 4 for prayer, giving of almes at 6:30 (where the locals donate food), breakfast at 7, study until 11 followed by lunch. The novices then either have further study of languages, work around their temple, help the local farmers or in some cases visit My Library. Further prayer commences at 6pm and they are In bed by 8pm with no evening meal. Despite learning so much, Keo and his companion’s limited English left us with many questions. When do they graduate to Monks? Do they all graduate? Why do they decide to become Novices in the first place?

Phone (no, not its pronounced like that) - Another friendly novice who struck up a conversation after I took interest in what he was writing with the fridge magnets. We spent a while studying geography and afterwards he asked me which countries I’d been to. When he found out that I will be visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia he asked if I’d be so kind as to email him a picture. I’m sure I can stretch to that.

Carol - This place is her baby. This welcoming, friendly and caring American has done some amazing work to build up to what it is over the last four years. It takes a special kind of person to persist with something like this. She clearly puts in so much work, yet it is visible the satisfaction she takes from seeing the kids do so well. Carol gave up a lot of her time answering our many questions about the project and the lives that the Lao student follow.

From the above and more I learned more about Lao and it’s culture than I imagined I could have in my whole time here. I can’t hope to sum these up here, however I will answer the questions about the Novices that I’d found out after visiting Keo’s temple. Many of the novices are sent to Luang Phrabang to further their study. Most come from poor families in remote villages that have no education beyond that of primary school. Studying as a novice provides such a possibility. Some of the novices with graduate to be monks however many, in this region at least, go out and look for work away from the temple life.

Well done if you made it this far. I’ll stop here, however I urge you to take a good look at the www.thelanguageproject.org website. This place has left a great impression on me.

1 Comment

04.03.07

And into Laos…

Posted in Laos, Travel at 2:33 pm by Andy

After 6 hours spent on two different buses in varying states of decay, we reached the Thai border town on Chiang Kong. From here it was a short hop across the border, and as it happens the river Mekong, into Laos via the slackest overland border crossing I’ve ever seen (EU doesn’t count).

With the plan of taking the slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Phrabang, we were up early the next day with the intention of securing good seats. We’d been warned in Umphang by an American couple about the boat for the two day trip being absolutely rammed with people crammed in on vertical backed wooden benches. They were right, most people were. Luckily we were first on board and took the comfy mini bus seats that were fitted towards the front of the boat… VIP style.

There is not much to tell about the journey really as all we did was slowly made our way down the river. The sights were impressive. Huge boulders in the river, mountains either side, local fishermen throwing in their nets, small villages tucked into the hillsides accessible only by the river, people sifting for gold on the river side and (most exciting / worrying of all) strange currents, whirlpools and rapids which didn’t seem to phase the large boat too much but often doubled our speed.

Apart from that I spent the time reading or conversing with other travelers. One chap, Paul, however deserves a mention. Not only due to his current lifestyle as and English teacher having worked in Poland and Tokyo over the last 6 years, but also because of his stunning likeness to Chris. Right down to his interest, jokes and mannerisms, he is Mr. Tingly reincarnated.

Despite the lack of comfort, being stuck in the same place for 6-9 hours each day, I would recommend the trip. As a tip though, either do it in the other direction to avoid the masses (upstream boats rarely had more than 10 passengers. Downstream, 100 upwards), or find a cargo boat and pay the captain to let you on board.

2 Comments