First, the website has been updated with the Vietnam photos. I apologize for the poor formatting in places–there are some photos that still need cropping–but for four hours of frantic Webwork/sorting through about 500 photos, it’s not so bad. (I apologize for not including the Laos pix, especially the glorious sunsets over the Mekong River–but I ran out of time.)

So, while it’s all uploading…where were we at last writing? I think I had just finished the natural dye workshop with Dong. Well: yesterday, Dong introduced me to another friend of hers, Ms. Dounagdeuane Bounyavong, who’s a writer and textile collector. She, in turn, was kind enough to invite me over to her home, where she maintains a museum-quality textile collection donated by various friends. It was amazing–some of the work there is so fine that even old, expert weavers like Dong’s mother aren’t able to reproduce it. I took loads of photos, but haven’t yet had a chance to look at them.

One thing that was quite amusing, though, was a skirt woven by a Black Hmong village woman circa the Vietnam War (20-30 years ago). The Hmong typically weave decorated skirts with various designs in a 4″ fancy hem. This particular skirt’s hem features traditional designs–crocodiles, fish, frog-men–alternating with helicopters, rockets, and bombers. There’s even a cargo helicopter, distinguishable from the regular helicopter by its thicker body and bigger rear rotor. i’ll try to get that photo posted soon.

Anyway, I’m catching the bus tomorrow morning to Vangvieng. Vangvieng is about four hours from Vientiane, and exists primarily as a way to break up the 12-hour journey from Vientiane to Luang Prabang (it’s about four hours north of Vientiane, 8 hours south of Luang Prabang). However, it reportedly has excellent karst scenery, kayaking, caving, etc.–so I will probably stay in Vangvieng for 3-4 days before heading north to Luang Prabang. I’ve already seen one or two tours that look really interesting…and I may take the opportunity to learn rock climbing.

off to vangvieng…

Tien

Apologies for the long radio silence, but I’ve been doing relatively uninteresting stuff for the last week or so. (Unless you have a passionate interest in the sociology of AIDS, that is. It is actually quite fascinating, but I’m not going to inflict the academic details on you, and I haven’t managed to digest them into anything readable yet.) Mostly I’ve been relaxing, networking like crazy through the textile and AIDS worker communities, and enjoying the best Californian food I’ve had since leaving home.

Yep, that’s right. Laos has the best California cuisine in Southeast Asia. Amazing, isn’t it? But I’ve found two fantastic places in town: Healthy Fresh, a cafe mysteriously transplanted from Santa Cruz, and Sticky Fingers, a nice restaurant in San Francisco. (Actually it might be Santa Cruz too; they had a live singer doing American folk songs. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in Vientiane. My goodness.) So last night I had a fantastic Moroccan spiced lamb on couscous (plated, even! with nice little bits of zucchini arranged around the edges and some sort of curlicue thing on top), with decaf herbal tea and an excellent creme caramel to follow; today Sticky Fingers is closed, so I’m trundling down to Healthy Fresh for breakfast. After a month of eating beef fried noodles and pho, authentic California cuisine is just wonderful. (Especially since I damn near starved in Vietnam.)

Healthy Fresh even has the menu written in colored chalk on a blackboard outside. The only way you can tell it’s not Santa Cruz is that the word “organic” doesn’t appear anywhere on the menu, and they don’t have decaf. They do, however, have chai, four kinds of decaf herbal tea, and cinnamon raisin bagels with cream cheese–so I’m not gonna complain. If it isn’t Paradise, it’s a good first approximation. Life is not complete without bagels and cream cheese in the morning.

(Yes, Edouard, I can hear you complaining that it’s not a New York bagel. But this is Laos, OK? We’re not going to fly New York City water out to Laos just so you can have your bagels. (Silly New Yorkers.))

Okay, now that I’ve gotten my homesick-Westerner paeans out, it’s actually been a rather interesting time. I ran into a fellow traveler who suggested that I talk to UN AIDS, so I went there and had an hour-long conversation with the guy who heads up the UN AIDS country program for Laos. Really amazing. Basically, the AIDS rate in Laos is extremely low, but because of the rapid industrialization under way, it’s got the potential to explode–what is really interesting is looking at the way migration patterns have changed with the building of infrastructure (i.e. roads) and the onset of Thai investment. Also how the culture is changing as Laos attempts to move from a rural/subsistence farming to a trading economy. Too much to discuss here, but absolutely fascinating. I’m thinking about going into AIDS research professionally–it looks interesting, and up my alley.

I have also been networking around the various textile groups, with interesting results–two days ago I went to see a Japanese NGO group that is teaching village women to weave/dye with Lao natural dyes, for the Japanese market. They showed me their operation–I took lots of photos–and I offered some suggestions for how to market their center as a tourist attraction, with demos. (Not that I’m an expert on this by any means, but I’ve seen most of the major demo/sale areas in Thailand and Cambodia, so I can at least tell them how they set it up.)

Two days ago I also met with this really interesting French-Lao man who is setting up a business dyeing silk yarn with natural dyes–he wants to sell to the American/Canadian/Australian market, thinks there’s demand, but doesn’t have any contacts, and doesn’t know the market. His stuff is incredibly beautiful and I’m certain the American handweaving community would eat it right up, so I did a little networking by email yesterday–I think I’ve found the right distributor for him already, just waiting to hear back from them. (it’s amazing how well email works, if you know where to send it. 😉 ) I hope it works out, his stuff is beautiful and I want to get some. When I get back. My pack is already over 60 lbs and is way too heavy.

Yesterday, I spent with a woman named Dong (actually her nickname; it means “jump” in Lao, probably because she’s very energetic). She’s working with a Luxembourg NGO, but (as far as I can tell) is basically an agricultural extension agent in a neighboring province. She goes around to the villages and teaches the villagers about animal husbandry, agriculture, sericulture (silkworm rearing), and anything else she can think of to help them improve their economic conditions. But natural dyeing is her hobby and passion–she learned it from her mother, who is a traditional dyer and weaver–so when the folks at Lao Textiles told her I was interested, she very generously took me around town, showing me the Japanese natural dye center, and then invited me to her place to dye some skeins with her. So that was what I did yesterday.

Dong’s place is absolutely fascinating, at least to a weaver/dyer. She has an entire workshop going–piles of dyewoods, fruits, etc. all over the yard, looms in one corner, sewing machines and cutting tables in another. It’s essentially a small-scale training center–she uses it to train villagers from other provinces. (She also teaches textile arts to her neighbors–using them as “guinea pigs” for her curriculum. If they look confused, she knows she needs to change it before she goes out to the villages.) She also has a litter of adorable, roly-poly puppies and the usual scattering of chickens running about the yard.

(Brief aside: I have finally worked out the ubiquitous wicker baskets that seem to sprout in every rural Asian yard. These are half-spheres, about 4′ across, turned upside down, made of very open wickerwork–like the top half of a bird cage–and usually containing a chicken. I was baffled by these, since there are chickens running around loose all over Asia–why bother to confine one?–but it turns out that they’re not just chickens, they’re fighting-cocks. The cock is kept inside the cage to keep it from fighting with other cocks, and also to keep it where the owner can find it for training, fighting, etc. Unfortunately I can’t go see a cock-fight; apparently only men are allowed at them. As best I can tell, cock-fighting is the equivalent of Monday night football in Asia; the men get together, get roaringly drunk on beer and Lao whisky, and whoever’s cock loses has to buy the next round.

I will *not* make scatological commentary on this. I will *not* make scatological commentary on this. I will *not*…)

*ahem* (grin) Anyway, we got to her place and found a big metal bowl of silk yarn simmering on the fire–which was in a little concrete burner about 18″ across. She explained that it was being simmered to remove the protein–i.e. the sericin, a gum extruded by the silkworm that makes silk stiff and sticky–and would have to simmer for about forty minutes more. She poked a bit at the fire, added a little more wood, and stirred the silk with a clear glass soda bottle. (She explained to me that she only used glass soda bottles because they don’t absorb dye–the equivalent of the chemist’s glass rod.) Then she took me off to see the yard.

Pretty neat. There were a scattering of wood chips on the floor that I recognized immediately–yellowish wood, producing a strong yellow dye, that Noi, the textile expert in Chiang Mai, had shown to me. (“It’s from Laos…I don’t know what it is, or how to use it.”) It turns out they’re from the root of a big native vine that doesn’t have a name in English (at least, not one Dong knows)…we dyed with it at my request, so I could go back and show Noi how to use it. (Turns out it’s quite simple; mordant with alum in the same pot, and use double the weight of root to dyestuff.)

Dong also showed me a lot of other interesting dyestuffs–wood from the breadfruit tree (she has one in her yard), coconut husks, which produce a lovely pinkish brown, and a large pile of seedpods from the annatto tree. (Annatto, in case you didn’t know it, is the stuff used to dye butter yellow in the U.S.. Look on the ingredients list of your butter sometime. (If you want to know even more horrifying details, pink Snapple lemonade is dyed with cochineal–an insect that lives on prickly-pear cactus. “All-natural” isn’t always a good thing IMO. )) The annatto tree is quite pretty, with big green leaves and bright red, prickly seedpods–I took some photos at the Japanese dye center. Dong pointed out two separate piles of annatto pods, apparently from two different subspecies–the flowers are different, and they produce slightly different colors.

Anyway, we poked at the silk for a bit longer–controlling the temperature of the burner turned out to be astonishingly easy. The fire was being fed by a long plank of wood, fed into the burner a few inches at a time–so for more heat, poke in more wood, for less heat, pull the board back out. I know that sounds stupidly simple–it is–but being used to electric and gas burners, I’d been wondering.

Dong showed me how to evaluate the silk by feeling it–if it’s slimy, it’s still got sericin and needs to simmer longer–and how to stir it with a combination of stick and glass bottle. Eventually the silk was finished, and we started rinsing it–four or five rinses to get it really clean. (Meanwhile, typically of Lao hospitality, they sent someone out for Lao coffee–basically, Thai iced coffee–and fed it to me until I was convinced I would never sleep again. Great stuff, but it’s got a major kick to it.)

While the dyebath was heating on the fire (only one burner; wood-fed; it takes as long as it takes, don’t worry about time), Dong showed me some of the intricate work her mother does–she does mudmee (tied-weft) weaving, and tying the patterns requires a great deal of skill. She showed me a very intricate piece of mudmee, stripes of complex patterning, including a repeating head of harvest-ready rice grains. Apparently nowadays, only old people can do patterns that complex. (She can tie simple pieces, but nothing like what her mother can.) I wish I’d asked her to show me how to use the looms–we had time, I just didn’t think of it.

She also showed me her natural dye samples. Amazing. We typically use indigo for blue–she said she could get seven colors out of indigo (!). She showed me a lovely lavender, from leaving fresh indigo leaves in water for three days, then boiling–and a beautiful silver gray that (honest) came from dumping a bottle of Lao whisky into a vat of indigo leaves and water, leaving it there for three weeks, then coming back and boiling it as a dyebath. She said it smelled awful, but the color was beautiful…

(I asked her how on earth she came up with the idea of dumping Lao whisky into a fermenting dyevat. She said it was a traditional recipe–leaving it for three weeks was her idea, since she got the indigo leaves just before heading out for the villages, and didn’t have time to do anythign with it. So she dumped them into water with whisky added, to deal with when she got back. Amazing what you discover by accident, eh?)

Oh, I forgot to mention–while I was poking around the sewing area, I found a snakeskin hanging up. A big one, untanned, about twelve feet long. I peeked at the scale pattern, and determined it was a reticulated python (this isn’t as hard as it sounds–the pattern is utterly distinctive). I asked Dong how she got it, and she explained that her brother had been off in the jungle, and they’d had a cage full of chickens for food. Apparently the snake got into the cage, ate the chickens, and then couldn’t get back out. So they ate the snake instead of the chickens.

(No, really. I’m serious. That’s what she said. 🙂 )

By the way, if you don’t remember what a reticulated python is, it’s the snake I found out of its cage in Bangkok. Fifteen to twenty feet long, biggest snake in the world, takes a couple people to handle it, nasty temper, (literally) eats small children. But I guess it tastes like chicken.

A brief aside on Lao whisky: it’s brewed by the farmers in about fifteen days, from glutinous rice (I think). A useful insight into its nature and applications can be derived by examining the bottle: it holds a quart, and there’s no way to close it once it’s open. Lao hospitality, I gather, involves getting seriously sloshed. Fortunately, I don’t think women are expected to do so. 😉

anyway, I need to run off–Dong said she’d bring me a set of yarn samples for an American shopkeeper who might be interested in buying, so i need to call her and arrange it. (She is also looking at setting up a business, but since she is a much more casual dyer I’ve been trying to connect her up to small shopkeepers, rather than major yarn distributors.)

oh! almost forgot. I’ve actually been using more languages here–I’ve encountered a few Lao who only speak French, and one or two who only speak Mandarin. It’s the first time I’ve had to use anything but English, since I started. 🙂

Tien

It occurs to me that most of you probably haven’t the foggiest where Laos is, so I thought I’d provide some background:

Laos is in the center of Southeast Asia, surrounded by Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China. Very poor country, very little infrastructure, no coastline–so dependent on its neighbors for trade. Laos’s existence as an independent country is relatively recent–only since 1954. In ancient history, it was a single kingdom, then split into three kingdoms, each of which fell under foreign domination. Then Thailand took over for a century or two, until the French wrested it away from Thailand. Then the Japanese took it from the French in WWII, it went back to the French after the war, and after an independence movement France granted independence in 1954 (there really wasn’t anything there anyway).

During the Vietnam War, despite a nominal government, various powers functionally divvied up Laos: China dominated the north, Vietnam the east, Thailand (aka the U.S.) the west, and the Khmer Rouge (Cambodia) the south. Because the Ho Chi Minh Trail ran through part of Laos, it got bombed/defoliated during the Vietnam war; in fact, it’s estimated that the U.S. dropped more bombs on Laos during the Vietnam War than were dropped over all of Europe in WWII (!). There’s still a lot of unexploded ordnance, which makes the eastern portions dangerous. Fortunately it’s limited to the areas bordering Vietnam.

If all this gives you the idea that Laos has been a political football for most of its history, you’re basically right.

Anyway, after the Vietnam War the Pathet Lao (sponsored by the Communist Vietnamese) took over, isolated the entire country, and didn’t reopen it until about ten years ago. Culturally, it’s very similar to northern Thailand (except without the Westerners), but politically, it’s closer to Vietnam and China (Communists stick together).

At any rate, what’s left is basically a mostly rural, very sparsely populated country–Vientiane is the biggest city, and it’s only got 150,000 people or so. It feels rather like a small provincial town, which is wonderful…wide boulevards, big old trees, light traffic…if you close your eyes and squint really hard, you might mistake it for an East Coast suburb. At any rate, you can cross the street using the standard Western method (i.e. not stepping directly in front of oncoming traffic), not risking life and limb–which is a major relief. There is also a definite expat presence here, although not nearly as much as in Thailand.

There isn’t much to see in Vientiane; the Thai razed most of the city in 1837 (?) during a short-lived rebellion, so the old temples, etc. are basically gone. There are a scattering of wats (temples), but I haven’t gone to look at them; after Angkor Wat, I’m sort of watted out. (Wat’s that? 😉 )

Mostly, it’s a great place to kick back and relax. Two days ago I had dinner by the Mekong River, which was wonderful–a little candlelit table, sipping a coconut while watching the sun set and the moon rise over the water. Last night I got a full-body massage and a half-hour foot massage for $4.50–so, as you can see, I am clearly suffering. 😉

Temperature-wise, it’s about 70 degrees, and not at all humid–absolutely perfect IMO. I may rent a bike today, it’s perfect for cycling. There’s even a little cafe that’s straight out of santa cruz–menu written on a blackboard, in colored chalk, cappucino, latte, fresh-baked gingersnaps and peanut butter cookies, decaf herbal teas (and chai!), croissants, and (wonder of wonders) cinnamon-raisin bagels with cream cheese. Not, you understand, that I’ve been hanging out there or anything. 😉 They even have English-language newspapers, although it’s the Bangkok Post, not the Merc or Chronicle.

Okay, they don’t have decaf. But I’ll forgive them. 😉

Mind you, Laos is not Westernized, just certain areas of it. There are certain areas where Westerners are encouraged to congregate–Vientiane, Vangvieng, and Luang Prabang–but outside of those areas, travel is apparently discouraged and you can run into problems with authorities (there’s also trouble with banditry, and attacks are not uncommon). I’m not planning to go into odd places in Laos (unless I have a native guide), so I doubt this will be an issue.

Yesterday was really interesting–I was wandering around the city and came upon Lao Textiles, which is run by Carol Cassidy. She’s an American who’s been living in Laos for fourteen years–arrived with the U.N., and is credited with singlehandedly reviving the art of weaving in Laos. Lao weaving was very much part of their culture until the Pathet Lao took over–during the wars, etc. weaving was pretty much suppressed, and was in serious danger of dying out (in favor of polyester fabrics et al). Once cheap machine-woven fabric and clothing became available, people weren’t interested in weaving their own clothes anymore, because it was more convenient (and politically encouraged) not to, so the art almost died out–the only textiles left were antiques stored away in jars.

Anyway, Carol started a weaving studio to create Lao-inspired designs, and in the process introduced the idea of commercial weaving. This was not something that had occurred to the Lao before, because weaving was done strictly for oneself, and never sold. Thanks to her efforts and some U.N. programs, weaving has revived a bit as a commercial form, although the quality is decreasing as weavers shift from personal expression/art to commercial production.

At any rate, I learned a good bit about the various Lao textiles from talking to the staff (I’m going back there later today), and managed to get a very short conversation with Carol herself. Unfortunately the shop was busy, she was flying out the following morning for a three-week trip to see her dying sister in Boston, and about half the town dropped by during the visit, but I did manage to get a short overview from her and may be hooking back up with her in Bangkok in early February.

Carol is very interesting–personality-wise, she’s the archetypical Silicon Valley exec, high-energy, to the point, and a tireless networker. (We were interrupted four times by friends dropping by–I think she is the Connector for the entire expat community in Vientiane, which wouldn’t be surprising if she really did have the first business here).

This personality is surprising–this is almost exactly opposite the culture in Laos, and very unlike most Western expats in Asia. She spent eight years working for the U.N. in Africa and in Asia, but quit working for them because she felt they’d lost sight of the main goal. She wanted to help villagers, the U.N. was tied up in politics. So after working for the U.N. in Laos for awhile, she quit, took her life savings, and started Lao Textiles.

This involved both doing a lot of the work herself (she used to dye all the threads used for weaving, and personally built five of the looms), building collateral industries (worked with a missionary to set up silk farms to her with silk thread), training the weavers, redesigning the looms, and so on. On top of everything else, Lao Textiles was the first foreign firm permitted in Laos, so she had to work out a lot of the business rules (and negotiate with the government) herself–and figure out how to work within the Lao culture.

But the end result is a very successful textile business–she sells to top designers at top prices–and she’s very happy with the social aspects, too–she feels she’s improved more lives than she did during her entire time with the U.N. She’s introduced some Western ideas into the area with the business–things like health insurance (which has saved several of her workers’ lives), benefits, and good pay. (One of the weavers actually makes more money than her husband, who’s a university professor). And the shop is like a family–she says she hasn’t had any turnover in fourteen years, and while they mostly operate on Lao time (not unlike Thai time–lazy, laid-back), when she needs a result fast, they get it done for her. It seems like a nice integration of East and West, all told.

She also knows an incredible number of people and a lot about the hilltribes–if I manage to catch up with her in Bangkok, I’m sure it’ll be a very interesting conversation. I want to ask her how she got into all this, and also how to get up and talk to the hilltribes.

Meanwhile, she’s headed out to Boston to be with her sister, who’s dying of leukemia–so I’m going to spend some more time in her shop, talking to the staff. They’re mostly expats, and they know all about the ethnography of the hilltribes and the weaving techniques used–woo! So I’m going to do some WEstern-style networking, and see if I can get some interesting referrals/suggestions. It would be really neat if I could con one of them into taking me off to see some of the hilltribes, I’m going to give it a try.

Tien

So I flew from Hanoi to Vientiane this morning–I had planned to take the bus, but after listening to the horror stories from some travelers who’d done it recently, I decided to fly instead. (26 hours on the bus, not 20, and the bus only stopped once the entire time. Thanks, but I’ll pass.)

Vientiane is much nicer than Hanoi. For a start, I’ve been here for a whole five hours, and no one’s tried to cheat or scam me yet. Remarkable…I was annoyed to discover that my hotel in Hanoi managed to “get” me one last time, though, by “adding” the $14 airport tax to the price of the ticket–but they didn’t actually pay it, I had to pay again at the airport. Thieving bastards. Well, I’m out of Vietnam, and I ain’t going back. At least, not to Hanoi.

(I am being a little uncharitable here. Vietnam seems to have two personalities–one warm, friendly, generous, and helpful–absolutely wonderful people–and one that could be charitably called a bunch of thieving bastards. (As an example of the first, a little old lady saw me trying to cross a major street yesterday, realized instantly I was a foreigner, and grabbed my arm to escort me across the street. Which was very nice of her, esp. considering I was convinced at least six times we were going to die on the way over.) The trouble is, it’s impossible to tell which you’re dealing with at any given point, so in a way it’s worse–or, at least, a lot more complicated.)

Vientiane is also warmer, which is great–cold weather sounded like a great idea in Hanoi, until I found out that hotel rooms aren’t heated (!). A fifty-degree hotel room is absolutely no fun at night (unless you have someone to snuggle up to to stay warm–I don’t). Also, if you’re sharing a room, only one of you gets hot water in the morning–the heaters are quite small. (Fortunately, I had a single, but a lot of other travelers complained. Hey, at least *they* had a big hot-water-bottle sleeping with them, to keep them warm. So what if it snores? 🙂 )

Anyway, if you’re going to Hanoi in the wintertime, travel upscale and shell out for a hotel with heat. (Which is probably what I *should* have done, but it didn’t occur to me at the time.)

Anyway, not much to say about Vientiane–I just got here, and haven’t gotten oriented yet. but it seems like a very nice town, and the weather is beautiful–22 degrees, which I think is roughly 70F. It’s quite small, only 150,000 people, and very laid-back. I like it, at least the block and a half I’ve seen so far.

Btw, I looked at my passport photo today and almost didn’t recognize it–I’m a lot thinner than I was, so the planes of my face have changed a lot. My weight hasn’t changed much, though (down 5 lbs to 143), so I suspect the difference is now muscle. Hopefully it’s all quads/calves, so I’ll have some chance of surviving AIDS Lifecycle when I get back. 🙂

Oh–congratulations and condolences to everyone at Liberate. I’m not sure whether to congratulate those who are still employed or the newly Liberated–a 50% layoff is traumatic all round–but I’m thinking of all of you, and sending hugs in your direction. If you find yourself at loose ends, come join me in Laos–the weather’s warm, the people are friendly, and the beer’s cheap. Great place for a month’s vacation before going back to the “real world”. And, not at all expensive.

I plan to take three days to decompress in Vientiane (I need it after Hanoi), then head up to Vangvieng for a week of kayaking, tubing, and caving; then Luang Prabang, where I’ll do some hilltribe trekking, and also see a silkweaving village nearby, that’s legendary for its work. After that, it’s off to Thailand, where I’ll probably spend a few days in Chiang Mai, then head up to the border to start work at DEPDC, the organization working with hilltribe daughters.

(Ben: can you please find out for me whether The Two Towers is likely to be playing in Chiang Mai; and if it’s not, how long it’s likely to be playing in Bangkok? I’m not planning to pass through Bangkok until Feb 17-22, but I’ll make a special trip if necessary, to catch it in the theater. I’m certainly not going to see it in Laos; movies here are heavily censored, and it’s a pretty sleepy place, anyway.)

Tien