The Tao of Travel (a book by Paul Theroux)

This book is not yet available (4/2/11) But who knows, it soon might well be.

I'm not quite sure what Paul's last book was about, seems like it must have been a while ago. At least Mr Theroux wrote a nice article for the travel section of the Sunday NYT. I usually don't go in much for travel articles in the Times, usually they seem like the meanderings of a gap year backpacker with an expense account and an editor. Paul Theroux must be a little better than the normal as I read long enough to reach the bottom of the page.

Read the original here.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/travel/03Cover.html

I guess I've read most things Paul Theroux has written, at least most of the travel writing. I'm not big on the fiction.

The article in the Times is pretty good. It's about going places people say not to go to because they are dangerous. He rules out places like present day Afganistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc. but will and did go to other places people say not to. 

I'll make a point of reading the book. Strange coming across Paul Threroux in the Times, bet they wouldn't print him if he weren't already a famous writer, not their style at all.

My Short Career as a Professional Writer

                                           Abandoned Mansion on Mekong 2001


A couple of months ago I was contacted by an online media specializing in news and info on East Asia. They wanted me to write somthing, AND THEY WERE WILLING TO PAY ME!!!!!!!

Ok, it wasn't much. $50 for around five or six hundred words. The idea is what grabbed me, Pico Iyer, Paul Theroux, and VS Naipaul, Somchai, writers.

They said they'd actually read my stuff! I should have known better. They did tactfully mention that they were prepared to edit for spelling and what not. They were starting a new website and needed someone to write about Laos. That should have been another tell. I, ahem, am hardly a very knowledgeable person about Laos, I just blog about it, one after all hardly needs to know about something to blog about it, the internet is replete with examples of clueless bloviaters.


I responded.


They wanted a few hundred words about Vientiane, like what are "must do" things, and sights to see during a typical one day stay, a short tour guide to the town. Might as well ask me to write about nightlife, I went to a nightclub for one drink fifteen years ago. Transportation, eating, tourist junk. Ok ok I'm a tourist too, and I freely admit it, postcards in pocket, camera, bermuda shorts and flowery shirt, but good grief I'm about the last person to ask where to go in Vientiane, took me ten years before I stopped by Tat Luang, and most people go there first day. I've stayed in a guest house which closed a dozen years ago and a hotel that most say is slightly dingy, otherwise know nothing about lodging. Have never eaten at any of the places mentioned in guides that I'm aware of.


So I wrote it. Not great, not horrid, but typical. You know, about how Vientiane is half about expats NGO workers and the other half is doing the obligatory one day in the capital city to tick the sights on the way to the plane. And I also mentioned the visa runners. If you've been to Vientiane since the changed rules in Thailand or driven past the Thai embassy you have to realize that 200 people a day cycle through Vientiane to renew visas. I did give a general layout of the town, old part near river, little China town, markets, and so on.


Spell checked it, made sure most sentences had a noun and at least the suggestion of a verb and pushed send.


My best line, "Vientiane, a town that rises late, sleeps early, and is lethargic in between". I made that up, really. They kept that line but I'm not sure how much else. They asked for a photo so I sent that one from years ago when I was like 50 years younger and ok looking, with a bolo tie no less, doesn't get much more western than that.


It took a long long time for someone to completely rewrite it. Starts out with something about the "mighty Mekong", ewh!. My mind immediately leaps to never ending dry sand stretching out away from those riverside restaurants. Photos of monks, description of Bhuda park where I've never been. I've done the same for a Chinese Government Tour company only without having someone else's writing as a beginning point. Just crack open a guidebook, read it, then write down all you can remember so it's in your own words of a place you haven't been.


Worst thing is it's posted under my real name. What if an old girlfriend googles my name or the alumni association from that boarding school I've tried to hide from for 35 some odd years reads it! I'm a bad enough writer, I certainly don't need someone adding cliches or describing places I'd never be caught dead in. I didn't save the original so I've no idea how much to blame on some poor fellow who re wrote.


I wrote a short, not snarky at all, email saying we probably weren't meant to be. Never did open a paypall account for them to send money too. I'm keeping my day job.

Online Stuff

I’ve gone commercial. If you didn’t notice way down the sidebar near my profile I added a google adsense ad. Last month I made two cents, I don’t know how I made this money, if it was because someone clicked on a link or just by volume alone. When my earnings top a hundred dollars, adsense is going to send me a check. I’ll keep my day job for now.

My General Vang Pao posting has generated a lot of hits via google searches. My hit counter has doubled to about a whopping forty per day! I expect things will settle down once a trial is scheduled. I assume Hmong people are thirsty for news of the General and the ongoing investigation. I also got some flames submitted that I didn’t post. The comments are moderated and now you have to register with google or something. If anyone has anything to add please email via link in profile, I’d be glad to post, but please no political flames. You can specify anonymous or not. I reserve the right to edit and completely change your original meaning.

How can I tell people are googling looking for information about Vang Pao? It’s that little thing down the bottom of the right sidebar called site meter. It tells how many people have viewed the web site, what pages they looked at, the geographic area of the server that they used to enter the blog, the link they used to go to the blog, and even which page they looked at first and last.

That’s right, a lot of information about who looks at the site. Every other web page in the world can do this too. If you live in a big town or your server is connected to a lot of computers you could be anyone. If your server is linked to only a few computers your anonymity isn’t as protected.

Also contributing to my hit count, was a complimentary at-a-boy from the Travelfish site. My first thought was, “cool what a compliment”, my second thought was, what do you mean I don’t use a guidebook? When I thought about it I realized Ban Wa Tai and Ou Tai, aren’t in the guidebook. I do take the Lonely Planet Guidebook with me, I just don’t use it for hotels, restaurants, or ideas on where to go, or even maps. What I do use it for is the background about all the towns and the history and peoples of the area. Often it’s the only thing I have to read in English, away from the internet that book gets thumbed through pretty well.

While I’ve been back checking out Travelfish site a few things have caught my eye. A list of ten ways to make your trip cost a lot less that is interesting. It suggests you buy a digital camera and don’t drink so much, suggestions I’d certainly agree with. I also liked a sober look at the safety of Lao Airlines from a logic or statistical viewpoint. Travelfish also has a blog that’s fun to check out for a less official look at South East Asian travel. From a travellers perspective the new downloadable e-guides look like an improvement over conventional guide books, you pay a couple dollars and get sent a link to a PDF guide that you can download and print or just look at on the net. Kind of a way to save you from doing all the cutting and pasting from his site. Less weight than a guidebook and area specific.

Joe’s gone and Andrew’s in. Over the years between the Thai guide and the Lao guide I’ve come to appreciate the writer Joe Cumings, the guy who used to write the Lao guide. He has spent a long time in the area and knew a lot about the language, food and towns in Laos. Often when the only thing written about a town is five paragraphs, and you are the only English speaker there, you read those five paragraphs very thoroughly. If three of the five paragraphs are about the a Wat, well maybe it’s worth going and taking a look. A lot of his information about what types of foods are local specialties and what part of town to look for them in, is as current now as when it was written.

The new writer, who actually wrote the part about Southern Laos in the old book, which I didn’t take with me for my brief mosey down to Pakse with the family, because we were headed to Thailand and my wife thought taking that brick of a bible of a book, was just a little too much, just this one time, if you please, is named Andrew Burke.

I’ve already read something by Mr. Burke on the Lonely Planet Web Site, it’s just the sort of thing I like to read, a short motorcycle adventure into the Xaysambon special zone and the old CIA/Hmong airbase at Long Chen. Andrew also wrote some thoughts about the abduction of Pawn, the co owner of The Boat Landing Eco Lodge. I wish more people would write about Pawn until he is released by whoever took him. If anyone is headed to Luang Namtha please make a point of stopping by the Boat Landing Guest house, and get some food at their restaurant, it will help support Pawn’s family and also eco tourism in Northern Laos. I strongly recomend the jeao macpet, or young chili peppers jeao. I’m hoping more of Mr. Burke’s writing also makes it’s way into the lonely planet guide, so to save it from becoming only a list of restaurants, and guest houses.

I check a trio of personal blogs of Vientiane expats regularly, but they are mostly about expat living. I also check the blog of Jo the physical therapist who kind of invented her own work while visiting Laos as a tourist. She managed to fund herself and has gone back to do a lot of good work. She seldom posts, I think she works a lot. An excerpt of her latest entry.

Through contacts in Muang Sing that work for Health Frontiers we were asked to see a family in another village who were trying to find help for their son who had lost a leg. They told us about another boy that they had heard about, all they knew was that a trekking guide who worked in the town might know where he lived. The directions were vague but eventually we arrived at the village. Santar was sitting on a small wooden stool. His younger brother was wearing a traditional Yao hat and sat silently on his grandmothers knee. We stared at each other for a while.

Link to Jo's Story of Santar

Straycat/Lao Meow continues to post even better accounts of her trip down the Nam Ou from Phongsali Province. If anything her posts have become even more detailed, my favourite of late, is called Wat Sikhounuang, there are actually four parts to this one post, scroll back. I too saw this Wat and took detailed photos, but had no idea what I was looking at. Fun to have it explained. For anyone interested in Buddhism or Lao culture, you have to take a look. It’s still the only blog about Laos that I go back and re read three times.

On the right hand side of my blog I’ve added a new links list called “maps” it includes the largest scale Vientiane map I’ve yet to see. It clearly shows the airport and the Southern bus station, two things usually left off maps as they are outside the city centre. The best part is in the upper right corner where the square walls of the jail at Somke are clearly shown as well as the water tower at Ban Amone. This is the area where I have many in-laws, mostly outside the confines of Somke.

The other map is even better, it shows Northern Laos as well as fifty or a hundred kilometres into the adjacent countries. It’s great for maintaining a perspective on just where the heck you are at, and for border crossings.

Speaking of which, the crossing from Muang Kuah to Dien Bien Phu is now open, which hopefully will bring some much needed traffic to Phongsali province. now if they could just open a border to China up, like that one over by Boun Neua and Boun Tai, there would be some through traffic generated. Also China and Thailand have committed to building the bridge at Hway Xai, making the Kunming to Chiang Rai route, all good roads, and no boats. According to the Bangkok Post the villagers on either side are already being bought out, real estate speculators have bought up adjoining land and work on the roads leading to the bridge are set to begin, with completion of the whole thing for 2011. Makes sense, otherwise why spend all that money for the highway to Luang Namtha. Certainly no reason for a modern highway in that part of Laos to go to the Boat Landing.

Even More Online Stuff

No reason to blog anymore, I just read lao miao.

Other fun things I’ve noticed there are Thai script and Chinese Characters appearing mid sentence. I know there are a couple people who have read my blog who read and write Thai as well as Mandarin. Take a look. It’s greek to me. I recognise the root symbols of the characters, you know, fire, field, person, whatever. It’s been so long since my fifty character vocabulary has been exercised that it all seems vaguely familiar yet I understand nada.

Even if I could learn to write a whole word in Lao it would be a major obstacle to figure out how to use a keyboard and make a document in two, or three, languages. Don't start looking for similar things here very soon.

Nice short piece about some off colour post cards in Muang Sing. One of those curios you notice and pass off as crass humour, but it never registers until someone points it out.

For a while she was posting often and there would be more every time I logged on. Currently (on the blog) she is in Phongsali, and I keep going back to the blog as I really liked Phongsali town. Hope she writes more about it.

I’ve linked to three more web sites also.

Travelfish I’ve been reading for a couple of years. It's simply the best online guide to South East Asia, nothing else even comes close. I haven’t traveled much outside of Laos for quite a while so I don’t use a guide in it’s conventional sense. I do like to read about what other people think of the places I’ve been and I find their information to be on the money.

Potentially the most useful feature of the site is it’s forum. It’s not that it’s fun for me to read for entertainment. I go there once a month to see if there is any news I’ve missed or to add my two cents. South East Asia is their specialty, and their information is based on first hand experiences. If you pose a question, and don’t get the correct answer very shortly, their moderator will answer it. The Lonely Planet Thorn Tree has a lot more “experts”, but on Travelfish questions are answered truthfully without any of the put downs of the more popular site and you aren’t left wondering which expert to believe.

The writing says a lot with a very few words. Unlike yours truly who manages to do just about the opposite.

Chaskemp’s Home Page I linked to even though I don’t think he has ever been to Laos. South East Asia runs all through all the pages of his sites. Charles’ life has been affected by the area and he has directed his interest in a very positive manner.

I just happened to run into the link a couple years ago. He reminisces about his time as a combat soldier with the United States Marines in Vietnam during the height of the war. The Marines are a branch of the service that is usually in busiest parts of our wars. I like the quotes from rock and roll songs of the time, and the old faded photos. Some Marines did me a big favour once so you know how it is, there is a guanxi debt going on and I’m the one who owes.
If Chaskemp’s links were only about the war they would still be of interest to me, I was a young teen during the time and listened to the same music and was paying attention the world at large.

The thing that raises the blog above the level of many Vietnam remembering blogs is that the war is only the background that led to today. I think Chaskemp is a nurse practioner. I thought I remembered reading that and now I can’t find it. In any case he has worked many, many , years at the Agape clinic and with refugees from Cambodia, Burma, and who knows where else. He has helped an unknown number of people to adjust to life in the USA after they have experienced some pretty bad things. His links lead to translations of common health problems into most South East Asia Mainland languages, including Laotian. Lota good karma built up there.

There’s more. There’s also a travel guide on how to go to Hong Kong and South East Asia without spending a ton. I haven’t read this part much at all. I already spend very little. I like the style, not cheap, just doesn’t fling his money around. Probably would rather spend it on his wife or son. Who even cares how fancy a room you have if you are only there for a few hours to sleep and shower. A section on flowers, restaurants in East Dallas, (bet there are places to buy pho).

The Kammu pages are a gold mine I ran into while wandering the net. Now that I have the link I can’t find the story of how the pages began. As best I remember the writer worked for a researcher in the mid 1960s and helped the researcher to understand various plant uses. He began to compile a list of plants used for various things and came up with hundreds. Later in the Netherlands he assisted a botanical research group to come and study the plants.
The web site is written with an insiders knowledge of Kammu society.

I’ve met some Kammu, but know very little about them other than that they are the original inhabitants of Laos. I hope that with a careful reading of these pages I will pay closer attention next time I meet some or go to a village.
Next blog entry…. Lao Terrorists.

Online Stuff

I’m a reader of blogs. Lately I’ve been hitting pay dirt in my search for good Lao blogs.
I already knew Lao Meow was a winner, the author has been blogging while I haven’t been paying attention. The two posts that I liked were one identifying some of her collaborators for things Thai Lu, and the other is about the wat behind the Muang Sing Gest House. If you’ve ever stayed there you know the one. Looks like she even had a second story room in the back where she took pictures.
The Cat as she calls herself poses questions about Theravada Buddhism as practiced by the Thai Lu and has her queries answered by her three Thai Lu and one Hmong, monk collaborators.
Ingenious.
I like it when things that I already have looked at are explained such that I understand them better.
Check it out for yourself.

http://laomeow.blogspot.com/index.html


I’ve also looked through a couple Lao food blogs. The one by a half Thai half Lao, now Canadian resident, Ms. Manivan Larprom, is a lot of fun. After you make it past all the requests for donations and sales hype for her cooking book, the recipes are the real McCoy. She even has the bravery to write down Bang Nuea in the ingredients but lists it as optional along with other ingredients westerners might not like, such as tripe. All the standbys are there. Actually the first time I’ve seen any of this food written down.
My one gripe is that she doesn’t call things by name. I can see it when there is a common English name like egg rolls, but how can you call Kao Piak Sen, chicken rice noodle porridge.
It’s the first time I’ve heard anyone actually describe how to cook sticky rice. For the uninitiated, Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Hmong, don’t have a clue. The beginning of any good food is the rice, and for Lao food that means sticky rice. One comment asks “do you really have to soak it 4 hours” uh huh! It seems so simple, something everyone cooks twice and often four times a day. But as evidenced by what happens when someone who doesn’t know how to cook it gives a try, I’d say it’s an art form. If you read carefully she tells you how to reheat the old rice on top of the new, and what to do with old dried up rice. No electric rice cookers here, just a pot and a cone type basket.
I haven’t looked all the way through the blog. If you click on different months you get more stuff. If you click on the profile you get her other blogs, mostly deserts, drinks, vegetarian etc.
I haven’t watched the videos yet. I hardly even note the proportions of ingredients, just cruise the blog. It’s pretty good that way. Her recipes are normal and not weird at all, but often I pick up new ways to do things. I think the blog is mostly orientated towards people that have never cooked Lao before. Her painstaking efforts to write down everything must be a big help.

Ms. Manivan Larprom

The authenticity makes it very interesting to someone who already is familiar with the food. This is also the first time I’ve seen a Lao cook book in English where the English is correct. Others like the famous “Cooking Thai Food in American Kitchens” have gross mistakes, calling a cup a quart or wrong names for ingredients etc. Ms. Larprom thankfully, is truly bilingual.

I’d be willing to bet the best part of Ms Larproms background is her moms name, Sanoubane, now that’s the name of someone who knows their way around a jar of plah dek!!
Thai Lao Food at Blogspot dot com