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.

The Banana Murders

This is one of those, Not About Laos, posts.

An old climbing buddy stopped by last weekend. I haven't seen him in probably 15 years, but of course he's much the same person he always was, except he is doing something even more necky than running it out far above his gear.


I'd heard he was down in Columbia where all the death squads are, and Baghdad too. Had he taken up war tourism or what?


I talked to Paul for most of the afternoon and into the evening. I'd talked to him at length before, but I'd forgotten what a conversationalist he is. His wide experiences inform his thoughts of course, but he always had a gift for seeing past the BS and laughing about it. It's exactly that ability to see a situation clearly and laugh at life's absurdity that made him a joy to climb with. Eventually the conversation drifted to just what in the heck it is he's doing.


Human rights lawyer, third world ambulance chaser, I'd for sure say making a buck isn't the goal, I could think about ten million easier safer and more lucrative to make a living. Paul goes to unsettled areas where there is ongoing conflict and represents people who are intentionally harmed by American companies. Like killed, you know shot and hacked to death. Now you and I already know this goes on. Any reasonably informed person knows terrible things happen every day, it's a big world, but what after all is to be done? And of course no one likes it that American companies are advocating murder and mayhem, but other than phoning your congressman to end up a footnote on some intern's list, or signing a petition to be thrown away what are you going to do? Paul got a law degree, he takes them to court, that's what we do in America.


He doesn't file suit against the people with the machetes or guns in their hands, but rather the people who pay their salaries.


His big case is Chiquita the banana folks. They've plead guilty, as in copped a plea, in US courts to hiring right wing death squads to act as security for them down in Columbia, and they've killed thousands and thousands of people. Maybe tens of thousands? I don't even want to know. They knew they were breaking the law, it was discussed many times at board meetings, yet they kept on funding the death squads, good for business I'd guess.


Even though Chiquita pled guilty they've never been sued in a civil suit, and that's what Paul does. He signs them up. He becomes their lawyer. Kind of like a third world conflict area litigator. If a case is ever decided I hope he is able to stop living out of a suitcase. Paul still has his sense of humor, he is mentally strong, cause when you think about it, what he does, has to extract some sort of psychological toll. Documenting and quantifying brutal murder torture and disemberment isn't something one does to relax. And then there's the place he lives in Colombia. It's in the middle of the area controlled by the right wing death squads, with lots of activity from the Communist FARC. Who to worry about more?


And bear in mind those folks who have lost family members, most usually the breadwinner, deserve some compensation. Chiquita's hired death squaddies drove down the cost of labor, unions were tossed out, no more collective bargaining. Mass murder, torture, disappearances and torching of whole towns are very effective methods of union busting.


Others have done what they call piggy backing. That's filing similar suits for other people via Colombian Lawyers acting as their proxies in Columbia. But Paul was the guy to just go into the middle of the conflict area and set up an office. And years later he's still alive.


He also works in Baghdad and Kabul now. Paul looks for instances where private US companies kill foreign nationals on purpose for no reason. The world is what you might call a target rich environment these days, as our companies have been allowed, and even encouraged to act in ways usually reserved for armies.


Here he is being interviewed in a story by Al Jazeera, mostly at around minute 4:30 and 12:00, but watch the whole thing. Despite the slight dramatization for effect there's a lot of info packed into a short segment. I guess Al Jazeera is making two follow up pieces in the future.

Nothing to do with Laos

Treeline above Caribou Flats.

I've been doing other stuff lately and not blogging about Laos. Obviously.

Tuesday Dec 9 I leave for a couple days in Bangkok then back to wandering around for a couple months. I'm going to try to blog using computers at internet cafes. I'm bringing no computer. We'll see how it goes.


No season on these guys in this GMU. I think they are a pain in the neck, big, and can be troublesome. They don't always move out of the way, they can even try to stomp you. A thousand pounds of useless meat.



Nice bear track




Big fresh bear pie. I was in the thick brush of a willow thicket, just the place to meat up with Mr. Bear.







Mount Meeker with Longs peeking out from behind. Probably in April, lots of spring snow, winter wheat is high.

Sabai Dii Pi Mai

This is the day before yesterday. It might be new years and the height of the hot season in Laos but it's still snowing here. This photo was at 9:30 AM. The snow is so thick the movement activated light over my garage/shop came on illuminating the rack I have mounted above the big rolling door.

Today is the day they celebrate here, Saturday, I think in Laos it's the next or following day.

Thanks For Reading

Flower Pots Muang Xali


Once in a while I get a quick note via the comments section of a post or via email from a reader who likes my blog. A recent commentator said he’d read the whole blog, beginning to end in a couple of sittings.

I often check my site meter to find other people doing similar things. Maybe twice a week I’ll find someone has been on the blog for 3 hours twice in the last day and viewed 20 pages. Someone with an interest in Laos reading for background I‘d assume.

The site meter became invisible when Google made some changes in Blogger, and I never bothered to fix it. I’m not trying to sell ad space anyway. Lao Bumpkin gets about 50 hits a day, I’m assuming that will go up as I’m a frequent contributor to the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Forum and they recently reinstalled the tag line feature where there is a link to this blog.
People looking on Lonely Planet tend to read more anyway.

Often I get people who enter the wrong search words on Google. Like the heart throb rock group from India, Moon Moon Sen, pulling up my post about that noodle salad Yam Moon Sen. Or people looking for images of Eve in the garden of Eden and they come up with that picture of my one year old daughter holding the snake in the post entitled, Eve In The Garden With Snake.

Besides how long people have viewed the blog, the site meter tells me if they have left the blog on one of my links or clicked on a photo to see it larger. I’m thrilled. If you wish to complement the blog simply click on a photo you like, I’ll see it.

The MSG post got a link from a Wall Street Journal article online, whose authors did a real nice job describing the current craze for “unami”, the naturally occurring free glutamate found in many foods. The funniest is the “Unami bomb” mixing up the heaviest combinations of naturally free glutamate such as parmesan cheese and tomatoes. Sounds like a cheese pizza to me.

Eleven months ago we got on a plane and left Laos. About time I went back.

"or maybe not"

Adjust your monitor for photographs, click on the photo so that it enlarges, and take a look. This is an LZ above Indian Creek in Utah. Notice how the wet Navajo Sandstone really shows it’s colour? Great Photo by Scott Lambert.

Remember the description of the blog says, “or maybe not”, as in “ Travel, Food and Other Things Connected to Laos and Laotians,,,,,, or maybe not” well this is that “or maybe not“ part. Actually there is a tenuous link in that one of the first pilots I knew flew for Air America in Laos, I have no idea what kind of aircraft he flew, from what I gather he was in a few different kinds of fixed wings.


I like Lamas. A Lama besides being a filthy animal that looks like a goat and spits, is also the helicopter with the world's altitude record, for thirty five years running. We used to say that at lower elevations below 12,000 feet, the engine was governed down so as to not tear the blades off with the excess power. Who know if it’s true. The three blades are wide for grabbing lots of air, and the fuselage has no skin so the cross winds can blow through the aircraft and to save weight.

A lot of helicopters will first get some forward speed up before gaining altitude or else they are very sluggish going up from a hover. When the pilot pulls up the collective on a Lama the aircraft feels like it’s a yo yo at the end of some giant’s string. It goes up in a hurry.

If you are waiting to get picked up, on the lee side of an avalanche break to get out of the snow that‘s blowing sideways, sixty miles from a road, with night time temperatures dropping out of site, and winds gusting to seventy from a stationary lenticular cloud, there’s nothing to compare. Just the sound of a Lama is enough to remind you of warm hotel rooms, chicken fried steaks, and all the other thoughts that come at the end of the day.

638 Headed Downhill

638 headed downhill in Wyoming Photo by Scott Lambert

Pai Ying Nock

That's Lao for gone bird hunting, similar to gone fishing in English, I'm up North wandering about and will probably be blogging again sometime after the 15th of February. Cold up here.

Well,,,, maybe after the 20th. Warming up.

Nothing to do with Laos

But a nice picture of 504 on a November afternoon in Utah none the less.
Photo by Scott Lambert
Scott used to use Kodachrome most of the time. Fairly slow film too. maybe 100. The shutter speed has to be pretty quick the blades are stopped. Nice colour saturation. I’ve enlarged this on the computer and I have no idea who the pilot is, someone I don’t think I knew very well. The rock in the background looks like that chocolate stuff that is on top of the Navajo sandstone that the skids are about ready to set down on.