Gaeng Kai Mot Daeng (Red Ant Egg Soup)

Cooking up the soup over charcoal in Bien's kitchen

Just before we left Laos Sengthian cooked me up some Gaeng Kai Mot Daeng next door at her sisters house. We stayed at that house for a couple of months back in 01 before Creag was born. They have a gas burner but like most in Vientiane prefer the charcoal. It’s cheaper and burns very hot. Smokes up the kitchen a little, oh well.
Geang Kai Mot Dang has to be about as unweird a type of insect food as I’ve ever eaten. The thing it reminded me of the most was the popular Tom Yung Koon that you can buy in any Thai restaurant in the world. The texture of the eggs is a little like soggy puffed rice. No crunchy legs and heads as in most insects.
I didn’t think we would still be around when it was time to get the ant eggs. I’d kind of forgotten that we were even going to eat them, but I did keep a distance from the nest out by our back door. Creagy got bit once, he steered clear of them ever since. Back in November I took a picture of an ant up close and personal.


Here’s the photo from then. You can see the white nest in the background.

Separating the eggs from the soldier ants requires a bucket of water. When the eggs and nest are in the water the adult ants lie still and even clump up in the water. They aren’t dead just saving their energies. You don’t want to just throw them in the trash or you’ll have a trash can full of angry red ants when you come back. Inevitably some of the ants get left with the eggs, it’s said that’s where the sour taste comes from.



Knowing I don’t like the tiny freshwater fish with millions of tiny bones, Sengthian made the soup with beef as the other ingredient. Tasted pretty good, I always think Lao beef is a little gamey anyway, went well with the sour and slightly fishy taste. I suspect the other ingredients were the usual suspects. Tomatoes, green onions, tamarind leaves, bai kii hoot, hot peppers, kah. No ginger, fish sauce or lime juice.


The greens are Pak Wan up top, Bai Kii Hoot on the plate and Home Paeow below.




Look carefully in the center and you will see an ant that never got picked out of the soup.

Sabai Dii Pi Mai

The Wat with Caribou Mountain in the background.

Pi Mai translates into new years in Laotian. For the Lao refugee population and their kids in the US it’s a day to go to the temple and see and be seen. There are a couple big barrels of water for the kids to fill their squirt guns in and the women cook food to sell and raise money for the temple.


The Money Changers at the Temple, actually counting the donations

Last year they played a recording of the old national anthem and the nationalistic types stood at attention and all. First time they’d done that. I told my wife, “hey, that’s the old national anthem” and she insisted it wasn’t. Took me a while to get through the idea it was the one from thirty years ago. Then they parade around the Wat in a circle and that’s about it. Not quite as big a deal as in Luang Prabang but that’s all there is. In the afternoon the younger set shows up and the serious drinking and whatever begins.


A Buddha attempts to ward off bad vibes from Longs Peak. (Actually only the top of Longs is visible, it's pretty much hidden behind the mellower Meeker.)

We left pretty early this year. Felt kind of cold. Missing Laos.

Loa Terrorists (Yer either with us or again us)

Above is a picture of the ones that are out to kill you.

In twelve years Laos has gone from having almost no private motor vehicles to about a gazillion murdercyles. Most of the traffic seems to be concentrated in Vientiane and the surrounding area. But every town of any size has people doing dumb things in the road.

In the normal course of life I’m seldom fearful of middle aged moms driving their kids to school or grandpa headed to the coffee shop to hobnob with his palls. Here in Laos it’s perfectly possible they could give you a real bad day.

It’s hard to say what is the potentially most dangerous habit. How about driving on the wrong side of the road on the edge until it’s possible to veer across all lanes to get to the opposite side. Or the standard practice of entering traffic without yielding or even looking. Take it for granted that the first few feet of the edge of the road belong to anyone.

Somewhere I’ve read the statistics of how many fatalities per kilometre driven and it’s one of, if not the, worst in South East Asia. How so many people could kill themselves so easily is a wonder to me. Thailand has much faster traffic but they’ve also had motorcycles for a lot longer.
A few years ago the powers that be made a rule that all the motorcycles had to have rear view mirrors. The first thing people used to do with a new bike was to take off the mirrors. The non use of mirrors should give you a clue as to local rules of the road. Nowadays I seldom see a mirror that actually is adjusted to look behind, more likely straight up to apply makeup or other very important things.

Lately they have painted in left turn lanes some places and I’ve even seen some people using them. Usually people have two options, cut across traffic at the first chance and drive up the wrong side of the road until their turn comes up, or slow down in the breakdown lane and look over their shoulder before cutting left across all lanes of traffic.



Cars are worse, they hurt more when they hit you and due to their size there’s more there to mess up with. Cars make slower progress due to all the motorcycles and they need to push to make up for it. Kind of like how a queue forms for a line at the post office, except in this case it’s a thousand kilos of metal they are pushing around with. Backing up and especially parallel parking are skills beyond many.

Once a kindly neighbour gave me a predawn ride to the airport. The road to the airport is divided and he ended up on the wrong side of the road forcing motorcyclists coming the other way off the road. He was of that crucial age of forty and over. Older folks didn’t grow up with motorcycles and so never learned to drive in their wild and crazy years. You can spot them ahead of you in traffic they wander and seem to float, unaware of their surroundings trying only to keep from hitting someone in front of them.

At night things get scary. There are a lot of things out there in the dark and many of them don’t have any lights, like cars and trucks and motorcycles. Drunks that can barely walk getting into their pickups and thinking they are stunt drivers on TV. Come to think of it Sunday afternoons are pretty bad that way too.

My only hope lies in the younger generation. The other day I saw a high school girl driving fast but skilfully through rush hour traffic, watching her rear views continuously for out of control maniacs approaching from the rear. Used her turn signals, anticipated entering traffic the whole bit. Another twenty years and things should be safe.

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

Slash and Burn Baby Burn

Fire

I keep reading in the Bangkok post and also on the net of all the smoke caused by slash and burn agriculture and how it is causing such widespread havoc across South East Asia. It’s the dry season. I even rode through burnt air on recent travels in Luang Prabang province as well as a long bus ride in Thailand. The whole country seemed to be lit up from Chang Rai all the way to Loei.

I never thought very much about it. Yes, terrible stuff, but necessary, people have to eat, and so on. Then I read the piece which I’ll cut and paste at the bottom with a link to the blog it comes from. The blog is written by a Canadian aid worker, Patrick, who just finished working in Oudomxai province northern Laos. Patrick questioned a few of the ways we look at swiden agriculture, and in doing so he lent credence to a few of the doubts I’d been harboring in my own mind.

Burning the Fields

I had a close look at true slash and burn agriculture on the walks I did over the past four months. Most of the villages I visited were still traditional in their agricultural practices. They hadn’t yet made the move down to the valley or road as they have many places. Of course I was seeing things as an untrained observer, and in only a few villages, and one must keep that in mind. Then again most foreign “experts” never even leave Vientiane and most definitely never see a village that isn’t on a road

One thing all the traditional villages I saw had in common was a lot of big trees. I understood why there are big trees in the immediate vicinity of an Akha village. They believe in all that spirit stuff and they have to have big trees close by. Even out where crops were growing there also seemed to be a lot of old growth close by. The fields themselves were of course rice, and old rice fields were grown over with bamboo, but mostly the hills are covered with old trees. The amount of land actually involved in the swiden agriculture seemed tiny.

Small patchwork fields some being farmed others lying fallow stretching along the ridge all the way to the horizon. Phongsali

I am aware that old rice fields look like jungle to the casual glance, that’s why I specify old growth forest to differentiate. A three foot thick tree is old.

In February I saw the slashing going on and the fires it created. Slashing in preparation to burning is a lot of work. It involves swinging a machete all day long. I only saw trees being slashed on previously farmed land. Typically the land would have lain fallow for along time then cut so it would dry, then lit up. It seemed as if the same land were being used over and over again but after many years. No old growth. The bamboo and other trees were over forty feet tall and when cut would lay in huge piles ten feet thick. The resembled a game of pickup sticks played by giants.

The tricky part was that for communities still living in old forests, without the slash, there is no burn. That’s why they slash. What’s missing from all the current complaints about all the burning is the slash. I try to imagine how many hill tribes are still using slash and burn cultivation, compared to how much mountain is burning. Something doesn’t add up.

Then I think about the hills I saw burning on my long bus rides. Not the raging big infernos of brush twenty feet thick, but the slow creeping fires of already burnt ground or even more often the leaves and small grasses that grow beneath the low thin forest that is all that remains in Thailand.

Furrows from a plough, then newly burnt land, and then rubber trees


Most fires I saw on my travels seemed not to be of the intentional controlled burn types. Not the huge fires lit amongst big trees by hill tribes, but more of the “got loose and who cares” variety. Of course they could never burn in old growth forests. Old growth might go dormant in the dry season but it doesn’t dry out enough to burn. That’s why the hill tribe people have to slash.

When I started to write this piece earlier this evening the neighbor on our south was burning a pile of leaves and brush in his back yard. Flames fifteen feet high. It’s no big deal, everyone burns the trash out of their yards this time of year. When we temporarily moved in here a couple of weeks ago the first thing my wife did was to sweep up all the leaves, and start a big fire. Directly behind us they cleared all the brush out from under some trees and burnt it. All across Asia people are burning the underbrush, it’s how people keep things neat and tidy. In a couple of years it all grows back. Of course the farmers burn too. Not the slash and burn farmers but regular wet rice folks. Often the fires get away from people and are allowed to burn. That’s what I saw all across Thailand, not slash and burn. I look for the environmental criminals and they are us.


Khamu man rip cutting with an up and down saw, notice the rice stalks behind him

In Luang Prabang province I saw fires covering tens of hectares of open hillside at once. At the time I thought it a funny way to grow rice. I had never seen hill tribe fields that large, more often patchwork with pieces of old fields in between. The fields along the road to Luang Prabang weren’t even brushy, it’s as if they had been burnt within a couple of years recently. I wonder if these were even fires to plant rice or just fires out of control.

I’ve heard there is a minimum number of years for a land to lie fallow. This allows for the soil and nutrients to renew themselves. Probably the hill tribes have some sort of taboo about planting on land that doesn’t contain certain species. My guide on my last trek could tell in an instant how many years it had been since an area had been used for rice. Partially by the size of the trees, also by the species. Certain plants grow on old fields after one year, others on the second and so forth. Some species even need the shade of preceding species to establish themselves.

Root Flare

Patrick’s writings made me aware of another type of burning for cultivation. The intensive burn and reburn that occurs when hill tribes are located to permanent settlements in the lowlands or along roads. I saw one of these new settlements recently and I also saw my first examples of new fields being planted where once there were old forests.

When I thought about it I realized these fields were the first I had seen alongside flowing water. Seemed like before they had always been either on the tops of ridges or along the slopes leading down from them. Was there some kind of reason that hill tribes don’t traditionally plant along stream beds?

Hand cut planks on burnt and planted land

A couple days later I am awake in the middle of the night because I heard the rain on the roof. The water comes down hard for a long time. It hasn’t rained like this for five months. The water puddles on the ground. The birds sing even though it’s the middle of the night. Soon the dry season will be over. The fires will be out, for this year, tourists will be happily taking the same landscape photos, residents will stop coughing, and the issue will be out of the papers for another year.

The forests of Laos will continue to be cut, if not for timber then to make way for rubber trees. Thailand will continue to industrialize oblivious to the green wet forested country it used to be.

New Rice

Patrick Lucas' Blog

Shifting Perspectives Part 1
Earlier in this blog I made two remarks that I would like to remention for the subsequent essays:
Shifting Perspectives on Shifting Cultivation 1.

I have come to believe the only time you really know you’re learning something is when you realize everything you thought you knew on a given topic turns out to be almost completely wrong. This point has become a major thread and theme to my entire experience here in Lao, and is even more poignant when put up against my evolving knowledge and understanding with regard to Shifting Cultivation.2. A few months back, when writing about resettlement of upland villages, I quoted the first of two “development riddles”. The first was: When is a solution not a solution? The second “development riddle” that I did not mention or examine the last time is: Riddle No. 2: When is a problem not a problem? The issues of shifting cultivation in Lao has made me realize how little I knew or understood about this complex issue, and has caused my views and opinions to change drastically. Also it has provided me with a new level of understanding of the answers to these two riddles. With this series of essays I would like to take anyone willing to read it, on a short journey explaining my experiences and shifting perspectives on shifting cultivation in Lao.Shifting Perspectives on Shifting CultivationWhen I first arrived in Lao I had never actually heard the term “shifting cultivation”. In fact, as I was learn during my tenure in Oudomxay, there are a number of different terms and references to this highly controversial form of agriculture, including: swidden agriculture, shifting cultivation, rotating cultivation, pioneering cultivation, and the most famous of all, SLASH AND BURN! Or “hai na” in Lao. I suspect, as was the case for me, this last term is the most common and well known reference, and is one that conjures the most drastic images of environmental destruction and un-sustainability. The phrase “slash and burn” is a highly politically charged term that is often intended to convey precisely this kind of image, portraying the people who are practicing it as environmental criminals, backward, unsustainable, and requiring development assistance and programs designed to halt the practice and move people into the development light of economic and environmental security. This has certainly been the case in Lao as the government and numerous aide agencies have embarked on a number of development and planning initiatives to eradicate the practice and introduce alternatives and to create seemingly more sustainable methods for upland communities. I remember when I first arrived traveling with my colleagues around Oudomxay province and seeing areas that matched the image in my head of slash and burn cultivation: steep slopes, denuded of all trees and vegetation that were then burned in giant fires that fill the air with dense clouds of smoke and ash that fall in huge black flakes like some form of Buponic snow, a third world nuclear holocaust. My colleagues would point out areas on the hillsides along roads and highways that were cleared of bush and burnt and would say things like, “Hai na, maen bo di ti singwaetlom—slash and burn, is very bad for the environment!” In my state of ignorance, I would simply nod my head in agreement, “yes, very bad.” As with so many things however, I would soon learn that the issue is far more subtle and complex than such a simple understanding could ever possibly capture. Unfortunately, more often than not, it is this simple image and understanding of a very complex and very old relationship the people have with the land that dominates government policy, international development initiatives, and the international mass media. I can remember reading in the most respectable of media outlets descriptions that profile upland ethnic minorities in a negative stereotype of environmental marauders, slashing and burning the forest, farming the land for a few years until it is denuded of nutrients and productivity, and then moving on, leaving a path of irreversible destruction in their wake. As I have learned over the past 22 months in Oudomxay, this image, and the activities undertaken by the government and the international aid community, are largely mislead, and fit perfectly within the two “development riddles” I have mentioned earlier.So what exactly is “Slash and burn agriculture” and all these other terms anyways? Simply stated, slash and burn refers to the practice of clearing an area of forest, typically in an upland area of steep slopes, and then burning the brush and vegetation for cultivation. Most often, in Lao, the people will plant a strain of rice suitable for dry conditions, but have also been known to plant various types of fruit trees and vegetables. Usually after one or two growing seasons, the field is then “abandoned”. Most upland ethnic groups, such as the Khmu people in Oudomxay Province, will farm an area for up to twenty years, shifting their fields from cultivation to fallow, until the soil fertility and productivity drops, and then move the entire village to a new area to begin the cycle over again. It is usually at this point that the understanding of these practices end and the claims of environmental destruction and un-sustainability begin. The argument against this form of agriculture revolves around the issues of soil erosion, sedimentation (the deposit of soil in local streams and rivers due to erosion), reductions in soil fertility due to over cultivation, and productivity losses. The fear is that once an area has been cleared on a steep slope, the likelihood of soil erosion and sedimentation in local streams is much greater, and in a time of quickly growing populations (Lao has the highest population growth rates in South East Asia), this form of agriculture is destructive and un-sustainable in the long term. And, on many levels, these claims are quite legitimate. That is if we were simply discussing a situation in which the images of slash and burn were accurate, however, as I have come to believe, this is a gross oversimplification and betrays a long term relationship and an in-depth and complex level of ecological knowledge the people have of the land. Shifting Cultivation obviously goes beyond this. Simply put, shifting cultivation, or swidden agriculture, refers to the practice of clearing and burning forests of land, using the land for a season or two, and then allowing to go fallow, letting the forest re-grow for up 7 to 12 years before being burnt and cultivated again. The field is hardly abandoned however. Fallow areas are continuously used by the ethnic upland people, such as the Khmu, as a source of resources, including wildlife for consumption, and a plethora of non-timber forest products such as traditional medicines, various plants for building products and food, as well as spiritual beliefs. (It should be noted that Lao is known for having the highest biodiversity values in south east asia along with the highest diversity and abundance of non-timber forest products, which are quickly growing in demand and market value—all due to 400 600 years of shifting cultivation!.) From my understanding, the Khmu people, like the Inuit of the north with regard to having over 26 words for snow, have numerous words for describing the forests in different stages of re-growth commensurate with the products and wildlife that can be found within them. In fact, I suspect that if the value taken from fallow areas and secondary forest were taken into consideration, the perceptions around shifting cultivation would change drastically. As such, many agronomists and environmental planners throughout the developing world are beginning to understand that shifting cultivation is not only one of the most efficient forms of agriculture (the amount of energy spent compared to calories derived ratio is quite high—translation, lots of work but lots of food), it can also be very environmentally beneficial. Many cultivators have highly sophisticated forms of soil conservation, and shifting cultivation provides fallow areas that are high in biodiversity and abundance that are crucial not only to farmers and communities, but with respect to wildlife habitat as well. With respect to ecology and environmental degradation, the only thing that really matters is the rate at which something occurs. The ecology of Lao, over the last 400 to 600 years has adapted well to this form of land use, and the changes that are being implemented are causes rapid changes the balance and environmental dynamics that rule this fragile environment. As I have learned, it is these changes that are proving to be the real cause of environmental degradation and social disruption in the country.Pioneering Cultivation is an entirely different story. This refers to what happens when people have restricted access to land, and are forced to move into areas that were previously untouched primary forest, usually in very fragile environments (head water areas for major rivers and tributaries with steep slopes and soils with already low nutrient levels and highly susceptible to erosion and sedimentation) and begin practicing slash and burn practices. Since these areas are typically protected against cultivation, the people engaging in the practice are understandably concerned about getting caught and unlikely to invest in soil conservation practices. Also, since they rarely own this land, and will be forced to move on, the fallow periods typically shorten between cropping years—from 7 to 12 years—to continuous intense cultivation for 3 to 5 subsequent years in a row. In short, the forest is not allowed to grow back and the farmers keep growing crops until the soil nutrients are almost completely denuded and then leave the land. The result is severe degradation and soil loss. This is the type of slash and burn that fits the actual environmental stereotypes and should be rightly addressed. Ironically, the very policies and programs aimed at all shifting cultivation is resulting in the very restrictions in access to land and is resulting in an alarming rate of growth of pioneering cultivation throughout Laos and the developing world generally.This brings us back to the first development riddle: Riddle No. 1—when is a solution not a solution? Answer No. 1: When it causes more problems than it solves. By attempting to eradicate shifting cultivation without understanding it, Lao has found itself in the uncomfortable position where the very practices and environmental problems they had hoped to address are in reality becoming in more exacerbated. Answer No. 2: when it is not adopted by the intended beneficiaries. Like so many development initiatives, based on misleading or misguided ideals and initiatives, without consideration for the needs and local realities of the people for whom they are intended to “develop”, the programs to eradicate shifting cultivation have not provided upland communities with viable alternatives, meaning that they have no choice but to continue cultivating upland areas, and with restricted access to land, they have begun to engage in land use patterns that are truly destructive and un-sustainable.

Shifting Perspectives Continued...
One night, while dining over “sin-daat” (a form of Lao BBQ) with a colleague, we were discussing this very situation when my friend asked me a simple, yet poignant question, “How is it that a form of agriculture such as the shifting cultivation, which has practiced by the Khmu people in this area for the last 400 to 600 years, was suddenly deemed un-sustainable?” Of course, as usual, I had no answer. I knew one thing for certain: I needed to find out. For me this was the starting point when my perspectives and understanding of upland agriculture began to shift.Shifting Cultivation in Laos-traditional and current circumstancesShifting cultivation, as it has been traditionally practiced by the Khmu, and other ethnic groups in the north of Lao, is far more complicated than the simple images portrayed by slash and burn. Firstly, it is important to understand why upland agriculture is necessary to begin with. Oudomxay, like the rest of the country, is a highly mountainous area, comprising around 80% of the total land area. The geography is characterized by steep sloops, rugged terrain, and very little lowlands and flood plains. The fact of the matter is that Oudomxay has very few options or viable alternatives to cultivating upland areas. Even if they cultivated every square inch of lowland areas for rice paddies (they would have to get rid of all the towns, roads, etc to do so) and managed to raise production levels by 20% or more, they would still be faced with rice shortages to meet the demands of a growing population. This means that upland cultivation, in one form or another, will remain apart of the agricultural landscape, and a crucial aspect of the people’s livelihood strategies for some time to come. The fact that shifting cultivation has been stigmatized and associated with poverty and “backwardness” is a classic example of what has come to be called environmental racism: the placement of blame for environmental degradation on often marginalized ethnic minorities. There is a danger of course of oversimplifying or romanticizing the lives of shifting cultivators. Upland agriculture, though an effective livelihood strategy, is a difficult one. I once asked the Phorban (village chief) in Ban Tangnuey if he felt the village was better off living in the valley bottom doing sedentary agriculture as opposed to their traditional lifestyle in the nearby hills. He answered that yes, he did feel the village was better off. Why? Because living on a hill is difficult he replied. The fact is that many of the villages I have visited and worked in usually expressed a willingness to move away from shifting cultivation if provided the opportunity. They would like to practice different forms of agriculture; they would like access to schools, hospitals and infrastructure. The question is how the programs are carried out and what their true intentions are. I have come to suspect that the efforts to eradicate shifting cultivation have less to do with “improving” the people’s lives than getting them out of areas that are rich in other resource values such as timber, mining, and cash crop plantations. This leads us to another key point, that even if shifting cultivation was recognized as a viable form of agriculture, the fact is the Khmu people live in a very different socio-economic environment than they did in the past. There is a much higher degree of competition over land uses. Shifting cultivation, as practiced in the past, meant that people had to move around every 20 years or so…this may not be possible with a growing population and demand for cash crops and resources. Seeking out the Environmental CulpritsSo, if shifting cultivation isn’t the cause of all the environmental degradation, what is?Well, let’s first clarify that there isn’t one single cause of environmental degradation. Secondly, it’s important also to clarify specifically what environmental degradation are we speaking of. My research with the Oudomxay Provincial Science Technology & Environment Office in the Ko River watershed, along with a growing body of secondary research being conducted by numerous domestic and international research institutes, has provided a fairly comprehensive picture of the state of the environment with respect to watershed functions and services. (Please see the inserted graph.)As I stated before the only thing that matters in ecology is the rate at which something occurs and the timeframe in which it occurs. Shifting cultivation, as practiced in the past, with long fallow periods, has been shown to be either environmentally benign, or even beneficial. Currently however, the state of shifting cultivation is rapidly changing due to changes in land use policy, as discussed earlier there are much shorter fallow periods and increasing intensity in the use of land in increasingly fragile environments. One could accurately describe this form of agriculture as “pioneering” cultivation and it is a major source and cause of soil erosion, sedimentation, deforestation, and storm water runoff; a major source of environmental degradation in the province. It is not the only culprit however. A growing consensus among agronomist, planners, and development workers and agencies, is that the most significant cause of environmental degradation in Oudomxay and Lao generally is the issue of land use change, the growing rate of conversion of forest and agricultural land to large monoculture cash crop plantations, particularly rubber. Throughout Oudomxay province we are seeing larger and larger areas of land being cleared and planted with massive plantations of rubber. The large majority of the investors come from China and they have very little interest in conserving the land for the long term. Quite often, the land is given away in concessions to investors, land that typically belonged to villagers—the land taken away and given to the investors without consultation or even the knowledge of the farmers. These plantations have incredibly high erosion and run off rates, and typically can leave the soil denuded and useless for many years afterwards. Other land uses that can prove damaging to watershed services include stripping the vegetation along rivers and streams to grow corn and other crops, and the destruction of and loss of wetlands and floodplains. Once you put all these issues together you are looking at a very severe degree of environmental degradation. Quite obviously the issue is very complicated and defies any simple explanation or solution.
Finally, this brings us to the second Development Riddle, which is: When is a problem not a problem? Answer: When it is part of the solution. Understanding a social system is not unlike looking at a computer drafted 3 dimensional picture. You may remember these were all the rage about ten years back. At first glance they appeared non-sensical, chaotic, a meaningless mess of objects and patterns. But, if you look long enough, and adjust your perception or perspective accordingly, an image will emerge. Understanding shifting cultivation within the contemporary context of Lao is a very similar process. Once you look past the smoke and the fires, the charred and burnt fields and trees left behind, you can begin to see it in a very different light. Rather than being backward and primitive, shifting cultivators have developed highly in-depth agro-ecological knowledge and management systems that have resulted in Lao having some of the highest biodiversity levels in south east Asia, an incredible genetic heritage of rice species perfectly suited to the local growing conditions and environments, not too mention a huge abundance and diversity of non-timber forest products, all of which make a substantial argument that shifting cultivation can be sustainable. The government of Lao, and all actors and stakeholders should appreciate this as highly valuable asset that is quickly being lost, not as a threat. For too long, shifting cultivators have been blamed for environmental degradation and have been resettled and made to alter their livelihood strategies regardless of whether there were adequate or viable alternatives or whether the promised services and infrastructure could be provided. The underlying assumptions have been that shifting cultivators are invariably poor and therefore any move to improve their lives will inevitably result in greater prosperity. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. These assumptions ignore the vast natural wealth that many indigenous communities possess within their traditional environs. Moved into new communities, cut off from traditional land use practices, provided inadequate land with little training or extension workers and credit, many families and whole communities are falling into new poverty cycles that are difficult to reverse or escape. All of which is leading to higher levels of environmental degradation. Obviously, this cycle must end and development and government agencies need to start looking at shifting cultivation in a new light.Back in the day, while fighting their “Secret War” in Lao, the CIA had a saying, “If you think you understand the situation, you simply don’t have all the facts!” The fact is that Lao, like any country or culture anywhere in the world I suppose, is far more complicated and dynamic than even a 3D picture. Anytime you think you are starting to figure things out, some little fact jumps out and shatters everything you built. I won’t presume to truly understanding the entire situation as there is no way that I could ever have all the facts. But I have identified a few important facts that can guide future action.1. Shifting cultivation, if done properly with traditional or effective contemporary soil erosion methods, and sufficiently long fallow periods, can be not only environmentally benign, but beneficial by encouraging new growth and higher biodiversity.2. Shifting Cultivators do not deserve the stigma or stereotype of being either backwards or poor if they are successfully practicing their traditional methods. (Successful in my opinion, for this circumstance, being that they are meeting the requirements of the first point, while supplying all the nutritional and material needs they require for sustainable economic and social security.) Shifting Cultivators possess in-depth agro-ecological knowledge that, while it should not replace solid scientific knowledge and research, it should be respected and viewed as an asset.3. Shifting Cultivation does not equal environmental degradation—so long as it meets the requirements of the first two points. There are other sources of degradation that must be addressed together, including: pioneering cultivation, deforestation, large rubber plantations, intensifying agriculture in the low lands, all of which result in soil erosion and sedimentation, and drastic changes in the hydrological regimes of watersheds (ie. Flooding, droughts, etc.)So where does all this leave us?It’s one thing to say that the government, NGOs, and development agencies should stop demonizing shifting cultivation and view it as an asset: a major barrier that must be crossed, but what are they supposed to do then? Seems to me to there are plenty of people around doing this first part, but I have yet to see any concrete actions plans, strategies or criteria for planners to work with to actually start integrating in a sound manner into the contemporary planning process and agricultural landscape. All of this assuming of course that shifting cultivators want to keep practicing shifting cultivation. As always, it’s easy to criticize and point out mistakes, it’s a completely different situation altogether to come up with feasible and practical solutions. This is the next step and the entry point for planners, such as myself, have to step up to the plate.Fortunately, there are some people and agencies who are working on this issue, and within my limited time and experience in Lao I have begun to gather some ideas to approach this issue. Firstly, there are a few preconditions that must be met. Some of these include:There must be a recognition and understanding by all stakeholders and agencies that:a. Shifting cultivation with the appropriate fallow periods and practices is not inherently environmentally destructive or unsustainableb. That without viable and feasible alternatives and means shifting cultivators cannot be expected to change their practices and that shifting cultivation can remain a reasonable and sustainable means of sustenancec. Adequate land and low population densities conditions must exist to allow for environmentally acceptable practices. (Some have suggested areas with less than 20 persons per 1 km2, may be an acceptable population density to allow for sufficient fallow periods…assuming there are no other practices or land uses in the area…not likely for most locations.)As I said before, there is a growing awareness and consensus among planners (both Lao and foreigners) that the eradication of shifting cultivation is not only undesirable under current economic and social condition, but highly unlikely for the foreseeable future. In fact, the government of Lao has begun to change its language from a program of “eradication” to “stabilization” wherein shifting cultivators are encouraged to change, but are allowed to practice in limited areas as long as it does not encroach on current forest covered areas. Regardless, I have compiled a short list of strategies and objectives I have been encouraging people to consider throughout my tenure as project coordinator for the Nam Ko Watershed Project, these include:1. Improve Land Tenure, Land use planning & allocation. Existing land entitlements in Lao are weak and routinely ignored by government officials. It is far more likely that farmers will engage in sustainable agricultural practices if they have a more secure knowledge that they will have access to the land over a set period of time. Also, by improving upon the land use planning and allocation process, the government will be able to alleviate conflicts and deal with environmental problems more effectively.2. Improve Fallow Periods & Recognize Fallow as a legitimate form of land use.Currently, the government of Lao has a regulation in place that if a farmer does not use his land for a period of three years (ie. Allows it to go fallow), than he or she will use their land use certificate. By recognizing fallow as a form of land use, they will provide more opportunities for the regeneration of soils and harvesting of non-timber forest products.3. Implement development programs that are people centered.Many development projects have been implemented in a top-down manner focusing on broad development goals that have little to do with the needs and realities of local communities. Local residents should define and establish needs and criteria for development as well as evaluating successes. 4. Ensure provision of viable alternatives to shifting agricultureShould upland communities choose to relocate and shift from traditional agricultural practices, this should only be done when there are viable and feasible alternatives. Obviously, this is a classic “Chicken and the egg situation”. The government, and development agencies need to recognize that this process will not happen overnight and that traditional methods should not be cut off or disallowed until alternatives are firmly in place and providing for all the needs and requirements of the people that were available from traditional practices and more.As I have said, this is an extremely complicated situation, and I’m sure that within a few years time, or even in a few months, my own understanding and perspective of the situation will change and continue to evolve…or at least I hope so. I can say with some confidence that I have been learning thus far, as when I look back on what I thought to be true in the past…it was, indeed, pretty much completely wrong.

The 22 hour bus to Luang Namtha

Luang Namtha Bus at Northern Bus Station Vientiane

The bus isn’t as bad as the name might suggest. For one thing it never takes 22 hours, they just say that in case. Maybe it used to, I don’t know. I think the whole trip could be done in eighteen or so hours if they eliminated all stops except to the short ones every four hours.

I missed getting seats up front near the driver, so I settled for what looked to be second best, close to the rear door. Good for quick exits for breaks. My wife dropped me off an hour early just to get the good seats but others had the same idea and got the jump on me. The bus did leave pretty much on time even though not full. Sometimes it’s beginning to seam as if Lao busses leave on some sort of schedule, like the one posted in the ticket office. Quite the surprise, I’d been prepared to wait another couple hours for people to show up, and here we were leaving.
The first thing we did after leaving was drive over to the fuel pumps, then we parked up past Dalat Sii Kai for forty minutes. The driver had important things to take care of. You’d think he could have said goodbye to his wife earlier

Bus Distances and Price
#1Phongsali
#2 Bokeo (Huay Xai?)
#3 Luang Namtha
#4 and #5 Oudomxia
#6 Hua Phan (Samnuea?)
#7+8 Xiengkuan,
#s 9,10,+11 Luang Prabang

I know you’re probably thinking, why not take the plane. I don’t like the plane. I mean I don’t mind the plane itself, or flying, but I don’t like having to plan my life out two weeks in advance while on vacation, or else fly stand by and have to spend all that time at the airport, and maybe not even go. The bus is simple. Go there, get a ticket, 21 hours later you are in Luang Namtha. I like meeting the Lao people on the busses too. I almost forgot, it’s way cheap. Twelve dollars to go seven hundred kilometres through the mountains.

The bus began to fill up after we got under way. All of those mid sized towns seemed to end up having a couple people. I think we collected five people at that Hmong town of Ha-sip-song. Didn’t even stop at Vang Vien, no English written across the front of the bus. By the time we left Kasi almost all the seats were full.

There were a couple of girls sitting across from me. Kind of chubby and falling out of their too short pants, but friendly, young and silly. For them this was some kind of exciting fun party. The excitement began to wear off by about the thirteen hundredth switch back on the way to Luang Prabang. Everyone was wishing that they could fall all the way to sleep but about the time you would dose off a sharp turn would bump you up against whatever you had been avoiding, to remind you that yes, you are on that bus to Luang Namtha.

I don’t have the route to Luang Prabang memorized yet. There is still a valley that you drive down into towards the latter part of the day only to realize that you still have another mountain to go over. Soon it was dark and the dry season fires on the sides of the mountains were pretty. It seemed like the swathes of open ground were huge, hundreds of acres, the whole sides of mountains. I think the timber industry gave the hill tribe folks a head start on the trees of Luang Prabang. I’ve never seen that kind of a burning pattern for regular slash and burn agriculture.

The southern bus station in Luang Prabang was another food stop, and we all piled out to eat at the bus station restaurants. I opted for a very common barbequed chicken with a side of steamed greens and sticky rice. (Ping Gai, Soup Pak, Kow Nee Ow, and jeao makpet to spice it up) A middle aged Hmong guy from the bus joined me. He was headed only to Pak Mong. A lot of the people weren’t headed to Luang Namtha but rather to points along the way.

Some Chinese people came in the café also, I knew from the clothes but also the proprietress of the restaurant started using sign language and saying, “Shur Fan, Shur Fan”. (Eat rice, eat rice). A couple of the Chinese followed her back to the wok where she stir fried them some rice and they pointed to ingredients they wanted put in. I’d bet a million bucks they also went back to make sure she didn’t put in any plah dek or fish sauce. I had to laugh. Here the Chinese were getting the same food as western tourists. I guess the general rule of thumb at restaurants is, when in doubt, serve them fried rice.

I got back on the bus early, just in time to save my seat from being stolen. The Chinese have different rules of bus etiquette than the Lao. You snooze, you lose. They were well aware of the Lao rules too, they just had a hard time bringing themselves to comply. In China if you behaved like the Lao, you would end up without food, or a place to sleep. It’s the land of sharp elbows. I heard some Chinese guys discussing whether to take a seat, they didn’t want to because there were some half full water bottles left in the pocket behind the seats. It’s hard to not sit down just because someone might be sitting there. Generally the Lao will tell each other who is sitting where, but the Chinese don’t speak Lao, and the Lao didn’t speak Chinese.

I translated as best I could. I never was any good at Mandarin. Immediately I found my voice getting louder and my body language more expressive, as the R’s became richer and the G’s more guttural. I like Mandarin as it’s spoken in China. None of that hissing snake sound of Taiwan for me. The most fun part is calling everyone comrade. I’ve had Chinese people tell me they don’t use that word anymore, and that it’s a word from the old days. I think it’s funny as all get out. China and Laos are both comradely socialist societies moving towards capitalism with a Marxist Leninist approach. Right?

A Lao lady was trying to save the two chubby girls seats for them. Of course the Chinese lady who wanted the seats didn’t appreciate my explanation at all. Much better not to understand. When the people who had been at the restaurant got back on the bus, there were lots of loud voices and gestures, but no truly bad feelings. The Lao were familiar enough with the Chinese to realize that the loud voices are a cultural thing, and the Chinese for their part understood the unwritten bus rules in Laos, and did give up any previously occupied seats. I sized up the scene, and pulled the smallest Chinese guy of the bunch down into the empty seat beside me, he didn’t smoke either. Better him than that chain smoking, spitting fellow with the big shoulders.

Many of the Chinese had trooped into the restaurant as a group. I assumed somehow they were family. Now I began to understand that the two skinny pale young guys who spoke Lao had all the tickets and identity papers. They were the leaders. The others were being brought to various places in China, or at least across the border, probably for a set fee including transportation. Five or six of the Chinese ended up on the plastic chairs mid aisle. That’s how it goes, last on get the worst seats.

One of the young guys made the fellow sitting next to me move so he could sit there.

There was also an argument over the tickets. The price of tickets is set. Seems to be non negotiable and known by all. I’ve never been charged a “falang price” for a bus. The Chinese had paid through Oudomxai I think and they were headed almost to Luang Namtha. They were jumping off at the road to Boten and the border. The busses are privately owned, usually by the driver and his family. The extra fair for all of the Chinese added up to quite a bit of money, maybe ten dollars or more. First the bus kid came back on his usual rounds to check tickets and write tickets to those without. He got nowhere. After consulting with the driver he came back and told them they had to pay. Nothing Doing.

Ten o’clock turned into twelve and the Hmong guy got off. Sometime long after midnight another bus guy came back to talk about the fare with the Chinese. Discussing it were not only the two skinny kids who spoke Lao, but also an older fellow with a very thick neck, the muscle. The whole shouting match arms with arms a flinging was happening about three inches from my face. The bus guy didn’t seem too intimidated, all concerned knew that rural Laos is the wrong place to get in a punch up with a bus guy. You might end up with something bad happening. They paid.

Later still, around three I guess, all the Chinese woke up from their slumber seemingly refreshed and excited to be nearing the place to jump on a pick up truck and head for the border. People broke out snacks and started choking down cigarettes. You’ve got to hand it to the Chinese. Fun for them is taking all night bus rides and then standing around shivering at a remote mountain border waiting for sunrise.

The little guy who had first sat next to me was headed for Shanghai. He had days and days more of this to go. Third class all the way. There is some kind of Chinese expression about bitter soup. I don’t remember how it goes. Something about how you give the Chinese hard times and they manage to make soup out of the deal. Good travelers, I don’t think the tourist label quite fits.

The road to Zhongdien, and Tibet, Yunnan January 1994

The bus rolled into the Luang Namtha station just after five in the morning. Amazing how many people were asleep outside the market on the ground. Families, dogs, vegetables. I waited for someone to wake up at Zuela’s.