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.

Sabai Dee Pi Mai from Hillary

The photo was snapped when she was shouting the word Sabai, of Sabai Dee Pi Mai


Lao New Year
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of StateWashington, DC

April 11, 2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On behalf of President Obama and the American people, it is my great pleasure to wish the people of Laos a peaceful and prosperous Lao New Year. This is an opportunity to honor Lao culture and heritage, and to come together to welcome new beginnings and new possibilities.
As we commemorate the 55th anniversary of bilateral relations between the United States and Laos, I look forward to working together to broaden the partnership between our governments and deepen the friendship between our people.
I offer my warmest wishes for a happy and safe holiday.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/04/139973.htm

Là-haut (Yonder) - Outside the tourist bubble in Northern Laos

Yonder

Above the blogger Marine Richard, a French woman who travels through Laos alone. The  name of her blog la-haut translates into Yonder when I enter it into Google translater,  who knows if this is correct. I'd urge you to go to either language and take a look, read for a while. Better to just go and  read for yourself than to read what I think of it.

I found this blog by happenstance as I do many things on the net, I followed an incoming hit to my blog to see where it came from. I scrolled through the blog looking for a link, on the way I saw many intriguing photos. Intriguing in that they showed a keen eye for what is Lao, especially rural upland northern Lao. The blog was also in french. I have my eye out now for blogs in French showing very off the track type things.

A while ago I read an interesting account of a couple of French guys heading down by boat from Muang Khua to Luang Prabang, complete with capsizing, near drownings, and all kinds of other adventures.

And then there was that google translation I posted about xxxxxx-xxxxxxx-trek-in-phongsali where the guy walks the length and breadth of Phongsali off road.

I was beginning to think maybe the French have some sort of monopoly on remote travel in northern Laos. Imagine my consternation when I plugged the whole thing into Google Translator and found out this blog was by a woman. Not only a woman but a youngish woman, in Lao they'd say sao.

Ms. Richard carries with her the basic tools with which to take an in depth sojourn through the north.

1. A very basic familiarity with the language, not fluency, but a definite ability to speak some Lao.

2. A familiarity with the peoples and cultures. Enough to know the ethicities of those she sees and to eat sticky rice. Enough familiarity, to inform her observations which brings us to number three.

3. The ability to observe. So often we are caught up in our own desire to say or be seen that we fail to listen and watch. Ms. Richard can do both and she also thinks about what she has seen.

4. Lastly Ms Richard is not naive.

I'm almost done with my second reading. The blog isn't really a blog in the sense that it's not an updated entity, the story starts at the beginning and goes to the end. I'd urge anyone who can read French to go to the original web site and read. I suspect that it is much better that way. The address is http://www.la-haut.blogspot.com/

Below is another photo from Ms. Richard's blog. The photos she has posted on the left side somehow don't fit in the space provided, and so when I looked at the picture I could only see the left half of the picture. But it seemed familiar. In my mind I started ticking off the possibilities and eliminating them as soon as they crossed my mind. It came to me later while I was reading. Do you know where the photo is from? You should.

Lahu night out.

The Lahu are comfortable in the Forest

See the radio the little guy is carrying? I bought the same radio down at the market for eighty thousand kip. AM/FM and a whole lota short wave. They were tuned to Thai pop, happy and walking along.


We passed them earlier at the place they slept and now they were passing us at our break. We were to pass them again but still they made it to Nambo that same day, saw them rolling in around sunset. Not a bad walk for such a little guy.


They slept in what you see in the photo. They'd propped some sticks up and covered them with banana leaves and also the sides, the front open to the fire. The leaves overhead served two purposes, to reduce the radiant heat loss to the sky and to reflect some of the heat of the fire back down onto their bodies. The husband and wife slept on the outside curled around the children who slept sound and warm in the middle. The husband slept in a T-shirt only, his back must have been cold.


The nights at that elevation are chilly, the dew heavy.


Rice had been cooked the night before by putting it and some water inside a green section of bamboo and cooking it on the fire. They were eating left overs for breakfast. They drank from the spring.


They were coming from town, a shopping trip. They brought with them a knife and some rice.

ສມົຊາຍ

Stimson Center Video

Mekong Tipping Point from Henry L. Stimson Center on Vimeo.

Ough as it Ought to be

The cook cooking

Yesterday was an out of control Lao food cook off around here.

We've been out of sticky rice for 2 weeks. We usually have a pot of kao jao every night so sticky rice is no big deal. But still. This is a Lao house, we eat Lao food. A freind from Vang Vien came by and brought her own sticky rice, I think that's a little too much.

So mum went down to the lao store where we hardly ever go, cause most everything can be had at the new Vietnamese/Chinese supermarket down on 120th. But my wife had a hankering for fresh dill, and small round eggplants. Well when she got back she had bought some other things that she had been having trouble getting, and once she started cooking she started cooking other stuff and more and so on. It was all over in a couple of hours, this is what she cooked.

ough sin guang

First off was ough (like ought without the t) more commonly known by it's Luang Prabang name "or", and the kind where you burn some buffalo skin and throw it in called "or lam". Don't know why it was transliterated as "or", no "R" sound in modern Lao Language, oh well. Note no buffalo around here so folks save the cow skin when they buy a whole cow and they just burn some of that, similar taste. This wasn't that kind of ough any way but just plain old ough sin guang. (deer meat ough)

mak kuah recipe card for the bread in background

 Back to the ough as it's called in Vientiane. The meat was two packages of deer chunks, and some kah, and a ton of bai kii hoot, and the mak kuah stirred a little and in the pot it went.

Later lemon basil, tons of fresh dill, some spinach. Lastly some kao neeow pounded and broken in the saat then mixed with cold water and thrown in the pot and mixed around. Oh and those mouse ear mushrooms too.

I had some tonight on kao jao. Sublime. the sin guang was very tender and infused with the taste of the bai kii hoot. Oh, and green onions. Half the greens were just whatever she wanted but she insisted that in order to be ough you have to have the dill, bai kii hoot, kah, and mak kuah. She says laap has to have bai kii hoot and kah also, but I've bought it all the time without and actually preffer it without. Different folks, different strokes. I asked about the crushed sticky rice with the cold water, why cold, why not just throw it in the pot? I guess it would turn to glop then, by adding it via cold water it all gets mixed in thickening it to the consitancy ough ought to be. Oh, some hot peppers too.

Look carefull and you can see the het hu ngu (wood mushroom literaly mouse ear mushroom)

making the jea kapii

Also on the menu, Nam pik gapii, the Thai name for it cause it's a Thai food. Crushed hot peppers, bang nua, gatee-um, lime juice, hot water. Just so I could see I smelled it, a little closer each sniff until I was right over the container. Yup, smelled like gapii.

deadly nam pik gapii

Also

Gaeng Pah another Thai food, the pah means forest not fish, with pak gapao and those little roots out of a bottle whatever they are called.

gaeng pah

Also

Jao het made out of the oyster mushrooms

jaw het (whatever oyster mushrooms are called)

Also

Gaeng jute with the cucumbers and lemon basil

gaeng jute

Did I mention 4 loaves of bread earlier in the day? No one hungry here.

You've never been to Pakse

if you haven't had foe at the Lankham Hotel, but I'll start at the beginning.


Up on the Bolaven Plateau I met a guy driving one of those Honda 200cc Enduros. He told me that he rented it from the Lankham so that's directly where I headed on return to Pakse.

Usually I speak Lao to people working in hotels, my 200 word vocabulary is easier than the usual 20 words of English spoken at the reception desk. At the Lankham I switched to English after the first sentence. The owner's son and his wife manage the hotel and both are very fluent English speakers.



Owner and grandson

The owners of the Lankham are an ethnic Vietnamese family. I say ethnic because they are 100% Lao by nationality. They all speak Lao when talking amongst themselves, even grandma. The family is educated, one son received advanced degrees in China, the other in America, both by scholarship.

The hotel is a smoothly functioning business as it needs to be with so many working there. The lobby is always attended and has many people checking in and out, getting left luggage, renting motorcycles, using the net, or booking tickets, all the time. The room I rented was cheaper than the competition, and though small, was clean, with AC, TV, fridge, and it all worked. A heck of a lot of Thai and Chinese stay there, good value. I think the rooms on the second floor are better and higher priced. I don't remember what I paid, not too much. There are two halls with rooms both sides and 3 upper floors, maybe 60 rooms or more. Out front is an espresso cart with a blender for smoothies too.


Ashtray Lankham

I was forthcoming about what I intended to use the bike for, and daughter in law suggested I didn't need a large bike but one of the made in Thailand Suzuki 125s might be plenty of power for the slow roads. Not as expensive as the dirt bike, but a lot more solid than the Kaolaos. Good call. Unstated, but in my mind, parts and repairs are a lot easier too. Try getting a large unusual bike worked on in a small village, might not have the right sized tires. The bike I was shown was shiny new looking, I checked the lights and brakes then hopped on to take it around the block, odometer read 450km, the thing was brand spanking new. I left it at the attached mechanics shop around back for the night and they changed the oil and adjusted up the brakes a smidgen.


Street in front of Lankham

But good rooms, great service, informed conversation, and reputable rental is not what really impressed me, it was the foe. In Vietnamese spelled "pho" and in all languages pronounced like the fur of the dog that bit you but without the R. Maybe more resembling the Fur of Fur Elise the famous bagatelle by Beethoven. Like Fur Elise good foe is understated excellence when done right.




Not the usual piano and not understated excellence but I liked it, in the style of Jimi Hendrix.

I'm not sure how foe is made in Vietnam where it comes from but in Laos the broth is light but extremely flavorful. Very little color to the soup but packed full of tastes that combine and compliment each other and are hard to pin down. At the Lankham in the early morning I saw them bringing the ribs of two whole cows fresh from the butcher to make the broth. Over twenty people are employed in the preparation, cooking, and serving of the foe. Everyone has their special job from preparing the ribs by trimming off the bits they don't want to cutting vegetables, setting and clearing tables and so on.

What's in the soup besides cow bones? I don't know. Often foe tastes of cinnamon or anise, and probably they were in the water at the Lankham, I don't know, but in no way did I taste them. Maybe they don't use them, I don't know, same with salt and bang nua. All of the flavors are subtle enough that they can't be pinned down. When the broth pours it shines, clear it is, thin it's not.


Second best thing in the world, foe at the Lankham



I only saw one person cooking the noodles, I have to assume it was the woman in charge of the business. The foe restaurant is operated by the sister of the owner. Of course the thin sen foe (foe noodles) are just barely cooked enough. Thin sliced beef and green onions minced are added so that they are barely cooked and they cool the soup down enough so that when it arrives it is hot, but not scalding, you can eat it right away.

On the side and complimentary is a large glass of unsweetened weak iced tea in a bottomless glass. Also you get a bowl of just barely cooked, still slightly stiff, boiled cabbage chunks and green beans without any added flavoring. More of the same uncooked in a bowl in front of you, and a tin with a lid and chunks of lime to squeeze. Lettuce leaves, cilantro, basil, sprouts, hot peppers, everything you could use with foe.

I squeeze a couple slices of lime and dig in, after half a bowl I devour all the boiled cabbage and half the beans. The boiled veggies are great, clean the pallet, tasty, a break from the constant chomping on lettuce, mint, and cilantro that usually accompanies me eating of foe.

The meal isn't cheap. Maybe twenty thousand kip or so. Between eight and nine there's a big office crowd from all the government offices and banks. Tables are big, they can seat eight or ten people, and seating is communal, just pull up a chair. Mid morning us tourists and a few business people wanting to talk away from the office. What better way to clinch the deal than over a great bowl of foe. Lunch crowd is over and done with by 1:30 and by mid-afternoon all the huge pots are scrubbed and dishes washed and stored awaiting the next dawn.

Haven't eaten foe at the Lankham Hotel? Well you haven't really been to Pakse yet.