It took three days of rain-soaked mud and truck-caused ruts to cut short Mac and Sunee’s 4-wheel drive attempt to get to Thathom District in Laos to meet local officials to discuss possible future projects.

Sunee and I drove from Thailand up to Nong Khai in about eight hours, including a couple pit stops and a lunch break, via the four to twelve lane Friendship Highway. This is surely a change from what that road was like back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and indeed, up through the mid ‘90s when the upgrades started. It’s almost a pleasure to drive these days. This being the rainy season, all was green along the route, a whole lot nicer than the browns of the dry season. Art Crisfield, TLCB member, joined us in Vientiane; in Phonsavanh, our contact with the Provincial Education Service, Mr. Soundeuan, climbed aboard.

It’s an eight-hour drive from Vientiane on up to Phonsavanh via thirteen and seven, lots of curves and ups and downs once you pass by Moung Kassy. The road is all two-lane and paved, which is nice, but it also has a lot of bus travel and eighteen to twenty-four wheel trucks and trailers. This is the main access road from Vientiane north to China and northeast to the roads to North Vietnam, and a busy route it is. That’s why I opt NOT to drive myself. It’s much better and safer all around, to have an experienced Lao driver handle that task.

At Phonsavanh, we RONed at the Nice Guest House, as is normal. It’s a Hmong-run place, clean, hot water, and a “sitter” for a toilet (that’s for me), plus color TV with access to the Thai channels (that’s for Sunee). We usually eat at the Craters Restaurant, a smallish place, Vietnamese-run, pretty good farang food. There are also a lot of other eateries around town for Thai, Lao, Chinese, or Vietnamese.

The first item on our checklist was to look at Chom Thong Primary School, which is an hour drive east to Moung Kham, aka Ban Ban. This project was to rehab an existing building, reframe windows and doors, divide a portion of it into two rooms for special activities for training and meetings, and provide some furniture. The work was completed satisfactorily.

We drove back to Phonsavanh in the early afternoon and went to Mr. Soundeuan’s house where Art handed over a Canon inkjet printer that I had picked up at the mall down the road from our place near Bangkok, Thailand. Art Crisfield had some external funding for this and the notebook PC he had previously provided to Soundeuan. Last year, Art and I split the cost of a digital camera for Soundeuan, who has been a real supporter of our programs up in Xieng Khoung. This equipment will enable him to be more productive in his regular job too. That evening we had a good Lao dinner, and lao Lao of course, at Soundeuan’s house with his family.

Our next stop on day four of our trip, was to Ban Phosy, just a bit south of Moung Khoune, aka Xieng Khoung Ville, and aka L-03, the old capital of the province pre ‘75. The TLCB had previously funded a building rehab for this school, which was quite well done. Refer to the report at the TLCB Web site for the December 2008 visit. This follow-on project was for another building at the school, a concrete floor and roof replacement with new tin sheets. Note that this project was 100% funded by the ACA, with implementation by the TLCB. Thanks, ACA! The villagers did a very good job on this project, and even talked the cement and roofing supplier into providing new hardwood posts for the front porch. In addition, we got some mileage out of the Sony digital camera we had given to Soundeuan. He got down to the school while the work was on-going and took some good photos. We do like these “in process” photos, as they well illustrate the aspects of where our funds are going. The real problem, though, is that cameras, digital or 35 mm, seem to be rare to non-existent in the areas we have been visiting. I reckon the villagers just have other priorities for their money. I do take prints back to the villages if we happen to make a subsequent visit.

I also wanted to check out the school’s stream diversion effort, which was an obvious problem for the earlier project here. It looked like the stream would collapse the bank in the next couple of years and undermine the building we were asked to rehab. The villagers did a lot of work to create a new bed for the stream, which is still in good shape now, and this is the rainy season with lots more water flowing. There was a good, fun baci ceremony after our walk-around and short speeches, food, and lao Lao.

We departed Ban Phosy to head south about 70 km (40+ miles) to Thathom District where Soundeuan had arranged for us to have several meetings with the local officials and to RON. This area is on the old road between the PDJ, on south to Paksane on the Mekong River. Sunee and I had been down this way in December 2008. The road is being reconstructed by a Vietnamese company, but they had not progressed too far on that trip. We hoped for a decent run this time, but no such luck. It had been raining in the area for three days which turned the early portion of the reconstructed road to a sea of mud. We got 2-3 km down the road, slipping and sliding in our Ford Ranger 4x4 pickup with knobby mud tires and almost high-centered a couple of times over the deep ruts caused by large trucks heading down that way. Intrepid travelers that we are, fearing nothing, but thinking about the 60+ km to go and not knowing the road conditions on ahead, we gave it a miss; did a 180, and reluctantly headed back to Phonsavanh. This was a disappointment as we were looking forward to this trip and the meeting to see if there were opportunities for TLCB funding in the area. I expect there are, and we will try again when the rains stop. This is the only district of Xieng Khouang Province that we have not yet visited or planned a TLCB project. The Assistance Committee had allocated $500 for expenditures at Thathom if we ran into anything needful. Since we didn’t make it there, the funds were not drawn down.

Day five found us heading about 45 minutes NE of Phonsavanh to the Ban Naxaythong Primary School, Phou Kout District, where the TLCB and ACA had co-funded a concrete floor for the main building at the school. We did note that the fixit job we had done on the school’s well pump for $17 back in January was appreciated and still working fine. It is amazing what just a little bit will accomplish. This project was for a concrete floor for the main school building, and as with Ban Phosy, it was well done. They used local materials, and in place of rebar, they used bamboo. It works; I’ve used it too in the long past. We also had a good visit with the school and local officials and several villagers, listened to some speeches, ate food, enjoyed a baci ceremony, and of course some lao Lao just to finish things off. I still get goose pimples from that stuff, which gave a chuckle to the Lao attendees when I showed them my arm. One of the woman teachers at the school asked about my sister Anne, also a TLCB member, who was along on our January visit. She had walked around with Anne doing a lot of smiling and sign language. The teacher disappeared for a bit, but just as we were departing, she brought a nice, homemade umbrella for me to pass on to Anne.

We departed the school about noon and headed back west about three hours on Rt 7 to the junction with Rt 13 at Sala Phou Khoun, and then headed south two hours to Vang Vieng for an RON. On the way, we stopped briefly in Moung Soui, L-108, known these days at Nong Tang, so I could cut off a few sprigs of pine tree branches. I figured they would last long enough to still be a bit green and smelling nice to hand out at the TLCB reunion in September. This didn’t happen, though; I even stuck them in water when we got home. Sorry. Vang Vieng has a pretty large number of tourists, especially the younger types who go caving, tubing, hiking, rafting, and whatever the “world traveler” types do. There are lots of good guest houses in town. This was also a fairly large USAID office back pre 1975.

The last day of our trip was Friday. Art split off and got a van back to Vientiane because he wanted to catch the weekend with his 10-year old son, Woody, before school started on Monday. Sunee and I backtracked about 45 minutes north to Ban Xang, just below Moung Kassy, LS-249, and headed south towards Moung Met, LS-158, where I had lived off and on back in ‘67-’68, helping out to complete a seven-room school. As with the Thathom road, there had been rain here, but the sun had been out for two days so we had hopes for the road. Actually, it was not too bad but we did run into a few minor landslides and mud patches. We made it through to Moung Met in a couple of hours with an average speed of fifteen mph, somewhat less than on the highway. It is a nice town, ten times larger than it was back then, with several schools, government buildings, a small hotel, a few noodle shops, and some mechanics. It is a busy place, and is the largest town on that stretch of road on down to the Mekong River at Sanakham, which we had also hoped to visit. We inquired about the continuing road conditions to Sanakham, but the teachers said “no way, forget it,” since it had rained recently. In any case, we found the old school area after asking around. The old one is gone, torn down about three years ago! It was 40 years old by then, and was replaced by a Lao government-funded building of cement block and brick, which looks good.

We also had a $500 allocation from the Assistance Committee for use if we saw a need in Moung Met. We didn’t, so we returned it to the TLCB Assistance Fund. So, out of the three schools I worked on from ‘66-’68, two are gone, Moung Met & Hong Sa, and one, a bit worn, remains in active use at Xieng Lom.

After the Moung Met visit, we headed back to Rt 13, then about four hours down to Vientiane. We RONed at the Asian Pavilion Hotel, the old Constellation from pre ‘75. It’s a bit nicer than it was in those days, if a tad musty. Hey, for baht 600 a night, about $20, we get hot water, a sitter, fridge, sat-TV, and air conditioning if needed. What more would you ask for?

Sunee did some shopping around the morning market on Saturday, and then we headed back across the river to Nong Khai. We picked up our van and drove down to Nam Phong where we RONed at a Thai friend’s place. Sunday was an easy, six-hour drive back home with the trip finished, a done deal, and interesting. The task remaining is to get back to Thathom in the dry season for discussions, perhaps later this year or early next.

Photos are located at: https://picasaweb.google.com/mactbkk/?fgl=true&pli=1&fgl=true