Trip Report: December 2010, Xaysomboun and the PDJ

On the road again, back to northeast Laos, Xaysomboun District (which includes Long Tieng and old Moung Cha town) and the PDJ. (Will abbreviate Xaysomboun at XSB to save my fingers and printing ink.)

It'd been two years since my last trip to XSB in December 2008 and a few months more than that since I'd last had a session with our only contact there, Mr Bounsouk. Figured there'd be be some changes in the interim, and there were. One major one was the closing off of the Nam Ngum River as a result of building the Nam Ngum 2 dam upstream from the earlier Nam Ngum 1 dam that was completed about 1971. The NN2 dam flooded out the E-W road between the main N-S Rt 13N, the road to Luang Prabang, and the lesser N-S road between the PDJ and Paksane, downstream from Vientiane on the Mekong River. The flooding took out a fair number of villages that'd been in place since at least the early 1970s, including Ban Son, LS-272, where the upcountry USAID base was relocated just prior to the fall of Sam Thong, LS-20, in early 1970. I wanted to see if I could locate any of the relocated villages to see if they could use some assistance from the TLCB, and also see what could be done in the greater XSB area other than Long Tieng, where we'd been several times in the previous three years.

Of interest, Art, our resident guy in Vientiane, was unable to travel with me this trip, too bad, Art speaks quite excellent Lao, reads and writes, too, and has been invaluable on our assistance trips to Xieng Khouang Province. And just to make things more interesting, Sunee was also tied up, so to speak, at home during this period, so I was left all to my somewhat linguistically challenged self for the 4-5 day run upcountry. Well, been there, done that, in the long past, not a problem, just talk louder and wave my hands around a lot.... And have scratch pad available to I can draw pictures if need be.

Since the old E-W road to XSB from Rt 13N(just south of Vang Vieng) is now flooded out, went up via the town of Longsan, hit this S-N road about 90 km on west of Vientiane on Rt 13S. Have spent a couple of nights in Longsan previously but now there's two new guest houses and restaurants, looks like they're expecting more travelers up through that area. Then on to XSB town and check in at the Phu Bia Hotel. This one was government funded back in 1995, first time I stayed there in 2006 I asked the desk folks "why?" They said it was for the the future influx of tourists to the area, which never showed up. No wonder, given the road conditions back then, improved now, and the location of the town in a "restricted zone." These days there's a notice on the door that if you want a room, phone, and the desk clerk will come up to unlock the place and turn on the electricity. Such is life in the fast lane. In any case, there's room for a playfield out back and nearby there was a mini fair going on, part of the Hmong New Year festivities, makes the kids and adults happy.

As it turned out, Bounsouk was tied up when I arrived at XSB, a fortuitous happenstance, so he turned me over to Mr Bounkeo, the District Education chief and his deputy, Cheu Vang Xong Ly. Obviously Bounkeo had been briefed that there might be funds forthcoming from the TLCB if agreement could be reached on needs. Both gentlemen were cooperative and easy to work with, so we headed out on Day 2 to see what they had in mind.

[Will omit these next sentences, I think: However, before departing XSB town, we stopped by their houses so they could pickup their AK47s, guess they felt there could be a need for them, and if so, better to have along than leaving at home. Hmmmm, bird hunting a possibility? Don't think so.]

We headed east from XSB town about 25 km to the Moung Om valley, old LS-22. I'd not been here previously and was surprised how comparatively large it is, rolling hills like XSB, but lots more cattle being raised for export to Vientiane and other large towns, not much at all in the way of shops, but they did have electricity and cell phone service, a few small gas/diesel pumps too. The valley is populated largely by Hmong villagers.

We made visits to five primary and secondary schools in the area, met briefly with their staffs to discuss needs. No students as it turned out that our trip coincided with Hmong New Year so everybody was off for the week, students and teachers.

All of the schools we hit looked pretty good but the overriding need mentioned was for furniture for students (2-kid desks and benches), teachers (desk and cabinet for materials), and tables and chairs for meeting rooms. Much of the furniture they already have on hand is old or broken, or for the students in particular, insufficient. There seems to be many more kids now than when the schools received their earlier supplies of furniture, perhaps this will decrease now that they have electricity to watch TV in the evenings?? In many of the schools kids are sitting three and sometimes four to a two-person desk/bench. Three of the schools had some rooms with no furniture at all, which is the reason for the crowding of desks in other rooms. We noted several dirt floors but the priority is furniture, which will be the subject of a budget request to the TLCB Assistance Committee.

Back to XSB town for discussion with Bounkeo and his deputy. Then I had a thought, since I also wanted to go to Phonsavanh in Xieng Khouang to review another project there with our main contact, Mr Soundeuan, I asked Bounkeo if it'd be possible to get a permission letter to just head north via Long Tieng, where we've been several times with no formal letter, and on through Sam Thong to the PDJ and Phonsavanh. He figured that should be OK, so he phoned the police security guy and we arranged to meet at the police station, where he showed up with wife and kids, this being a holiday. There Bounkeo explained what I was requesting and the reason for it, explained what we'd been doing that morning with our school site visits, the police guy said OK, and wrote out a letter to show if I was stopped along the way.

Great! I'd been wanting to travel that direct route to Phonsavanh for the last few years but always there was some obstacle that precluded it,real or thought up on the spot by the authorities. It'd also save a day and a halv of travel since I wouldn't have to go back via Vientiane, spend a night, then north and east an additional eight hours to get up to the PDJ. However, not really knowing how the road was, even in the dry season, rather than staying in XSB another night at the somewhat "rustic" as some people might call it, Phu Bia Hotel, we, the driver and I, headed an hour west to stay at a really nice guest house there at the "gold mine" area and the junction with the road that heads north to Long Tieng and beyond. You can ask Bill Tilton and John & Nancy Sweet what they think of the Phu Bia Hotel....

Early Day 3, off to Long Tieng, a two hour drive, stopped at one Hmong village on the way that was having their Hmong New Years, got some photos of a couple bull fights, entertainment for the villagers to start off the festivities. Arrived Long Tieng and called up the two school principals we'd previously worked with there to come to the noodle shop for a short meeting. Learned that there's a large new secondary school that just started construction in the area, made a visit to it, and it is large. I don't figure there's enough students right now in the valley to fill the place so perhaps they're just planning for a future population increase?? The school is being built by a Vietnamese contractor of all things, and in all places, Long Tieng.

Also in Long Tieng there's an actual guest house almost complete, it'll have hot water, Sat TV, and sitdown toilets. Wonder if the valley is going to be opened to tourism, at least I'd bet the guy who's building the guest house hopes so. I did have to wait at the gate to Long Tieng there near the south end of the runway for the local police to come down and scrutinize the permission letter for travel, have never had any interaction with the police there previously, just pretty much drove on it, after a bit of gab with the Army guys at the gate.

After an hour there we hit the road north over Skyline Ridge and on to Sam Thong, former LS-20, an hour distant. Arrived and had to really look around to verify that I was at the right place, in spite of the sign saying "Xam Thong" at the village. Absolutely nothing left from the old pre-'75 days, nothing, well, some concrete slabs. Was able to ID the runway and the karst on the west side, that's it. Would like to have walked around a bit to check out positioning of some of the slabs but ran into one Lao guy, perhaps in a bit of authority (?), who wasn't real friendly, so gave that a miss, wanted to get back on the road anyway since we had no real idea of the conditions on ahead. Next trip will stop and talk a bit to him, if he's still there, and some of the other people in that small village, note, the place is so small there's not even a pho shop! There's some road construction equipment there so looks like improvements are coming. The small three-room Sam Thong primary school also needs furniture, two rooms OK, one empty.

On to the next village, Tha Tham Bleung, old LS-72, a bit less than an hour away over a bunch of ups and downs and twists and turns on the largely one lane road. Beautiful country, heavily forested, kind of rough territory, tho. Makes one wonder how people moved so well through that area during the war. [might have to rephrase this as not sure how'd it go over if the commies read it.] TTB is a large Hmong village these days and has a nice primary school. Hmong New Years festivities were ongoing when we arrived so stopped for a chat and a few photos.

Then headed on to Lat Khay, a large town on the SW side of the PDJ where Jar Site #3 is located, a popular tourist spot. Stopped for a late lunch here, guess what, PHO, a favorite of Bill Tilton's and the Sweet's! Map here from Jim Henthorn's super MapScan Project: http://www.nexus.net/~911gfx/ne4801.html

On to Phonsavanh and RON at the Nice Guest house, Hmong run, where we've stayed in the past, dinner at the Vietnamese run Crater Restaurant close by, good farang food and Beer Lao. It's a small place and was crammed that evening, I counted 24 farang tourists, jammed in, eating, Beer Laoing, and watching a VDO on "bombies" left over from the old days. Lots more tourists in town, too, eating at the local Chinese, Vietnamese, and Lao restaurants, mostly snowbirds from Europe and Australia is seems.

Next morning, Day 4, breakfast at the Craters, good eats. While waiting for Mr Soundeuan to show, talked with several Hmong also staying at the Nice GH, they were from Fresno and Minneapolis, back to visit their homeland and villages for the Hmong New Year. Mr Soundeuan arrived and we went off 28 km to the east to visit his next proposed project, a building rehab at a Hmong primary school. This building will be used as a school library and meeting room.

After lunch headed out west via Moung Soui, LS-108, on the good paved Rt 7 to the Phou Khoun Junction and on south on Rt 13N to RON at Vang Vieng. On the way took a looksee at a new highway between Moung Kassy, LS-268, to Moung Nan SW of Luang Prabang that will bypass the hills and curves of Rt 13N and cut down the travel time, and accident rate, considerably between the two.

Vang Vieng, a town full of guest houses, restaurants, and hordes of young farang tourists just having their fun. Some of the Lao call Vang Vieng "Ban Farang" because of all these tourists, it is busy and noisy. Activities, caving, tubing on the river there, getting wasted on booze, Beer Lao, and whatever, it's not a real fun town for us "old folks" to RON at these days, but a handy stop if it's getting dark.

Vang Vieng is on the west side of the new lake created by the Nam Ngum 2 dam and the schools in this area come under the Vang Vieng District administration. However, there's a small sliver of land between Vang Vieng and the lake that is still under XSB District school administration, really inconvenient for them to visit since there's the lake in the way if visits are needed. Luckily, there's now longtail boat service between the east and west sides of the lake, about an hour and a half trip across the water; saves the long drive back via Vientiane.

On the road again, early on Day 5 of the trip and an hour plus up the gravel road we did find one of the new villages of people who were relocated as a result of the Nam Ngum 2 dam and lake, Ban Na Khi. The village is probably a far cry from what they left behind, but at least they have a decent school, built by the villagers themselves with salvaged wood walls and roofing sheets from the old school. However, they had to start out from scratch clearing land for their new village then preparing new rice fields and a life style quite a ways off the beaten track, not quite like they had before. One of the teachers of this school offered to be our guide for the trip up in the hills to visit the school at Ban Hom Sai, good thing he went along as I'd not have been able to find it otherwise. [omit this?: As with the XSB visit, we picked up a couple of AK armed escorts for the drive further upcountry, reckon the teacher figured be better to have them along in case of need (need?) rather than back at the village....]

Bounkeo, the school chief at XSB, had requested that I visit this Ban Hom Sai school, and since I said I would, did so, but via one hell of a rough road, the last hour plus in 4WD low, 1st & 2nd gears for a large part. The small two-room bamboo walled primary school at Ban Hom Sai could use a concrete floor, toilet facility, and furniture, one room is empty, one Hmong teacher for 60 lower primary students. This school was not on Bounkeo's list so reckon it'll come up at a later date.

The earlier portions of this new road are quite good, easy grades, wide curves. It's being done by the Phu Bia Mine people for access to their new gold mine nearby at Houei Xai. There's new spurs off of the main road, too, so looks like perhaps another mine may be coming down the pike. They need the good roads, even if gravel, to accommodate their large 18-wheel ore trucks.

Do like the looks of the new lake, clear blue water, just waiting for recreational boating if such ever comes to Laos. Could even do a bit of archaeological SCUBA diving and visit some of the older towns, such as Ban Xon, LS-272.

Thus ended the upcountry portion of this trip, we headed back to Vientiane and got into town early enough, 1700 hrs, for me to pay the bills and head on across the Friendship Bridge to Nong Khai, where I spent the night. This enabled me to get an early start the next day for the eight hour drive back home.

Total travel this trip: 2,676 km, or 1,659 miles of which, 1,486 km, 921 miles, were in Laos, and 1,190 km, or 738 miles on the rather better roads of Thailand.