Lao Bumpkin

Kowpoon Nam Sin (soup)

2014-11-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

It's a cold weekend, the cook here decided to use the fresh meat I foraged earlier in the week. I'm starting to get back into blogging.

Ok, it had a couple slices of onion in the water too.

Some might be familiar with the Thai iteration of kowpoon called canome jin. It's a fairly common street food in both countries. It's a soup. Usually some kind of coconut broth with shredded chicken or pork over soft noodles with shredded uncooked cabbage and mint. There are many variations and choices of condiments.

This one's different. The broth is from pho (fuh), and there is no coconut milk. There is still shredded cabbage and soft noodles and mint, but also there is thin sliced deer liver (extremely mild) deer heart, and deer lungs.

I don't normally like kowpoon, tried it lots of times, it's just too sloppy and usually cold. I liked this a lot better, still problems slopping down the wet noodles, but they weren't coated with coconut milk. The fuh water was piping hot. I skipped the lungs and just ate heart/liver, a perfect post-hunt food. Seventy seven hours ago this dinner was wandering the woods at eighty four hundred feet and ten below zero degrees, in the falling snow.

The cook added galangal and lemongrass leaves to mellow the smell of boiling offal from the soup in the kitchen. I also had chopped green onions in the bottom of the bowl with the other greens. I squeezed a couple slices of lime and ground some black pepper over the top.

Than Thoot Karen! signing off after 3 great years :-(

2013-08-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

Than Thoot Karen the blog of the US Ambassador Karen Stewart is soon to end as Karen makes her exit. Embassy personnel are typically rotated out to a different posting every 3 years.

To say I'll miss Ms Stewart's posting is an understatement. More than any other US official ever posted to Laos Ms. Stewart showed followers of her blog a much more personal and genuine view of an American official. Not afraid to be herself, Ms Stewart whether doing the ball toss game at Hmong New Year or singing rap at a large Vientiane concert showed one of the sides of the American character I'm perhaps most proud of, the ability to be friendly and uninhibited no matter what our position or calling in life.

Good Luck Ambassador Stewart and thank you so much for your service to your country.

Burma or Myanmar - Bertil Lintner chimes in

2013-05-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

If you don't know who Bertil Lintner is, you should.

An East Asia hand from sometime back before the invention of the wheel Bertil's forte is repressive secretive regimes. Ya I know, that would include a lot of countries, Bertil concentrates on Burma, the country he has written about and traveled extensively in since four decades ago. His name stuck in my mind during one of those reflexive reactions that the Lao PDR sometimes goes through and Bertil seemingly knew the why and the wherefore when everyone else was uninformed. Where he gets his info one can only guess.

But this post is about the Burma/Myanmar argument about which I knew nothing except that those who disliked the repressive regime there and were in favor of boycotting the place used Burma, those who looked more kindly on the regime called it Myanmar. Officially it is and was Myanmar because that's what they call themselves. The same as we call Laos the Lao PDR.

The following is the expanded version of a letter Bertil sent to the Financial Times and goes into depth and detail regarding the linguistic origins of both words and how language is used politically within, ehem, Burma.

This is just a blatant cut and paste from a great web site called Mizzima which is one of the best independent news sources for goings in within Burma.

You claim that you (the "you" he is talking to here is the Financial Times) have adopted the name “Myanmar” for Burma “on the grounds of neutrality” and because it “smacks less of domination by a majority ethnic group.” (January 5, 2012). This is linguistically and historically incorrect. It is correct that today’s Burmese rulers claim that Burma, or bama, is a colonial name while Myanmar is more indigenous and encompasses all the many nationalities of the country. But it was not the British who “named Myanmar Burma.” The once British colony has always been called Burma in English and bama or myanma in Burmese. The best explanation of the difference between the two names is found in the old Hobson-Jobson Dictionaryof “Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases,” which despite its rather unorthodox name remains a very useful source of information:
“The name (Burma) is taken from Mran-ma, the national name of the Burmese people, which they themselves generally pronounce Bam-ma, unless speaking formally and empathically.” (Col. Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, New Edition Edited by William Crooke, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical Discursive. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1979, originally published in 1903, p. 131.) Both names have been used interchangeably throughout history, with Burma being the more colloquial name and Myanmar a more formal designation.
If Burma meant only the central plains and Myanmar the Burmans and all the other nationalities, how could there be, according the Myanmar Language Commission, a “Myanmar language”? Its official Myanmar-English Dictionary also mentions a “Myanmar alphabet.” Clearly, Burma and Myanmar, and Burmese and Myanmar, mean exactly the same thing, and it cannot be argued that the term “Myanmar” includes any more people within the present union than the name “Burma” does.
But the confusion is an old one and when the Burmese independence movement was established in the 1930s, there was a debate among the young nationalists as to what name should be used for the country:bama or myanma. The nationalists decided to call their movement the Dohbama Asiayone instead of the Dohmyanma Asiayone. The reason, they said, was that:
“Since the dohbama was set up, the nationalists always paid attention to the unity of all the nationalities of the country...and the thakins (Burmese nationalists) noted that myanma meant only the part of the country where the myanma people lived. This was the name given by the Burmese kings to their country. Bama naing-ngan is not the country where only the myanma people live. Many different nationalities live in this country, such as the Kachins, Karens, Kayahs, Chins, P-Os, Palaungs, Mons, Myanmars, Rakhines and Shans. Therefore, the nationalists did not use the term myanma naing-ngan but bama naing-ngan. That would be the correct term...all nationalities who live in bama naing-nganare called bama.” (A Brief History of the Dohbama Asiayone (in Burmese). Rangoon: Sarpay Beikman, 1976, p. 215)
Thus, the movement became the Dohbama Asiayone and not the Dohmyanma Asiayone .The Burmese edition of The Guardian monthly, another official publication, also concluded in February 1971: “The word myanma signifies only the myanmars whereas bama embraces all indigenous nationalities.”
In May 1989, however, the present government decided that the opposite was true and changed the name in English to Myanmar — although it had been myanma naing-ngan, “the State of Burma,” in formal Burmese since independence in 1948. The bitter truth is that there is no term in Burmese or in any other language that covers both the bama/myanma and the ethnic minorities since no such entity existed before the arrival of the British. Burma with its present boundaries is a colonial creation, and successive governments of independent Burma have inherited a chaotic entity which is still struggling to find a common identity. But “changing” the name of the country to what it has always been called in formal Burmese is unlikely to make any difference. Burma has been in a state of revolt since independence in 1948, with no lasting solution to its ethnic and political problems in sight.
Rangoon or Yangon is another reflection of the same kind of misunderstanding. Rangoon begins with the consonant “ra gaut”, or “r”, not “ya palait” or “y”. In English texts, Rangoon is therefore an etymologically more correct spelling. The problem is that the old r-sound has died out in most modern Burmese dialects and softened to a “y” — but not in Arakanese and Tavoyan, which both have a very distinct r-sound. Further, there is another dimension to the recent “name changes” in Burma. It was not only the names of the country and the capital which were “changed”; in the minority areas new names were also introduced as well, and here it was a real change. A few examples from Shan State: Hsipaw became Thibaw, Hsenwi became Theinli or Thinli, Kengtung became Kyaingtong, Mong Hsu became Maing Shu, Lai-Hka became Laycha, Pangtara became Pindaya and so on.
The problem here is that the original names all have a meaning in the Shan language; the “new” names are just Burmanised versions of the same names, with no meaning in any language. This undermines the argument that the changes were done in order to make them “more indigenous” and not only reflecting the majority Burmans. This has prompted Gustaaf Houtman, a Dutch Burma scholar, to coin the term “Myanmafication” to refer to the top-down programme of replacing “unity in diversity” — which had been Aung San’s vision of an independent Burma — with a more ethnically streamlined nation state. (Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy. Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 1999, pp. 15ff.) Others would claim it is just a concerted drive to Burmanise the whole country and wipe out the separate identities of the ethnic minorities.
Bertil LintnerChiang Mai, Thailand

The Rocket, a movie trailer

2013-05-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure where this is made but I caught the fact that it dealt with forced relocation for hydro, which is kinda controversial I'd think.

Also infanticide of twins per Akha culture. Never heard an Akha granny speak such perfect Lao before.

I'd be interested to see the movie. I know of a couple villages getting relocated and I don't talk about it.

Mekong Tourist Pak Beng

2013-05-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

Old style freighter about to enter the rapids bellow Xiengkok. All photos Jan 9 and 10, 2009

Up where the Golden Triangle still exists, there still is a place without much government or anything resembling one. Xiengkok Laos is at the end of the road, and the road ends at the Mekong, and that’s why I was there. For the time being the river itself is the fastest, if not the best way out. Out to mobile phone coverage, the internet, and money changers. Out to the electric grid and roads with cars and trucks. The upper Mekong hasn’t been gentrified,,,, yet.

Fast boats Xiengkok looking upstream. Burma left, Laos right.

Xiengkok lies halfway up the three or four hundred kilometer stretch of river where Laos shares a border with Burma. I know other foreigners pass through, but I’ve never seen one. Mostly it’s a bunch of steep hills with trees and a river cutting through them. The river is relatively narrow and it carries a heck of a lot of water. The water is in a big hurry to get downstream someplace where it can widen out, take it’s time, and get sabai.

I’ve no idea who controls the part of Burma across the river. I’ve never even seen people over there. I know it’s Shan State, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shan_State but not run by the Shan State Army and most assuredly not the Myanmar Government. Warlords.

Despite it’s reputation for being the lawless center of South East Asian opium cultivation, (and methamphetamines now) the whole place exudes a feeling of listlessness. As if nothing happens and nothing ever will. The river transportation is by way of fast boat, and I don’t remember much of the ride.

Chinese freight boat emerging from narrows.

It was early, sometimes with thick fog just meters above the river. We stood by for a few minutes somewhere waiting for a Chinese freighter to make it’s way up the narrows. The Chinese blasted a route through the rapids a decade or more ago, it’s kind of a tight squeeze for two boats to pass each other by.

When golden tats start appearing through the trees on the right you know you are getting close to the Thai border. There is a big casino on the Burma side operated by a large Chinese syndicate. Thais and others cross to do the gambling that is illegal in Thailand.

The Lao side of the river is Ban Mom, with a large boat landing. The tour groups out of Thailand taking the opium tour (without the opium) get a boat ride across the river to Ban Mom and for ten bucks they can get a real Lao stamp on their passport good only for Ban Mom. Lots of places sell T shirts, and pickled snakes in bottles of whiskey, that kind of thing.

There was a woman at the locals restaurant waiting for me or someone just like me or even better would have been five someones just like me. She was a sawngtheau driver waiting for fares. But there was only me. After hectoring me to finish my bowl of pho, and after I paid way too much money in advance, we drove around town for half an hour looking for more riders. We found none.

The road over the piece of land formed by the big turn of the river was a lot longer than I’d thought. Maybe her price wasn’t so outlandish.

I know I slept in Huay Xai, the town that is the traditional entry point for backpackers on the South East Asian circuit. They enter from Northern Thailand, take a slow boat that is reserved just for western backpackers for two days down the river to Luang Prabang, then down to Vang Vieng for partying, Vientiane, Sii Pon Don, then out to Cambodia and they’ve “done” Laos. Huay Xai is smack dab in the center of what is called the banana pancake trail. A well trodden route for western independent tourists.

Cat skin, I think clouded leopard, Huay Xai

I might have crossed briefly into Thailand to renew my visa or use the ATM, I don’t remember. I’ve passed through Houay Xai a few times. Whatever the case by late the next morning I was down at the fast boat landing on the far side of town checking out the possibility of a ride further on down the river. It took awhile but finally we took off, a couple other passengers, and the fast boat guy.

Down at the first big bend of the river Thailand skedaddles off to the east and the Mekong continues on between Laos on both banks. It actually flows like that all the way down almost to Vientiane when it once again becomes the international border.

As people flagged us down from the bank the boat got more and more full. If you count babies we had nine people on board. The gunwales were barely above the water, but when we got up to speed we were skipping on down the river as normal. The other passengers were all Hmong, which was weird. Hmong live up on the mountain ridges where the air is cooler and there is less malaria. Maybe they were relocated Hmong.

Quiet of mid day Pak Beng

My destination was the town of Pak Beng. (“mouth of Beng”, as in where one river dumps into another) Pak Beng has held a nefarious reputation on the Banana Pancake Circuit. Many tales of not enough rooms in the hotels and sleeping in makeshift bamboo places with tons of rats. Being sold drugs only to turn around and have money extorted by police. Any horror story you might care to imagine. What I was especially waiting to see was the mobbing of the slow boat by the town as children try to grab backpacks for the porter fees, and steer folks towards hotels for commissions.

The main drag getting ready for slow boat Pak Beng

The arrival of the slow boat to Pak Beng had taken on a larger than life reputation, part of the backpacker mythology. Something one just had to see, like the running of the bulls in Pamplona.

The town was asleep it was noon. In the time between the slow boat leaving in the morning and the other slow boat coming in the evening, Pak Beng reverts to being a regular Lao town. Kind of like a beach town in the winter, half deserted and waiting for the main show. I checked in to the very first hotel I came upon. No electricity in town until the generator kicks in when the boat comes. I killed time.

The people of Pak Beng gathering for kao poon before the arrival of the slow boat

Slow boat approaching Pak Beng

Later in the afternoon I and seemingly at least one person from most of the hotels and restaurants went down to meet the boat just above the landing. An Indian fellow struck up a conversation, the owner of the local restaurant, every town has to have one Indian restaurant. He spoke in measured tones no trace of the typical choppy fast lilting Indian accent. Laos is a very small country, it’s easy to gossip about towns and people and businesses. English speakers who have stayed very long invariably have something to talk about.

A young Lao guy also speaking English joined us but bantering the Indian using made up simplified English. “You Bengladeshi, yes sir, you Bengladeshi kohn kahk” Bengladeshis being the predominant South Asian illegal immigrants of the the country due to proximity just across... Burma. Khon Kahk a slightly racist jibe at South Asians in Lao Language. The Indian cursed him soundly but in a bored tone. A nightly ritual no doubt.

The rest of the crowd talked quietly. They waited patiently with flyers advertising room rates and restaurant menus. They had none of the look of sharks smelling blood. When the boats finally arrived there was no pushing or crowding or hard selling at all. The backpackers looked tired from sitting on the boat all day and maybe sipping a couple of those large Beer Laos.

Backpackers arrive Pak Beng

Imperceptibly my attitude had changed towards my fellow tourists. Rather than wishing to see them mobbed by touts I hoped they would soon set their largish backpacks down at one of the many new clean guesthouses and order off the English language menus of the now opened restaurants waiting to serve them “chicken curry” with a side order of fries. The people getting off the boat seemed less like gap year stoners and more like middle aged professionals taking two months off to see SEAsia. The main street of Pak Beng with the coming of dusk had transformed itself into a set for a Jimmy Buffett song complete with candle lit tables and soft reggae playing in the background. Looks like I missed Pak Beng at it’s peak by about ten or twelve years.

Today is over four years later still. Pak Beng is now undergoing major road work and a bridge somewhere a couple kilometers upstream. An all weather hard surface road will provide access to Chang Mai and Lampang from Udomxai and Mengla. (Thailand to China) It’s looking like there will be three bridges on the upper Mekong in Laos.

Things Change.

Foreign Expat Blogs in Laos

2013-01-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

Above is a screen shot from a brand new blog about Laos called "Stuff Falang Like wich not so subtly pokes fun at the foreign scene in primarily Vientiane from the sounds of it.

The blog does an outstanding job of skewering the typical expat experience in Laos, but maybe the most fun parts are where it makes me cringe in places where I too might be a little guilty. The casual dropping of Lao expressions for instance. The blog rips the Joma frequenting, English only speaking, expat experience.

So far there are only six posts, but the blog was only begun in this month. Obviously living in Laos allows one plenty of time for blogging. It's hard to see how this theme could last for say... a hundred posts, but I'm a follower as long as it lasts.

Another blog about Laos which is kind of the antithesis is the aptly named Falang Prabang

Which gives helpful info about yoga classes, swimming pools, specialty food stores for foreigners and yes, even about Joma. Great film about monks sweeping, monks praying, monks monking, etc, "the light, the people, the je ne sais quoi" yeah! I have to give the writer credit for the blog title. Forever more that will be how I know the place.

Despite having spent months at a time and visiting over years I can't think of a foreigner who lives in Laos that I could point to on the street. Not of one world or the other I've always felt uneasy with the falang world of coolness and one upsmanship, yet I won't even attempt to be the Lao person I am not. I wonder what the foreign population of Falang Prabang and Vientiane is these days?

Doing Nothing in Muang Long

2013-01-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

One of the parts of being a tourist that I like best is having nothing to do. I also like being places where there isn't much to do, Long is just such a town.

My morning began with domestic chores, I'd just returned from a long walk and many things needed doing. I washed my clothes in the bucket from the bathroom at the same time as I listened to the BBC on my cheap Chinese short wave and brewed up endless cups of instant coffee with the electric cup heater. The addition of electricity to Muang Long has been a godsend.

I also washed myself, pieces at a time. I do it by quarters so that I'm only 1/4 freezing to death. No hot water shower in town.

That's the whole thing, Muang Long. The "Muang" part means that it's the center of the district. Biggest place in hundreds of square miles.

I was there a couple of years ago. There was no internet, no ATM, no foreigners that I saw. The market is a happening place from daylight until maybe 8am, after that things get quiet.

I wandered down to the old part of town, slowly, I wasn't walking so great.

The houses down by the river are all old and close together, wooden, carved. I walked into the courtyard of the wat. Ordinarily I'm not much of a religion tourist. The monks have their thing to do, I don't gawk. It used to be that Lao guys my age would have spent at least a couple of months as a monk, so I've talked to quite a few monks and former monks. Now everyone is in a big doggone hurry, kids in Bankok fit their obligation in, between vacation and school, if at all.

That all seemed far away from this place where no sound of internal combustion engine or aircraft overhead disturbs the lazy buz of insects and the low murmur of young novices whiling away the hours discussing who knows what. I returned their smiled greeting with the same, and one of them motioned me over as I'd been actually walking around to get to the other side of the wat. I was looking to get a photo without the monks, nothing more cliche than a monk photo, the cliche is not only the photo but the western tourist taking it.

The monk was actually motioning me into the wat through a side door so I went. Still smiling and unspeaking. Best to not speak Lao, leave them to go about their business, and I notice the sun from the door closes behind me. Alone. I don't do the three bows and the incense bit, I was born with round eyes.

I know enough about it to understand that the Lu temple is shaped differently than say the temples of Thai Nua, or Vientiane or Krung Thep Theravada Buddhists. I'm most impressed with the massive tree trunk central posts that lead to the high roof, and the roof itself is made of tin. I forever appreciate a wat with a tin roof.

Notice the two small tiers to the upper roofes and how there are 4 sides to the roof lower down, this is unmistakably Lu.

I take some photos having no idea what I'm taking photos of but thinking to myself that my fellow blogger over at http://laomeow.blogspot.com/ more than likely would.

Theravada is the branch of Buddhism closely associated with an old type from Sri Lanka and so it has lots of ritual. Like any religion it absorbs much of the religion it has replaced. I suspect the white rope looped around the posts in the photo above has very specific religious significance, maybe related to the pii or wandering ghosts of local beliefs.

Below More photos without comment as I've no idea what I'm looking at, if anyone else does please say so in the comment and I'll cut and paste up to the appropriate photo. Please mention which photo your comment applies to.

Cross

Candle Holder?

Dish

Fly swatter fan

Hole in floor

House out back

Lions

Mirror

Newspaper rack not

Shining tat

Drum shed

Close up drum

cat playing with ashes

String tree

Even though I understand little I am glad to have wandered by the wat. The wat holds the highest forms of art and architecture. Inside it's pali scripts is the moral guidance of the culture codified.

The day has warmed while I'd been down in the old part of town. Some boys who had been spear fishing down at the Nam Long passed me by. I was walking very slowly. They were excited to be returning to their families with a morning's catch in the baskets they both wore around their backs. What an advantage a simple thing like a plastic face mask from China. Fresh fish is a good thing.

By mid day Muang Long is downright quiet. A motorcycle causes people to look up to see who it is, a car or truck is an event. Mostly the sun shines brightly and people are off doing whatever it is they are doing that day. I returned to my laundry, turning it so to dry on all sides and packing what was already dry. Somewhere up the street someone played Morlum and mid day drifted into afternoon to the hypnotic notes of the khaen.

Down at the market I ate a leisurely bowl of khao soi and watched nothing happen.

I noticed the two guys walking across the empty dirt parking lot that sits slightly above the market, they were the only things moving. The market though open was half asleep. As they came closer I recognised one of the guys as being my local guide from the walk to Ban Huway Poong from Ban Nam Hee.

I suggested they both to join me in a bowl of khao soi and I asked them what they were up to while we ate.

They'd left Bahn Nam Hee that morning. Assuming they left at about 8, that was well over 40km in seven hours. They had with them what they were wearing, a thin jacket on one and a light weight shirt on the other. They would have drunk from springs and carried no water, at night curled around either sides of a fire dozing until the fire needed more wood. Cold. Likely they'd also carried a long knife and stashed it in the woods before town. I didn't ask them their purpose in town or other particulars. Maybe they were there for supplies or maybe just to see the sights. Young guys like to walk around.

Another day of doing nothing.

Environmental Activist Sombath Somphone "disappears"

2012-12-18T22:24:00.000-07:00

Prominent environmental activist Sombath Somphone disappeared in

Vientiane last Saturday according to reports in the Bangkok Post. News

spread quickly across the social media including mention on the

Facebook page of the US Embassy Lao PDR.

This follows on the heels of the expulsion of Anne-Sophie Gindroz, the country director for Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation who had made statements critical of the Lao government. http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/expulsion-12072012153813.html

I don't know that there is any link between the two occurrences Trying to predict how or why the Lao government does anything is well near impossible.

Both events are the typical way the Lao government deals with any kind of disent. Foreigners are simply kicked out, and Lao nationals disappear to hopefully reappear years later following a sojurn to Huaphan Province.

Moke Guang

2012-11-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

Moke is one of those foods that just lends itself to wild meat. It’s a steamed dish, and the steaming releases all the flavors, especially if the meat is tough or has bones.

Regularly Moke would be made by wrapping the ingredients in banana leaves and steaming it for a long time in the sticky rice basket covered. We live in the US with all kinds of kitchen gadgets. In our case we use a baby food steamer for all steamed foods, and a food processor in place of the coke and saht. (ubiquitous mortar and pestle found in all Lao kitchens) The saht still sees lots of use in our house, just not for moke, too much work what with the sticky rice and all.

The baby food steamer. Another kitchen appliance I whined and complained about. Cost second hand $10. Use, often over ten years. It's also possible to steam things inside banana leaves in the baby food steamer for that real authentic taste like with those sticky rice and coconut milk deserts where the slight taste of the leaves is important.

Into the food processor goes kafir lime leaves, garlic, a scoop of padek, some galanga, some pre soaked sticky rice, a few hot thai peppers, bang nua and salt. Combined with that puree were generous amounts of fresh dill and lemon basil then the entire thing was mixed with chunks of the elk and put in the steamer to be forgotten for an hour.

The amounts of the herbs and spices weren’t measured and I’m not the cook so I don’t know quantities, I do know that in general they are way too much. Subtle lingering hints of flavor are for some other cuisine, this is supposed to hit you in the face and open up your sinuses. Where a sprig of fresh basil might do, handfuls are used, not a leaf or two of kafir lime but ten or fifteen.

When padek becomes a flavor lost in the background you know you’ve got some tastes going on. The bai ee-too (I hate calling that stuff lemon basil as it is neither) also fades. Even galanga, I know it was there but I couldn’t put my finger on it, and garlic, didn’t taste it.

The cut of elk is one of the most flavorful, it’s called ka lai which means “leg very much” (I guess), and that fits as it is the shank. One of those slim tight muscles of the foreleg that says speed all over it. Even though it’s not the most tender cut of the animal it’s one of the most flavorful, and when cut across the grain, it’s extremely tender. We often save that meat to use cut paper thin and layered across the hot bowl of pho cooked by the heat of the soup only.

Kah Lai muscle with it's classic torpedo shape. This is actually a photo from a deer but oh well, you get the idea.

The elk is dark as is most game, darker than beef by far. The ground up sticky rice solidifies the whole thing into a mass that not only sticks it together but provides a handy catch all for the flavors and juices that come out during the steaming. I tried to pry the thing apart for a photo that would show the meat and it didn’t work. Moke is more a meat loaf than a stew.

How to eat it? With a fork I’d hope. Keeps the fingers clean. Still to be traditional I guess one would grab a little with a piece of sticky rice and a judicious use of a finger or thumb. I prefer kao jao (steamed rice, like maybe even that Calrose we buy at Cosco that comes from California), some lettuce or cilantro or something else green on the side. Cool water no ice.

No way to pretty it up. Looks like glop, called moke.
Lastly an apology for not writing for so long. Haven’t been to Laos of late. Especially sorry about no food posts for so long. Way back when a frequent reader requested food type posts, I’ve been negligent, I promise to make amends.

Tortilla Sri Racha

2012-09-09T13:37:00.001-07:00

Not quite Lao food and even saw sri racha (Sri Racha Sauce) is from Thailand, but hey, it's what I eat. Great bacon from Costco, some kind of groovy mayonnaise my wife bought and surprisingly good cilantro from sprouts. Most cilantro seems flavorless from the store, this stuff had pop. More on Sri Racha sauce and town later.

Killing Chickens

2012-08-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

I’m not much the sentimental type but when it came time to thin the herd I had little practical experience, and even less enthusiasm.

My wife told me to just knock it’s head against something, but to hold on to it after I did so. Made sense to me, the cook at the restaurant in China used to just give a quick whack with the knife handle to the back of the head of the rabbit he was cooking for dinner. Seemed quick and painless. Of course when I opened the coop the chickens all hid under the laying house where I couldn’t get them. Maybe it was the glint in my eye.

Later that week a friend of my wife’s came by and together while the children were inside they did the deed, slitting the neck, saving the blood, and boiling the plucked chicken to share in their mid week mom feast. Our herd of five had been whittled down to a more manageable four.

I have to admit a bit of squeamishness over killing domesticated livestock. Too much premeditation, too close to murder. I’m ok shooting deer or elk and even prairie dogs or coyotes which don’t get eaten but are traditionally shot in the rural west. Chickens seemed much more up close and personal.

My daughter often feeds the chickens pieces of grass through the cage. She knows which one is which, and when she came in saying they were pecking each other I went out to take a look. Sure enough a spot of blood on one of the black one’s neck. My daughter reported that Rosie the red one had pecked Black Black when Blacky Black was passing by.

Thipalada and Rosy

If I’m squeamish about killing chickens I’m nuts over any animal experiencing pain. The fact that they were pecking each other too. Too many chickens too small a coop I figured. We had to be somewhat discreet as our town doesn’t allow chicken ranching.

The next morning my wife cut up some pieces of yarn, told the kids to stay inside and told me to come help. Sometimes when things need doing she decides to do them. She got in the coop, then confirmed with Thipalada, who had followed us out anyway, which ones were the pecker and peckee. She would first pick them up by the foot tie a piece of yarn around both feet then around the tips of both wings. Trussed up they were in no pain but they just lay there.

This is the condition you often see chickens in when being brought to market in Asia. Usually slung by the feet over the back of a motorcycle.

Once when I was the guest of honor at a suk wan at my sister in laws house, I remember a chicken being trussed up similarly. Bien had gotten the chicken early so that when the time came she wouldn’t have to chase it around the yard to catch it. While helping to set up the chairs and tables, every once in a while I’d hear a plaintive falorn squawk from the doomed prisoner.

Suk wan ceremonies are quasi religious affairs left over from the days before Buddhism. Something to do with making sure spirits and ghosts are all where they should be and ones who aren’t supposed to be around get gone. I remarked that I wasn’t so worried about my ghosts but about the chicken’s ghost and that maybe we should have a suk wan for it. My inlaws thought this was pretty funny. It’s well known how sensitive the foreigners are about animals, and there is no such thing as chickens having spirits.

Recently when I asked why always chickens at suk wans and why always boiled I was told it’s because boiled chicken is a sign of luxury, all meat, no vegetables.

After both chickens were secured Thipalada helped bring them to the back door and mum got a pot of water boiling at her outdoor stove. I freaked when I saw ST hold the chicken down and pluck the feathers from it’s neck, but watching closely the chicken showed no signs of pain. Seems like docility is bred into them.

I held the legs and the wings with the head pointed downhill while ST carefully nicked the throat such that the blood ran down into a bowl of fish sauce. The blood is mixed with the fish sauce so that when it congeals it makes a tasty solid, kind of like the luet in kow piak. The only signs of discomfort on the part of the chicken came at the very end when it’s blood pressure was probably about zero. It thrashed a little but I’d been forewarned to hold tight.

When I got back from work all was in the freezer already except a delicious ope made from the livers, intestines, unhatched eggs, etc. It was delicious, none of that factory taste. Clean like game but not elk.

Later I noticed two hand lettered plaques by the hose. Rosie chicken pecker, and Blacky Black chicken pecker. We’d found peck marks on both. Don’t know what’s up with the markers, never did discuss death and dying with Thipalada, but then kids understand those kinds of things anyway. She eats the chickens with gusto unlike her brother who was slightly uneasy over the entire project.

2012-08-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

What Thais Need to Know and Learn about Laotians

I saw this over at Samakamlao, that web site mostly for Laotians in Laos and overseas Lao. I did a simple copy and paste, even the little graphic below. No link to The Nation.

Of the nine other members of Asean, Thailand is most culturally, linguistically and economically linked to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. The economic interdependence of the two nations is particularly important and Laos is clearly part of the ”Baht Zone”. The baht can be used easily anywhere in Laos.

Thailand critically needs energy imports from Laos and the Lao in turn need many consumer goods from Thailand. Also approximately one third of the Thai population has Lao cultural and linguistic roots.

Often Thais like to define their relationship with the Lao as “brothers and sisters”. but the Lao scholar and historian, Ajarn Mayoury Ngaosyvathn, instead calls simply for the nations to be close and friendly neighbours.

As we all know Thailand is amazing in many ways, but Laos is also amazing. What is most remarkable is that Laos has survived as a political and cultural identity despite being landlocked and surrounded by five powerful and much larger neighbours, namely, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia.

Unfortunately there are many Thai misunderstandings about Laos and the Lao. First, many think that the Isaan (Northeast) language and Lao language arethe same. They are indeed similar but not the same. Once they were the same, but diverged over time because of 1) French colonialism, 2) communism, and 3) the Thaiification of the Isaan language.

Nearly all geographic and mathematics terminology in the Lao language, for example, is Frenchderived. If a person asks for “galaem” in Isaan, they will normally get a blank stare. “Galaem” is the Lao word for ice cream.

A second misunderstanding relates to the phrase “mai mi arai” (there is nothing there) referring to Laos. Many Thai travel to Vientiane, Laos for just one day, not even staying the night. They shop at the ”morning” market, have lunch at a nice restaurant on the Mekong, and visit a couple of prominent temples. They have “done Laos”.

I once took a group of Thai students on a study tour of Laos for two months. At the beginning they could not fathom why we were spending two months in a place where “mai mi arai”. At the end of the two months, they indicated a desire to stay longer. Obviously over time they came to realise how much there was to learn about Laos.

The Thai history, geography, and social science curricula on Laos need to be reviewed and revised. Students, for example, should be exposed to both Thai and Lao perspectives on the historical relations between the two nations. They should examine King Chao Anu both as a villain (Thai perspective) and hero (Lao perspective).

They need to analyse critically why Laos became communist and why the new government significantly reformed the Lao language.

They need to be exposed to how the Thai and Lao languages are the same and differ. The word “Thai/tai” is particularly interesting. In Thai, it means free, while in Lao it means people. Tai Luang Pabang, means Luang Pabang people, not Thai people living there.

As part of both cultural and moral education (and given the growing influence and power of social media), students need to know that ethnic jokes aboutthe Lao and Isaan people are inappropriate. Some of the gross ethnic jokes I have heard about the Lao are unprintable here. Also celebrities in their interviews need to be culturally sensitive in their remarks about the Lao. Some unfortunate incidents have occurred in the past.

Thais need to study and be more aware of more important Lao scholars and writers such as the prominent historian Maha Sila Viravong (originally from Roi Et) and his three children, who are all noted writers, and Ajarns Pheuiphanh and Mayoury Ngaosyvathn, prolific Lao scholars and historians.

One enjoyable technique for teaching about the subtle differences between the two cultures is to present ambiguous images of both cultures and have students themselves ascertain which image is Thai and which is Lao. Watching critically movies such as “Sabai Di Luang Prabang” can also be a fun and effective way for Thais to learn about their important neighbour.

Even though most Lao can understand Thai, they deeply appreciate it when Thais make the effort to speak their language, which is relatively easy, giventhe similarities between the two languages. Dr Sumontha Promboon, former president of Srinakharinwirot University, made a great effort to speak and write Lao well, when serving as an ADB consultant in Laos. Her effort was extremely well received. HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, Prof Charnwit Kasetsiri, Dr Prawese Wasi, and Sulak Sivaraksa have all shown impressive and exemplary cultural sensitivity in writing about and interacting with the Lao people.

What is most important for the future of ThaiLao relations in the AEC (ASEAN Economic Community) era is for Thais to enhance their cultural empathy of the Lao and their rich cultures and history.

Article originally published in The Nation, June 25, 2012

by Gerald W Fry, Distinguished International Professor
Department of Organisational Leadership, Policy, and Development, University of Minnesota
gwf@umn.edu

Gone (a traveler's tale)

2012-07-16T05:54:00.000-07:00

I knew the Israeli girl was gone, and I don’t mean gone for a walk or gone somewhere else but gone, gone. Her father who looked like the kind of guy who had seen a couple of things, realized, I think, that there was little likelihood. I’m a father, I have a little girl, I can’t imagine. Girl is probably the wrong thing to call someone who was, or used to be, an officer in the Israeli army. It was Asia, that’s what they call unmarried women.

Tiger Leaping Gorge Yunnan, China from Wiki

It had started the way many things do with the idea to go for a walk for a couple of days. I was living down in Dali and had been hearing “backpackers” talking of a “trek” through a place called Tiger Leaping Gorge. Trek is code amongst the banana pancake crowd for a leisurely walk. This was back in the mid 90s before mass tourism had much touched that obscure part of Yunnan pushed up against Tibet by who knows what sort of tectonic plate.

I’d already done a snowy mid winter walk along the ridge of Cangshan Range and spent too many days wandering on the cold glacier of Yulongxue Shan where I had no business being midwinter and alone. I was ready for a flat walk with banana pancakes.

On the mini bus out of Lijiang I met the three of them, a young guy, and a couple that were older, maybe in their mid 30s, they were headed back to the gorge to look for the companion of the young guy. I’ll call him YG for young guy as I’ve long forgotten any names if I ever knew them.

YG and the Israeli girl, his companion, had had an argument of some sort as people traveling together sometimes tend to do. They’d separated to walk along at their own pace without having to look at or discuss with each other whatever it was they were arguing about. When the YG got to Walnut Grove, the midway point, he waited and waited, Israeligirl never showed up. Thinking she’d perhaps turned around and gone back, the next day he retraced his steps to Qiaotou. (Shaw-toe?) She hadn’t gone there either so he alerted the PSB and things took on a life of their own from there.

They all went back up the gorge, the YG and the police, and they looked. They looked from the last place he’d seen her and they looked further down the trail from there. They talked to everyone living in the vicinity and they kept looking on into the night. Then they went to Walnut grove and screamed at the guest house owner who hadn’t registered her in his books so to save the 30% “local tax”. Then the next day they went back to Qiaotou where there was a phone and called Lijiang which is the biggest town around.

Technically she’d gone missing in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of which Zohngdian is the capital. Zohngdian has been renamed, it’s now Shangrila and in my estimation not the better for it. The entire area is now a World Heritage Site. Roads, hotels, tour groups, airports, ATMs.

So the three Israelis and I slept at Qiaotou, then we too hiked most of the way to Walnut Grove and looked. We looked up and mostly down the hill from where the YG had last seen Israeligirl and to tell you the truth there seemed no place a person could disappear to. The hillside was open, treeless. We walked on to the Guest House which was tended by the owner’s ten year old daughter and a teenage helper, no one else was there.

The guest house had a few very basic rooms without water, no electricity, we were after all at least 20km from the road.. In the morning when I got up the guest house daughter was scraping the wax from the table where the middle aged fellow had been playing with it and made a mess spreading the wax around with match sticks and what not. In the kitchen we huddled around the woodstove. There was little to eat, the owner was off buying supplies, but the guesthouse daughter offered yack butter tea. I had some moon cakes which I shared around. We smoked a bowl of pot, I was the only one to take up her offer of the tea. Refreshingly strong tea and filling at the same time.

Daughter of the Guest House owner at Walnut Grove. She managed the place very well in the absence of her parents, I think she was 10. Notice the churn against the wall for making yak butter tea. Slow slide film with natural light.

The next day we walked out to the far end of the gorge and took a ferry across the Yangtze to the lovely little town of Daju which was at the end of a road and it was possible to take a bus. The walk seemed long to Daju, maybe 30km.

Daju had a short landing strip for small aircraft and some old style timber frame houses being built. They actually had banana trees, something I hadn’t seen in China. Daju at the downriver end of the gorge is one of the lowest places around. It’s past the gorge, they get a full complement of sunlight. The next day after an eight hour bone rattling ride on a poor excuse for a road we were back in Lijiang. Eight hours to go fifty kilometers.

It was in Lijiang that I met the dad. He’d flown across the world as fast as he could but by now we were at day seven or eight or something. His daughter had been gone an awfully long time. He asked what I thought of the deal and I had no theories or impressions that would add to an understanding. Very few people live in the gorge, anything that happens everyone knows.

It wasn’t until a month later that I found out the end of story, and even then it was only by chance that I heard.

I should say before someone corrects me that the river up by the gorge isn’t called the Yankze, in Yunnan it’s called something else entirely. I should also mention that though the trek is basically a flat path that has been in use for centuries if not millennia, there are many side paths. People leave little trails, herding goats, collecting mushrooms, picking herbs. And, as in most places none of the side paths are marked, nor are any paths marked. Everyone knows where they are going.

Locals crossing a foot bridge Tiger Leaping Gorge

One evening I fast walked and jogged the 23km of path from Walnut Grove back to Qiaotou in a little over 3 hours with a broken headlamp and moon behind clouds. It might not be a super highway but it’s close to it. Towards the Qiaotou end of things the path cut through the center of a small prison, it was without walls. I guess the place is for model prisoners and in any case the walls of the gorge are as good a barrier as any. They cut large pieces of marble. At the time I was there that was the furthest extent of the road, now I think the road goes all the way to Walnut Grove maybe further. The night I walked they were still working by the light of bright bulbs long after dark. No one said anything as I walked on through. Silent prisoners, feeding a saw, cutting rock.

The gorge itself is deep. It’s deeper than the grand canyon, the walls though not as sheer are larger than El Cap in Yosemite. At the time I was there no one knew the size of the gorge, or if they did they didn’t advertise it. Sitting at Walnut Grove one has a very intimate view of the wall on the opposite side. I knew at the time that surely this gorge was as big as any wall I’d ever seen. I was puzzled as to why the gorge wasn’t famous, now it is.

The sun shines on Walnut Grove very late and leaves early, maybe five hours of direct sun, that’s how steep the walls are. The hillside was intensely terraced. At the edge of the town I once found the ruins of an abandoned house with a house sized boulder in the middle of it. The house had been built in a place too susceptible to rockfall.

It was at Qiaotou in the backpacker cafe that I found the end of the story. Like many places on the banana pancake circuit the cafe had a log book for people to jot down their impressions or messages.

Backpackers Cafe Qioatou - It could sometimes be days between customers.

Israelidad had hired some kind of professional searcher and they had found his daughter. Probably they’d also hired locals, and they’d done a grid search marking where they’d been. The stream crossings had been tricky and she’d wandered far downhill at one place looking for a better crossing. There are different crossings for pack horses and other places better in the wet season, and so on, many little trails headed nowhere. The young woman had fallen down between large rocks at one such crossing and been very badly injured. She had lived a few days unable to move but well enough to jot down some thoughts. She had pen and paper from her backpack.

I read about all this in the logbook at the cafe.

A sad and terrible thing for sure.

If anyone ever reads this who was there at the time my apologies for any inaccuracies or misrepresentations. Sean if you read this it looks like your guest house has been very successful, I’ll be back someday. Lastly to Israeligirl whom I never met, I hope you rest easy.

Below are some more photos from the two walks I did into the gorge in 95 and also the walks on the Canshang Range and Yuahlung Shan from just before the Tiger Leaping Walk. I post them here so as not to detract from the story.

Above-From the second day out on my hike of the Cangshan Ridge. Barely visible is the distant peak of Yuahlung Shan, the gorge is just left of it. This hike was my first test of my sleeping system which was comprised of an old summer weight synthetic bag, the fleece pants and jacket I was wearing and a hat, on top of a Thermarest and inside a bivi sack covered with a space blanket. Worked fine.

Self snap shot on the East side of Yuahlong Shan. A long ways from anyone I knew in a place of no trails or maps, in other words heaven on earth. I bought salted beef, packaged noodle soup, moon-pies and green tea at the market, great backpacking food. It was this cold midwinter wander that convinced me I needed to go for a flat walk such as tiger leaping gorge where I could sleep in guesthouses.

Qiaotou-The road to Zhongdian and Lasa Tibet which was closed to outsiders at the time, it has since opened. Not much traffic.

Yualong Shan from the West. It's this mountain that forms the steep east side of the gorge, probably the deepest river gorge in the world.

Except for the first, all photos are mine, taken at the time of the story and a month later when I did the walk again. I was using a manual Pentax with a decent 28mm lense and a not so good 80-210 zoom. Velvia 50 or 100 and always natural light. I've come to appreciate digital photography a heck of a lot.

I've purposefully skipped all sorts of second guessing. Nothing about walking alone or abilities to follow a trail or our lack of searching in the right place. Things happen.

Hillary Comes to Lao PDR

2012-07-06T20:04:00.001-07:00

Above Hillary's picture on the front of the US Embassy Laos web page.

First time in a gazillion years that a Secretary of State from the USA has visited.

My mind is just a flutter with the serious questions this raises. Will she bring a jar of jeao padek home for Bubba? What about the situation in Vang Vien? Will she go tubing and do shots of Lao Khao? Wuzzup Hill?

Work Live Laos

2012-07-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

I've been following a new web site from Vientiane on Facebook. It seems to keep tabs on current events in the capital maybe from an expat point of view.

Work-Live-Laos

When I stopped by today they had this kind of fun you tube video.

A land with no trees

2012-05-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

Crossroads from EIA on Vimeo.

Walking out to the road

2012-05-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

The road means different things to different people. For me it meant a return to the power grid, cell phone coverage, showers, beds, restaurants. For Lorphaew’s son who was along for the walk and had never seen a road, it meant a lot more.

We get up early, I fill my water bottles from the cold water in the kettle and we leave. Tui, Lorphaew carrying my pack, Lorphaew’s son, and myself bringing up the rear. I don’t think we even had a hot breakfast, cold rice and water. Tui remarked this was a record early start for him, maybe seven o’clock.

The day before I’d cut a three inch hole in my boot to match the inch and a half hole in my foot, covered them both tightly with athletic tape, hoped that the pressure would be relieved, and crossed my fingers for luck.

The first part of the walk followed the path from Jakune Mai to Jakune Gow, I’d been on the trail four times before, that didn’t make it any easier. We stopped to wash at a stream crossing, from there the trail goes up and up and up, maybe 1800 feet or more. The first time I was already tired after two long days and I was lying down at the rests, took the starch out of me. This time at least I stayed standing to catch my breath.

Jakune Gao 2006

Lorphaew brought up the rear carrying my pack and his presence made the effort easier. I speak no Akha and he speaks no Lao, and so we can’t talk, but when you are the slowest it’s nice to have someone behind for company who doesn’t push.

Much sooner than I’d of thought we are at Old Jakune, in the two years since I’d been there it had melted further into the forest. I had to wonder how long it would be before only the discerning eye would know that here for decades uncounted, maybe centuries, was a village where people were born, lived to bear children themselves, and passed on. How quickly the trees grow. The time comes for everyone and we all fade from memory.

Just above the old townsite is the trail junction to Nambo, more faint than the trail to town. Probably not many make the long hike to the Lahu village. Young men going “visiting” more likely than not. Our route took us still higher, almost to the top of the highest mountain in the vicinity, Phou Mon Lem, a name that has something to do with the long grass that grows around the top.

When we cross the ridge we stop and I take a photo. A poor and uninteresting photo at that. Some tree covered hills, some fog, barely imagined further hills. I breath deep wondering if this is my last view of this area. Close by are the hills on both sides of the Nam Fa, the river valley without roads or cell phone coverage, trees never cut, river never damned. Beyond is the Nam Mekong the riverine historic waterway of south east asia still in fog and wide, and on the other side of that, Shan State, the part of Burma ruled by an independent army.

I like these hills.

After the top we began to see survey markers. A Korean mining company is intent on developing a copper mine and making a road. It will certainly change things. Tui says he understands us Falangs don’t like to see roads. I don’t mind roads, but I do like the untracked forests and miss them when they are gone. It would be great if Lorphaew and all from his village didn’t have to walk so far to go to the market, or the doctor. More worrisome is the potential for pollution from the mining, I doubt there would be any environmental restrictions at all. A lot of villages downstream.

The walk downhill is at a much more moderate gradient. Once in awhile more survey flags from the intended road. The path cuts side hill amongst very old large trees, the walking is easy, cool in the deep shadows. The trees and the path might well have both been there when America was fighting it’s war for independence. A land without roads doesn’t mean a place without history or people

Drinking from the spring, Lorphaew, his son, Tui.

All too soon we are wading the river for the seven crossings that mark the approach to the Lanten village that is where the trail meets the road. A young guy has driven his motorcycle into the ford to wash the dust off, it is colorful new and fast looking even sitting still. Lorphaew’s son stares at the bike with intensity, he has heard of them. Later Tui’s friend arrives in a decrepit minivan without seats to give us a ride to town. Lorphaew’s son watches carefully from where we sit on the floor in the back as we bump along, when the road suddenly becomes paved and the minivan twists through the S turns his jaw drops in wonder. On the road again.

Wildside Trip on the Nam Fa (from quite a while ago)

2012-02-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Tiger Tracking on the Nam Pha from Frank Wolf on Vimeo.

This video is of a white water rafting trip down the Nam Fa in the late nineties or the early part of the last decade.

It looks like the video was made by someone who makes adventure videos with no connection to the actual trip. The trip was organised by Wildside adventures run by Michael O'Shea also known as the guy that kayaked the entire length of the Mekong with lots of good stories from half drowning in Tibet of Yunnan province, I read his account of the trip online a long time ago.

This is kind of a run on post, I'm hoping that someone who was in the area at the time will post a long and if they want anonymous or not comment about the whole thing and I'll erase this half conjecture collection of run on sentences with some factual information. Hint hint you know who you are.

Looks like most of the time was spent above the junction of the Nam Hee where the river is most turbulent and it probably took them the most time to get down. Assuming the Kahmu village was up close to Vieng Phuka somewhere. Don't know about the Akha village, a just moved Jakune Mai? The camera traps that used film were a give away. Don't know when digital came out but it's an indicator.

Climate and Other Changes in Laos

2012-01-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

A big hat tip to I eat Padeckwhere I saw this short and enjoyable clip. I'm not sure How much of this was intentional I'm going to assume everything.

The granny glasses that are THE fashion statement and fake designer bag. Posts for new house stored under the old, The relatively short distance between the old life of the village and the new found insouciance of Vientiane.

Wild West

2012-01-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

Are those 5.56 shell casings amongst the gore?

Mum (Fermented Elk Liver Sausage)

2011-12-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

Above one very fresh elk heart and liver taking up most of the sink

One of the good parts about cutting up one’s own meat is that you get to make use of what many call “the fifth quarter”.

One hurdle to using the “other” parts to their full potential is getting them in the first place. When confronted with the enormity of hundreds of pounds of steaming warm meat lying on the ground I have a hard time thinking beyond the logistics of getting that huge heavy mass back home and into butcher paper packages in the freezer.

By the time I’ve pulled the whole heart/lung/liver/gut sack/intestine mess out of the body cavity and rolled it onto the snow, I’ve about had enough of getting up close and personal with the big pile of other bits. The heart, lungs, liver portion sits above anything that could be called guts and is a good place to start.

Today I’m writing about liver. Elk livers are packed chock full of vitamins, there are nutrients the elk can’t find all winter while the grass is dead and the snow is deep, the supply of those nutrients is stored in the liver.

above after careful trimming I ground smaller pieces into hamburg

Mum is a traditional way preserving liver without refrigeration.

The recipe is actually pretty straightforward and uses basic ingredients every Lao household already has.

You start with grinding up fresh meat and follow it with a lot less fresh liver. We used 1000 grams of ground meat to 300 grams of liver. In a large bowl we mixed it with a cup of precooked sticky rice which we’d whetted so that it was slippery instead of sticky half a cup of chopped garlic, half a cup of lemon grass, and fifteen kafir lime leaves. The lemon grass was the round part not the flat sharp leaves, sliced thin across the grain then chopped in the food processor, the kafir leaves were simply sliced very thin. Also a couple table spoons of salt.

above lemon grass grown in the pot

above kafir lime

Sticky rice cooking in the pot

The entire concoction was kneaded for ten minutes of so in the bowl then run through the meat grinder one more time with the sausage adapter at the end inserted into casing from a pig. Our first use of the sausage adapter for the grinder, I think the regular sausage maker is better, tighter sausages even if it takes a little more work to push.

The liver besides storing vitamins, filters things out from the blood, I don’t eat liver from raised animals, I’m too worried about antibiotics and growth hormones or gosh knows what all.

My fellow blogger over at Lao Cook http://laocook.com/ calls sticky rice “Lao Rice” in that Laos is the only country in the world where all the inhabitants eat it as their every day rice. There are other rices called sticky from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, or wherever but they are an entirely different rice. In Laotian and Thai language the rice is called kao niao, sometimes called glutinous rice it contains no gluten. If you’ve never had kao niao then you’ve been leading a deprived existence and you need to buy a steamer, a basket, the book Food from Northern Laos http://www.foodfromnorthernlaos.com/, and start living the good life.

Lemon grass is sold at many Asian markets these days. You need to buy some that has the bottom of the stalk or root bulb attached, plant it in a large pot, and you’ll never need to buy again.

Kafir lime is more problematic. Most people cultivate a tree. Unless you live in Socal or Florida that means a house plant, hopefully an overgrown houseplant. Leaves are useless dried, sometimes they’re sold fresh or frozen at Lao Markets here in the US.

Finished sausages off the grinder

Back to sausage. After being put out in the sun inside the protection of the screened jerky maker to remove most of the water they are allowed to further ferment and dry inside the house for a couple of weeks. The starch in the rice is some kind of kick starter in the fermentation so that the meat ferments as apposed to rotting. We cook them all then freeze them, so that they can be thawed and eaten on at moment’s notice as hors d'oeuvres, The sausage is sliced into bite sized pieces and served with raw green onions and hot sticky rice on the side.

drying mum

done mum

Return to Jakune Mai

2011-11-26T14:36:00.001-07:00

Some days start out bad and get better, rather that than the other way around.

I get up early. Nature calls. Everyone else has to get up to take a leak too but I prefer to get out while it’s still mostly dark. Others are doing the same, young pregnant moms hitching up their skirts, and old guys like me ducking behind a pig sty or old fence. The village is surprisingly without smells for a place without toilets. Dogs and pigs and cats all have their place and serve multiple functions in what I guess you’d call a traditional village. Maybe I’d just gotten a little too used to things.

When viewed over the perspective of time, most of our existence as Europeans has been as a crop growing metal working people living not so differently than the Akha do. Only in the last hundred years of so have we developed telegraphs and computer chips. Pigs and chickens under the house are kept in at night, dogs are free to roam but mostly outside of the house, they guard for danger, chase rats, and assist in the hunt. Cats live in the framework of the house assuring a lack of large insects, snakes, lizards, mice or rats. I was comfortable to be in the house of a friend in a village I’ve been to before with sounds and smells and a rhythm familiar and predictable.

I used my bit of private time to clean and apply new tape to a blister that had been bothering me for a few days. I’d been ignoring it. Out on the porch of Lao Pao’s house there was some light and I intended to wash and air my feet. First I peal off my old layers of bandages in the light of my headlamp and some of the syrup from my blister spills on the split bamboo floor. White blood cells I guess it is, I don’t know, I’m not a doctor.
Things were worse than I’d thought. What had been a bothersome distraction for days, was, on closer inspection a big hole in the skin on the inside of my left foot. The mother of all blisters. I used some of my water to wash.

Tui my guide wasn’t overjoyed to see my foot no doubt he was wondering how this big old falang was going to get over the hill and back to the road. When shown to Lawboa my foot garnered no more than a moment’s look-see. People live and die in Jakune without recourse to doctors or hospitals, on a scale of one to ten a nasty blister barely twitches the seriousness meter. As my wife tells my kids when they get a scratch, it’s a long way from my heart.

What was obvious was that walking was going to be a problem. My desire to revist Mongla further down the Nam Fa was out of the question. Sompanyao on that long high ridge above Xienkok would wait for another day. We were still a long way from the Mekong or a road. There’s a way over the side of Phou Mon Lem from the old townsite of Jakune Gao, then a long downhill to a town of Lanten people with a road, it’s the shortest way out.

I gathered my washing stuff and headed up to the village spring. Before I left Loubi’s house I asked Tui if I could buy a young shoat for dinner. This was a rest day and we hadn’t had much meat. Good way to lay some cash on the owner of the piglet and for all in the house to have a mini feast.

The water was piped down to the upper end of the village via a system of hollowed bamboo trunks. Still when it arced out over the tiny bridge it was freezing cold. I’ve no idea how people take showers in it every evening. I wore a wrap around type sarong everyone wears for modesty, still a young girl who came to fetch water ran away in fright. Shortly thereafter the new village headman came walking up to the spring to say hi, I should have already been to visit him, but what with arriving late and staying in the former headman’s house I’d been ignoring the niceties.

I’d barely started back to the house when Tui met me part way very excited about a deer that had been shot, he wanted me to make sure I had my camera. After a quick glance at the butchering job in progress I ducked inside fetched my camera and took this photo.

Law Pi’s two eldest sons had gone hunting with the two guys from the next house. The heart is beside the pan and the liver and lungs are in the pot. Notice that they are discarding the contents of the upper intestine, they’ll save the casing to make sausage.

One front leg goes to the new headman, and another leg goes to the house of the oldest man in the village, that’s the way it is. That still leaves a heck of a lot of meat without refrigeration. No parts are wasted.

I’ve read reports by nutritionists saying the upland people get half their sustenance from the forest, not only in the form of various fauna but also the wild plants, especially the ones that predictably grow up on old rice fields gone to weeds.

Every single male hunts.

The government has outlawed the hunting of endangered species as well as market hunting. That leaves quite a few species, and almost all of the ones that have been traditionally hunted for food. Muntjak which is a small primitive deer with a forked set of horns, and wild pig are the two big game species. Smaller animals include squirrel, all the birds, snakes, bamboo rat, porcupine, civet, and so on.

Above are the jawbones and other parts of some animals stored with plants and leaves tied about them. Normally there would be the horns of muntjak and the larger ones of the sambar which is a larger deer. Sambar horns fetch $100 at the market, no doubt muntjak quite a bit less. The term trophy hunter used as a pejorative in modern western society. But I’ve yet to see a people who don’t value and save the horns of a deer. Notice the round wheels of suet from deer or pig.

I’ve no doubt that the leaves tied to the jawbones of prey are somehow related to a ritual either for luck in future hunts or to the life given up to eat. I’ve heard the Akha believe spirits to be in all things, no doubt they exist in deer too.

Photo of the cutting up.

Inside the house many willing hands were cutting and chopping the dear to be made into a huge dinner.

I’ve never eaten at such an elaborate Akha feast. At least four different kinds of meat dishes, two different jeaos (spicy sauces) and a huge soup. The rice is from the mountains, with a little imagination you can taste the smokey flavor of slash and burn.

photo of laid out dinner

I was surprised the guang (muntjak) tasted exactly like the deer back home. Below a photo of a muntjak caught in a Wildlife Conservation Society camera trap down south. This one is a red muntjak, there are many varieties.

photo WSC

The muntjak is the oldest deer species. Like many tropical deer it’s horns are mostly for defending the territory of a foraging specialist.

As often happens when I have the smell of lots of fresh meat and blood in my nose for too long I wasn’t so interested in eating meat. I tried one of the minced meats, then settled into the soup on top of my rice. Laobi’s wife seeing that I wasn’t eating much meat reached down into the soup pot with her chop sticks and deposited a largish hunk of meat in my bowl. It was extremely tender and mild with a small bone in it’s center. Deer embryo leg. Soup was probably fluid from the embryonic sack.

I’m mostly ok eating different things, if they taste ok, I’ll eat them. Tui my friend mentioned afterwards that he’d always avoided that dish before.

I dozed through the afternoon in a “belly full of meat” kind of daze. I was tired from days of hikes that lasted into the night. I was trying to rest up for the next day when I’d try to walk out to the road. I’d been on much of tomorrow’s route before. In making a beeline to the town the trail cuts up over the highest piece of real estate around, for the first couple miles it goes up and then up a lot more.

I carefully made a two inch diameter cut in the side of my boot where my foot had been rubbing. Better to give up some protection from dirt and water in exchange for an end to the rubbing on my foot.

In the late afternoon I went out to take some photos in the late afternoon light. First Lawbao’s wife then quite a few of his family and the guys next door asked me to take their photos. I’d taken some pics of my host and the headman of a close village on a previous visit, and brought them back and given them to people as gifts. Maybe word had gotten around.

Many of the poses were stiff and rigid, as if they were redying themselves for something painful, others were clowning. None of the women wore make up. They live too far from the road to have seen many magazines or how women use make up in “civilization”. It has been almost 3 years, I’m waiting for the day I can return and give them their photos.

Lawpao on R, his wife and youngest children.

This post is part of a series of posts about a long walk I did mostly in Muang Long district of Luang Namtha Province Laos in the winter of 08/09. Below are the links to the other posts.

Long Time Traveler Muang Long

One Day Treks in the Vicinity of Muang Long

Lahu NIght Out

The Trail To Nambo

Hmong House

Further Into the Forest

Ban Nam Hee

Lost in Laos

Nam Fa Means Sky River

Som Guang

2011-11-17T19:56:00.004-07:00

Som Guang

With fresh deer in the freezer all kinds of foods are starting to appear. To the right are most of the ingredients of som guang or in English “sour deer”.

Today the chef mentioned she was making hamburger with a couple packages of deer. “Why not use the meat grinder?” was my question. I guess the flavor is better if chopped with the cleaver like laap. The hamburgers for the kids never materialized, instead they had Cosco Pizza, and all the chopped meat was used in the preparation of som guang, probably the original plan.

When I got back with the pizza the meat was chopped and I finished peeling the garlic. Maybe a kilo of meat and 3 heads of garlic. Yes heads not cloves. Note the garlic press over on the right? Garlic is important to the “cure” of the meat. The dry ingredients were the usual, salt, bang nuah, a tiny bit of sugar even though you aren’t supposed to, a couple cups of cooked sticky rice that had been whetted with water to make it break apart and mix easily. The rice is also very important, I think it feeds the right kind of bacteria to make the meat sour instead of rotting.

Meat squeezed and mixed with all ingredients, looking carefully you can see the sticky rice.

There was also an additive that helps keep the water in meat sausages. I think it might have been some sort of phosphate. As soon as the ingredients are mixed the garlic robs the meat of it’s red color. It becomes more brown.

The concoction is all wrapped into long fat rolls of about an inch or more in diameter with plastic food wrap and set on the counter to age. It will sit there for three to five days until sour. It’s tested for done by frying a tiny piece. When at the proper ripeness all of the uneaten meat is frozen in the plastic until needed.

Chef

In Laos the sausage would be wrapped in banana leaves and tossed in the coals of the cooking pot. The meat will be cooked long before the banana leaves burn.

In a few days these rolls of meat will be som guang. Takes longer in winter, colder room.

Also.... Links for reference.
For all food Lao http://www.foodfromnorthernlaos.com/
Also Lao Cook had a great video on how to make som moo, which is similar but using pork instead of deer. I can't get it to play now but here it is. http://laocook.com/2007/06/15/lctv-let%C2%B4s-make-som-moo/

Murder Piracy Drugs and Warlords on Sleepy Upper Mekong

2011-10-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

Is that a blatant attention grabbing blog post title, or what?

No doubt they see a lot of strange things come down the river at Chiang Saeng, but the two Chinese cargo boats rudderless, crewless, and turning with the currents of the Mekong no doubt caught the attention of anyone watching the river earlier this month. Chiang Saeng is just downstream from the border of Burma, it is what passes for the beginning civilization in that part of the Wild East known as the Golden Triangle. Competing casinos in Burma and Laos vie for the baht of eager Thai gamblers. Though no longer the center of world opium production the poppy is still widely grown and the lawless Shan State in Burma is a large supplier of methamphetamine (ya ma) for South East Asia.

Above the two unlucky boats tied up at Chaeng Saen

I have a lot of photos of this part of the river because I like to take the fast boat down from Xiengkok to where there are roads at Muang Mom. Despite what it sounds like this portion of Laos is generally pretty quiet. Mostly the river sees few foreigners, there are no roads, no ATMs, no airports, or internet. The wide photo up on the header of this blog is actually looking up the river in the direction of China from Xiengkok.

For a couple hundred or more kilometers above Chaing Saeng the Mekong runs between Laos and Burma on it's way from China to the sea. Xiengkok half way up has a Lao border patrol man watching the river with a very tired eye. The "port" is simply a place where the rocks jut out into the river giving boats a place to anchor in slack water.

Leaving the slack water in Xienkok early 09

The Chinese blasted a channel in the rapids deep enough to run cargo boats most of the year, and it's a regular roller coster ride between the mountains. Chinese cargo boats for now are more profitable than trucking cargo the long way around from Jihong to Chang Rai vial Mengla, then somehow across the river at Huay Xai. Maybe once the bridge outside of Huay Xai is complete boats will stop running.

Chinese cargo boat exiting the rapids above Muang Mom headed upstream. "rocks as big as houses".

For the unfortunate crewmen on the two cargo boats that ride was their last, a dozen Chinese crew were tied up, executed, and thrown in the river.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22255&

Above the same Lao freight boat we saw leaving Xiengkok about to enter the rapids below Xieng Dao (I think)

Newspaper accounts attribute the violence to a warlord not receiving protection money from the Chinese. They sure were quick to add a name to the crime too, but a name with freinds at the highest levels within the Burmese military. Who knows, I sure don't.

From the Irrawaddy:

Over the past two decades, three ethnic armed groups from Burma have attempted to control the Mekong River route through the Golden Triangle. The first group was drug lord Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army, followed by the UWSA and the Shan State Army (South) led by Yawd Serk.
“All were pushed back by the Burmese army,” Khunsai Jaiyen said. “Unless they had the support of the local Burmese authorities, Naw Kham and his men could not survive in this area.”

I have a hard time keeping all the names and armies straight, all I know is that I've never had an inclination to step foot on that part of Burma. The closest I've come is fueling up on a fast boat.

It used to be that you could catch a ride on the freighters if you wanted a slow, cheap, way to go to Jihnong China that didn't involve airplanes or the long go around to Boten.

Now there is a fast ferry that looks like below.

167km from the border of China 1/09 early morning fog

In that same article a journalist tells of being extorted for money by the same folks.

“At the time, Naw Kham’s men were on three speedboats. They cut off our boat and boarded it,” he said. “They were well armed, and some of them wore masks. They made us kneel with our hands on our heads. Then they took all our money.”

The speed boats are very fast, basically an auto engine with a propeller at the end of a long shaft pushing a very light weight flat bottomed boat.

The wind in the face is strong.

And lastly a very short video to get an idea of the speed of the things.

The striped bag is some of my new designer luggage.

Ahan October

2011-10-09T15:35:00.001-07:00

That unidentifiable food next to the kao jao is dinner a couple nights ago.

Worried over a possible frost we picked most of the stuff that's not cold tolerant including the Thai peppers. The leaves themselves are also edible and also pretty flavorful. Besides the chili pepper leaves ingredients were some kind of pork short ribs, lemon grass, green onions, squash (winter squash I think), and the usual suspects, pinch of salt, half teaspoon sugar, bang nua, and most importantly a half a tablespoon of nam pik gaeng daeng that Thai stuff in a tub.

I like the way the thicker squashes go with Lao food. Thickens it without coconut milk. Thicker gaeng for colder weather.

Happy Fall.