Happy Valentine's Day

I am writing this from the honeymoon suite of the Guest House in Chiang Khong. Maybe I should explain.

When I stayed here a week or so back there was a fire; not life threatening, but moderately spectacular. The management and the 3 staff on duty set about bringing it under control, and asked guests to help out. With the majority of guests being backpackers, the response was predictably pretty poor; they had more pressing matters to attend to, like have another beer or finish a hand of cards. Two French girls consented to run around like headless poulets, and an English youth managed to get to the scene and stand in the way while taking photos. (It was GB Shaw, I think, who said that ‘youth is wasted on young’…it is hard to disagree.)The only positive responses were from a young Spanish guy and me. I shall not bore you with tales of my heroism, since that would take too long (to invent) but when I returned a few days ago I was greeted like a conquering hero and given the best room in the place…heavily discounted.

As a honeymoon suite it has a few odd features. On my balcony, along with a chaise longue, and a table, there are 3 chairs?   Three?   And Mother came too? Also, it is literally underneath the dining room so in the early evening not the quietest room. They have put cloths around the table and chair feet and legs (like a Victorian Drawing Room?) to reduce the noise, but without a great amount of  success, so  it often sounds as though there are people coming into the room, which would not be ideal for honeymooners I guess. But later on it is fabulously quiet. Sometimes I can even hear the river and nothing else. There are no windows between the bedroom and balcony, just screens which I keep open all night so I have panoramic views of the river. Though last night there was Lao music from some kind of resort for The Party faithful across the river. It continued past 2am and then started up again at 5.30. Maybe it is for not the Party faithful; maybe it is a re-education camp since it seems a very unattractive regime.

The two excellent things about the suite are the amount of space I have, and more especially, the view. It is without doubt the best seat in the house! I have been getting up at 6am to ensure that I get the full benefit of the sunrise. It rises behind the hills on the Lao side of the river. But the best laid plans of mice and men………………I had quite forgotten that this is the stubble burning season in Laos. (No, that is not something   that is conducted in the barbershop; remember that many Lao men never have to shave, let alone burn off their stubble.)  But in February the rice fields are fully dried out and, despite, or maybe because of (?) governmental lectures, the rice growers seemingly as one, burn off the stubble, causing a major environmental problem.  Some days the sun cannot be seen through the smoke until it is high in the sky about 10am, but I shall keep on trying…..hope springs eternal. SEE BELOW !

Another gem from the childhood of the GH owner; she recalls that if you were ill what you did was get across to Laos to the French hospital as fast as you could. Somehow it seems that things have changed a little since then.

Most of the books in the small library of the GH are in German, but then most of the classical CDs are also German, which is enabling me to download quite lot of music that I had not previously saved. I have few traveller’s tales to tell this time, as I came up here quite uneventfully by car. The only curiosity was that I was expected to navigate on the grounds that I had been here before and my companions had not.  With no maps, and road signs mostly in Lao script I consider that getting here without a single wrong turning was an achievement of the highest order. Of my fellow guests the only one I feel I should comment upon is a gruesome Australian. He has clearly come here to buy a Thai wife….but in Chiang Khong?  Maybe prices are lower here. If there is any justice in the world then someone of his appearance and personality will be charged a special premium. Oh there was an odd German too; one of those annoying people who talks loudly to himself in order to try and attract your attention so he can engage you in conversation. One would have assumed that he might talk to himself in German, but he chose English which was a bit of a giveaway.

The other day I was taken to a town called Fang, which is pronounced Farng, a pronunciation that led me to believe that we were going to a farm.  I am right up as far north as you can get in Thailand, close to the Burmese border and I am told that the small towns and villages we passed are all populated by hill tribes people. Two things struck me; there were more churches than temples, and apparently no banks. Clearly the missionaries got here before the usurers, and people are saving their souls rather than their money. Most villages seemed to have a small church, based vaguely on the style of a New England church though utilising   I have no idea how well supported these  churches  are; they mostly looked as though they only opened for business one day a week, whereas the fewer but grander temples always looked busy.

On the subject of Churches, the rather ugly Guesthouse next to mine, which is standing empty, is apparently owned by some Christian sect. It has in its grounds a fabulous, if tatty old teak house, which would make a great bar or maybe bar and spa combined as it has verandas all round with great views on 3 sides. It is apparently going to be pulled down. It ought to be possible to move it, being entirely wooden framed, but its views are part of its charm and stuck somewhere else it might not look so good. I would be happy to think about renting it but I am not sure that a Christian Creationist sect might think me a ‘fit and proper person’ to occupy their property.

Mentioning a spa reminds me that just before I left Luang Prabang I went to the Red Cross sauna. Now there is nothing remotely disreputable about it, but somehow I was very surprised to find 3 novice monks there!  Where a sauna fits in with their rules I do not know, but clearly they have funds to spend on such outings which is a little surprising. As elsewhere, the older generation talk of life in the temple as not ‘being like it used to be’, but one does start to wonder  about the point of it all when the monastic life has to be sustained by mobile phones, laptop computers and now saunas.  Can expensive trainers and ray bans be far behind?

Apart from having an ‘around the world cyclist’ Chiang Khong has one further claim to fame. Apparently, the largest freshwater fish ever caught was landed here some years back. It was a catfish and weighed in at 646 pounds or 293 kilos. Given the dams that the Chinese have built further up stream and those that the Lao government plan it seems likely that that if that record is to be broken it will not be broken in the waters of the Mekong. Just upriver from where I am staying someone  has put up a poster “No Dams on the Mekong”; one cannot imagine such a counter -revolutionary call to arms being permitted across the other side, unless the Thai side announces a building scheme, then we shall soon learn that Socialist dams are Good....Capitalist ones are Bad.

I know that Valentine’s Day is a big event in Laos; as the day unfolds I shall discover whether the same is true in Thailand. And since I have the honeymoon suite.....who knows?   But I saw the sunrise this morning. ! It took just about 3 minutes from its first appearance behind the hills to its full emergence, which was quicker than I had anticipated, but then had I paid more attention to science classes at school I suppose I would have known that.

ALAN