April 03, 2002
Vientiane
After a sultry and sickly day in Vientiane I'm cooling down with some fruit shakes and cold water as tuk-tuks and scooters zoom by on the street between the cafe and the Mekong River. It is again sultry thanks to what seems like ever increasing temperature and humidity. The sun beats down relentlessly in Indochina and transforms a clean shirt in seconds. I'm somewhat sickly thanks to yet another third-world virus or bacteria that tend to attack my weak American body. Some day I'll make a trip without a case of the "fill-in-the-blank revenge".
As I spend my last few days in Laos I have a few topics I thought I would chat about. My recent writings have felt a little too visual without a point and without a tangible topic... Not that this one will be any better. My topics for today are money, bombs, and the evolution of Southeast Asian transport.
Topic one, money. The currency in Laos is the kip (LAK). One dollar is equal to approximately 9500 kip. For simplicity sake I use a 10000:1 conversion ratio, not a problem. The problem enters since the largest denomination bill in Laos is 5000 kip, the equivalent to 50 US cents. 50 fucking cents! It's almost impossible for me to get a grasp on this money, you need stack of money up to your waist to buy a cup of coffee. I can't figure out why the Lao government doesn't introduce a 10000, 20000, 100000, even a 1000000 kip note. It's funny to see shop keepers with entire duffle bags full of cash in binded blocks running around like bank robbers. The people have developed a clever system of stacking nine notes and folding the tenth over to sort their piles of cash. Even ten bills is only worth a meager five bucks.
Next topic... Quote of the day: "Give em lemons and they make lemonade". According to a couple debatably reliable resources, the country of Laos was bombed (per capita) more than any other country in history. More bombs fell on Laos in the 60s and 70s than fell on Europe during the entirety of World War II. The Americans attempt to stifle the Viet Cong in Laos required on the average one bomb every eight minutes for ten years... Yikes! I'm not sure what immediate impact these bombs had on the population in terms of casualties, but the long-term impact is still happening with unexploded bombs going off frequently... Another strange and I'd say unexpected result the Lao people have come up with is to use the bombs and bomb parts for making tools and other blacksmithed goods. I saw several blacksmiths using empty bomb shell cases as bellows and others for hammering. Most Lao shovels and hoes are cleverly fashioned out of bomb casings. Like I said, "give em lemons..."
Final topic, the evolution of Southeast Asian transport. This may sound pretty important and maybe it sounds like a complicated subject, but I intend to simplify and manipulate history to support my own hypothesis. In America It's safe to say that motorized transport evolved from the horse and carriage. As you would expect, this evolution of transport made its way to Southeast Asia. I fully intend to ignore this. I think the more interesting transport means spawned from the bicycle and presumably before that from the single horse... In Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam you see dozens of transport means that are likely related to that first Southeast Asian bicycle. The following tiered relationships I believe came from that first Asian bike.
- Tier One: The first wave of modified bicycles includes the rickshaw, which came from the hand pulled version and now resembles a bicycle with a sidecar. Along with the rickshaw is the Vietnamese cyclo with its passenger seat in front of the bicycle and driver. Other similar "tier one" transport methods include various modifications of the bicycle to carry things and sell things if you can picture all that.
Tier Two: Tier two arrived with the introduction of the two-stroke engine. The smoky two-stroke engine introduced a healthy layer of smog to places like Bangkok and Saigon thanks to motorcycles, scooters, tuk-tuks, and motorized rickshaws. The only unique transport to arrive in "tier 2" is the tuk-tuk which is basically a three wheeled motorcycle with two parallel benches in the back.
Tier Three and Four: Tier three and four involve only the tuk-tuk as it evolves towards truck or bus-hood. The simple motorcycle-like tuk-tuk quickly evolved into a more beefy three-wheeled vehicle still called a tuk-tuk with an enclosed cab. From this we get the four-wheeled version with a small cab that I affectionately call a truk-tuk. Then, finally you get the "jumbo", a basic pick-up truck with the same uncomfortable bench seating in back. That's it. From there it's all buses and trucks.
Trust me, after two four-hour journeys via tuk-tuk or jumbo, I can say that the blue smoke, insufficient shocks, and uncomfortable seating sucks! My ass will never be the same, and I'll never complain about a long bus trip or flight again.
Today (4/4 since I stopped writing this entry and resumed the next day) we are aboard an extremely comfortable air-conditioned bus heading for the tricky Vietnamese border. We all have our one US dollar bribe in one hand and our fingers crossed on the other.
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