The Roads of Change in Laos

Buen Tai, Phongsali Province, Laos

          The new highway through town           Water Buffalo being led down the new main street           Schoolkids crowd Kong, Amber and the camera           Low morning cloud caps the forest above the new road           A woman washes clothes in the river by the generator dam           Rice barns above a hot spring mineral salt farm           A newly prepared catchment for evaporating mineral water to make salt           Mung watches on as Tan checks his latest picture msgs           Satellite dish in traditional village on outskirts of Buen Tai           Buen Tai village landscape The new highway through town

The forested ridge to the west of town is clawing the morning's low cloud deck to tatters, creating pallid shreds of mist that drift among the trees like wraiths. The mist's slow crawl across the ridge mirrors that of the stately pace of two water buffalo being led up the road before us. The buffalo and the man they follow are moving against the flow of almost everything else on the road and the luminous condensation of bovine breath contrasts starkly with the black exhalations of the mechanical earth movers lumbering in the opposite direction. The scene is an apt metaphor for the transformation underway in these remote mountains.

Amber and I are in Buen Tai in Laos' northernmost province of Phongsali and are awaiting instructions from our guides, Kong and Mung, to load up for the first day of our trek into the cloud shrouded mountains. It'll be a relief to escape the confines of the van that brought us here from Luang Prabang. We left the last of the sealed road early yesterday afternoon and limped into Buen Tai after dark with a punctured tyre, broken rear door latch and respiratory tracts caked with the fine dry dust of the winding mountain road. We're looking forward to stretching cramped legs and breathing fresh mountain air, but there's a complication...

Kong emerges from a discussion with the proprietors of our lodging house and tells us of the change of plan. There's two reasons, the most compelling of which is that wild elephants have moved into the area and have been frequently seen on the trail we'd intended to take. "I'm scared of wild elephants. It's not safe to trek without a gun. I know another trail!" We think seeing wild elephants would be cool, but that's crazy talk to Kong. He adds that the villages he'd planned on spending the nights at have all been abandoned. The villagers have upped stakes and moved to the new road to take advantage of the convenience and opportunity it provides. In a recursive wave, the change wrought by the road now changes the plans of we who travel it. The plans of elephants too, it would seem.

Since the opening of the first Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River in 1994, roads have revolutionised life and livelihoods throughout Laos. Our route has tracked those changes, following the highways from Vientiane through Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang. The sealed road might not have made it to Buen Tai yet, but the pace of change isn't slowed by a rough dirt surface. Trucks bearing loads of the Carlsberg-owned Beer Lao share the road with 4WD vehicles bearing the names of various NGOs and aid organisations.

I ask Kong about the Lao-American Integrated Rural Development Project, whose buildings face us across the wide dirt expanse of the street. Kong says the project's aim is to wean the last of the province's opium farmers from their dependency on that particular crop, as well as to provide incentives and support for local addicts to overcome their habits.

I mention how I'd read that it wasn't that long ago that Americans were encouraging the hilltribes to grow opium as a means to finance weapons supplies for their secret war. Kong laughs his agreement, then points out that before that, the French who were garrisoned here actually forced the locals to grow opium. As if to further illustrate the ironies of these times of change, Kong indicates two adjacent offices and says "That one for cutting trees down. The other for planting them!" His wry smile broadens to a grin as he turns to greet Mung and our driver Tan. Everyone's in high spirits for the drive to the trail head. Mung and Tan have never visited Phongsali before and seem as excited as we are about the adventure that lies ahead.

We stop at a village on the outskirts of Buen Tai where Kong wants to show us hot springs that seep and bubble from the mountains' roots. These waters are laden with mineral salts and for aeons the local villagers have raked the wet earth of the seeps into a rough surface where the salts crystallise for harvest and subsequent treatment prior to sale. Now that the road has come the industry has collapsed in the face of competition from cheap imported salt. Nevertheless, some of the village's inhabitants keep the tradition alive, preferring to spend the little cash income they have on necessities their own labour can't provide.

Opposite the saltpans is the primary school. The kids milling in the playground have noticed us and begin shouting "Hallo!" and "I love you!" Amber and I  cross the road and the kids scatter, suddenly skittish and shy. It's a pattern we'll see repeated many times over the coming week. As we negotiate the track alongside the school the kids grow bolder and approach the fence, but only the bravest come right up to it. By the time we gain the banks of the river that flows behind the school we're feeling like Pied Pipers. The school has emptied and although none are yet willing to approach us, the students are now all trailing in our wake as we make our way toward the generator dams.

The dams are ingenious timber constructions and each provides sluices for about twenty Vietnamese-made generators.The generators resemble outboard engines and are to be found in every river and stream we see in Phongsali. Their immersed propellers generate a few watts of DC power and the riverside vegetation is festooned with wires that snake back toward the village. Each is connected to a single household and provides enough power to run a couple of low wattage compact fluorescent globes or a radio.

By the time I've taken a few photographs the schoolkids have decided they're more curious than shy and crowd behind me to see the camera's screen. I ask if they'd like me to take some photos of them and they all scream and run, but it's not long before a pair of girls coax each other back to pose coyly for the camera while their schoolmates edge slowly into the background. Once they and their friends have seen the result it's on. Everyone wants in on the act and they quickly graduate to pointing at the video camera and letting us know they want to see themselves in movies too. Of course they do. On the heels of electricity, down the road came inverters, satellite dishes and television sets. The kids are swarming us, still mugging for the camera as we climb back to the road. A teacher is waiting for them by the schoolyard fence and they wave madly and chorus goodbyes as they're shepherded back to class.

We cross the road in search of Mung and Tan. We find them in a houseyard where the morning's juxtaposition of buffalo and bulldozer is echoed by that of thatched roof and satellite dish. Between the stilts supporting the roughcut timber of the house's floor a woman is carding cotton with a bow. There's that contrast again: Mung and Tan are checking picture messages Tan's just received on his phone!

The road has brought amazing change to Buen Tai and we didn't meet a soul who said it was for the worse. This evening in the village, the warm yellow light of lamp and candle will shine side by side with the blue glow of television and fluorescent tube, but we're looking forward to the Phongsali where change flows quietly by river and trail.

It's the new road that's going to take us there.