Vieng Phu Kha

Situational update: I had planned to meet the director of the Gibbon Experience wildlife project in Houaysai to see about volunteering. I was told he would be back on February 18th. Today, I went into their office and was told he may be back as soon as the 23rd. A helpful staff member finally gave me some good advice: the project is in fact looking for scientists and ecologists, but since this is the height of the tourist season, all the “spaces” for people are taken up by paying marks, and a volunteer has little chance of shoehorning in. So, Bokeo Nature Reserve is off my itinerary, at least for now.
I’d also like to add that Laos is much more developed than when I was here last, and I should be able to add updates every few days, so please disregard my earlier urge to blow the warning-tocsin if you don’t hear from me by March 5.
I decided on the spur of the moment to go to Vieng Phu Kha, a large village between Houaysai and Luang Nam Tha. I met a couple of Germans who were going trekking in that area, and since trek-guides are always cheaper if you have more people, I thought it would be a good idea.
Unfortunately, these Germans were not solvent, nor did they have any idea about the procurement of money from foreign banks in Laos. Although it is more developed than before, there are still very few ATMs and the banks keep peculiarly small hours. The Germans tried to have a friend wire them money through the local post office, but the friend didn’t bother to look up the exchange rate for the Lao kip, which is about 14,000 to the euro, so the friend unwittingly sent them what he believed to be enough kip to buy a Köderwurst made of solid gold, but in fact the fees for the labyrinthine transfer-process ate up some 80% of the value. By this time we all had bus tickets to Vieng Phu Kha, and the Germans were hatching ever-more-harebrained schemes (like darting across the Mekong at dawn to use a Thai ATM, and then darting back, incurring a mere $50 in visa and travel fees) so when the bus was leaving, I left without them, with plans to meet later that afternoon. They never showed up, and may be in jail for all I know, or making their way through the gut of a Mekong catfish.
Vieng Phu Kha was a perfectly charming village, teeming with children and with the various Lao domesticates: dogs, black pigs, water buffalo, tropical cattle, chickens, turkeys, cats, and these funny duck-things:



I checked into a bamboo hut for the night, and walked around town. The children all screamed “sabai deeeee?” at me (the Lao greeting) and ran off in various directions if I approached them. I ran into some other foreigners playing cards in a restaurant who were so dusty and unclean-looking they would have blended in perfectly in Black Rock City. There was a bearded man with a beehive of dreadlocks piled on top, a woman dressed like a gypsy, and a tall dark handsome fellow. They were from the Bay Area in California, but the tall guy was originally from Persia. His name was Ashkhan, which he said meant “tears.” He didn’t seem like a sad person, but I didn’t question him any further on it. They had been in and around the area for five days and had done one of the treks, which they greatly enjoyed.
I found the trekking office, and met one of the guides. He had multiple gold rings on his hands and was drinking expensive whiskey. He was clearly schnozzled. His sober colleague gave me a little binder with the different treks outlined on it. The one I was most interested in went through some “ancient” ruins, which I had hoped were like the Plain of Jars or some other Neolithic mystery, but these were merely the remains of a brick outpost of the Lanna kingdom in northern Thailand, about four hundred years old. Not that I have anything against the Lanna or think that four hundred years is not a long time, but I’ve already seen a lot of Lanna stuff and my inner antiquarian was hoping for something more antique.
The price for a single person, three days and two nights, was over a million kip, which works out to something around $120. As a capitalist, I like prices for goods and services that are at least somewhat commensurate with the value of those goods and services. On this trek, we would be walking through the jungle to a few small villages, and sleeping on the floor of huts in those villages, and eating whatever local nosh the villagers had thrown together. The overhead would be minimal, and I calculated that the majority of the money would end up going for expensive whiskey and gold rings, so I decided not to play this game.
So, as evening fell, I decided to do my own little trek the next day, and walk up the river that ran through town, the Nam Chouk.

After an outstanding night of sleep in a silent bamboo hut, I rose, seized my net, and began walking up the road that ran parallel to the Nam Chouk. It was a shallow, meandering river dotted on both sides with small settlements.



The road curved away from the river, so I found a path that went down to the water. There was a curious line of rocks in the river that seemed designed to create a miniature rapids.



I sampled the rapids and found the usual gang of idiots: creeping water bugs, heptageniid and baetid mayflies, some predatory caddisflies, and what appeared to be a capniid stonefly, though it was too small to say for sure. A couple of tribal women appeared from across the river, carrying bundles of edible weeds wrapped in banana leaves. I showed them the creeping water bugs, very similar to the naucorids you can find pictured in earlier iterations of this very blog. They made motions of eating. “Sääp?” I asked. Good to eat? “Sääp ohhh,” they confirmed: delicious! I declined, though, having had a good omelet for breakfast. I continued along the river and saw this familiar dragonfly, but got a superb picture of the glittery wings:



I found a little path leading up toward the heavily-forested mountain and followed it, walking past three farmers drinking Lao whiskey at ten a.m. in the shade of a bamboo hut. The path went past some good-sized pools being used for fish culture, and then headed steeply uphill. At one point it branched, and I took the left branch because it had a creek next to it. Soon the path became the creek, or vice versa, and going became tough. I was in a steep, narrow ravine that was increasingly muddy. At last I saw a hillside that appeared to have a track going up it, but it was ridiculously steep. I kept throwing my net up the hill and then using creepers to pull myself up, but my feet were muddy in my amphibious sandals, and traction was hard to gain. I came to a big fallen log that seemed fairly secure, and sat against it. In doing so I disturbed a resting tribe of harvestmen, thousands of them, who scuttled away from me on their long legs with a collective whisper.



I grabbed one of them by the legs and turned it upside-down, whereupon it secreted a globule of fluid that smelled like fish food. I let it go and watched them disappear into the undergrowth, then reapplied myself to the hillside. I finally came to the top, where there was a trail leading up the spine of the hill. It was still absurdly steep, but clearly a man-made trail. Machete scars on a tree proved it:



There were many odd plants up here, well odd to me anyway. This one looked like a heart that had grown faster on one side than the other:



How would you describe that shape? I kept going up, until I reached a stand of wild bamboo. It had a vaguely dark and menacing air about it: chaotic, jumbled, covered with leprous fungus and distasteful hairs at the joints.



Somehow it reminded me of the Lappish kota:



It seemed to suck the light and warmth out of the day. I made my way around it, and found that the hilltop was covered in these bamboo copses. There were odd croaking birdcalls issuing from the tops of the bamboo, and thousands of tiny insects swarming my face and eyes. I couldn’t find the path any longer: perhaps the path was to this point, to these shrines of dark forest gods, whom I had no idea how to propitiate. In a clear sign that I am growing more feeble and timid, soon to be fit for nothing more than gumming spoonfuls of pap while sitting in a rocking chair with blankets across my lap, I decided to turn back and find an easier way to go.
On my way down, I came face-to-face with this giant beast:



I think it is called Nephila; including its legs, it is bigger across than my hand. It was positioned in such a way that a person struggling up the path would run face-first into the huge web. I had bypassed it by coming up the steep slope, but now had to find my way around.
At last I came again to the river, cool and blue-green, and washed the mud and scratches on my legs and feet. Then I spied, frantic in the shallows, a whirligig beetle of considerable size, with a sawblade-like rostrum that invited impressed compliments:




There was no more path, so I waded up the river, dragging my net in the mud at the bottom. At a wide spot, the sandy bottom was covered with tadpoles, tens of thousands of them, looking like chocolate chips.



I caught this odd little fish in my net in one of the rapids:



Later I saw large, graceful waterstriders skimming up and down the river with amazing speed. I spent a long time trying to catch one, for they were shockingly fast, and at last succeeded. Up close it looked like a shiny miniature Japanese robot.



Further up the river I met two fishermen, who were not happy to see me and clearly thought I was encroaching on their fishing grounds. I tried to show them that I was just hunting insects, but they were not interested in anything except seeing the last of me, and they were armed with jagged-pointed spears, so I walked away from the river. I came out into a valley where rice was being cultivated, and found a little bamboo platform covered with children. They had agricultural knives of some sort and were obviously supposed to be working, for some of them scooted back to the field when I appeared and busied themselves. But they soon saw I was not going to enforce any responsibilities, and that I was handing out colorful picture-cards. There immediately ensued a dispute as to who had the best card, and many cards were forcibly exchanged. Then I took out my notepad and we played animal Pictionary, so I could learn the local words for beetles, dragonflies, ants, and such-like. I imitated the childrens’ utterances, which amused them greatly. In the end they showed me the road back to town and posed for a picture with my net:



Some other wildlife I saw around Vieng Phu Kha:

JUMPING SPIDER