Ridin’ the BTS

[Above photo: Rural Laotian child’s drawing: “Hello” from the Americans!]

25 April 2023

How we loved the Tom Lehrer songs in the ‘50’s! “Be prepared.” “Charlie and the MTA” And all the others on that 33 1/3 album. I always wondered, but never actually tried to research, why the rpms of LP records weren’t 25 or 30. I guess I can ask Perplexity or ChatGPT.

I returned from visiting my friend, Kelly, and his terrific pal, Elizabeth, in Vientiane. After a couple of days there, we took the new bullet train to Vangvieng, a little riverside village now transitioning to tourism. The train, built by the Chinese who are taking over Laos, continues to the Chinese border in Yunan. There are hikes and treks and rivers to kayak and caves to explore and all manner of fun outdoor activities. Driving there in Noum’s taxi took 1 ½ hours; the train took 58 minutes and was smooth, quiet, comfortable, clean, and cost about 1/3 the price. Again, it makes me sad that the auto (Ford) and petroleum industries (Rockefeller) so killed rail travel—-both light and long-distance—in the US. Once the infrastructure is in place, it is economical, quick, and much more environmentally friendly than air or vehicle, both for freight and passengers. Train travel is magic, also.

We stayed at a gorgeous riverside hotel with a large interior garden and swimming pool. The décor was teak furniture and traditional Hmong fabrics, simple and stunning. The food was excellent; Kelly and Liz avoid meat, so I did too. We ate like royalty.

Day one we climbed to a viewpoint. It was as persistently steep as anything I’ve ever climbed—it felt nearly straight up. I was in flip-flops, of course, and Liz is a distance runner and considerably the youngest, so we watched her, in the distance. It was pretty much like climbing a ladder—of which there were a couple— or the Eiffel Tower for 25 minutes straight, rapidly. We later went into a cave and went to “Blue Lagoon #3”, a pretty Chinesey name, I think. It was a huge and long and deep pool where the river had been dammed. There was a tower to climb and although we each tried it, mostly we watched the young, firm of flesh, and beautiful as they played. From the top was a long swing, after which one dropped into the pool or, alternatively, a zip line which carried you a bit further for the drop.  I realized from my urges that if I were 20 years younger, I would have attempted a flip at the end of the arc.

The next day we visited an immense cave which ended in an underground river. There were no inner tubes, so rather than swim out, we merely retraced our steps. Then we kayaked down another river for hours. I am unable to enjoy paddling a sit-on-top kayak; I just don’t have the musculature to do it without a back rest. My arms are strong but after 15 minutes I’m a painful mess. So I kneel in the boat and paddle. That, without knee or foot pads, is something for several hours. I am so stiff 2 days later that I can hardly descend stairs.

The views, however, were amazing. The countryside is filled with dramatic shist peaks, going straight up a few thousand feet. We saw families sitting up to their waists in the river, having picnics, all in plastic chairs around a plastic table whose surface was 3” above the water. And ingenious fish traps—-a square is formed of timber bamboo lengths, a net is dropped to the bottom below it, and leaves and branches are placed in the square. After a couple of weeks, the net is abruptly raised, filled with fish. A man was wading down along the edges of the river, carrying a 20’ pole with a fine-mesh net on the end. He was looking for nests of ants in the trees and he would harvest the eggs, which are a delicacy. There were cattle and water-buffalo along, and in, the edge of the stream and rice paddies, now dry, were visible on each side. Occasionally there would be a hotel or a bar with huge speakers blasting rhythmic Lao pop for the patrons who sat and chatted and drank BeerLao on the rafts moored to the riverbank. Small children swam like fish. We saw a man catching small fish with his bare hands and putting them into a bottle which his child held.  The experience felt like we were watching a transition from a simple agrarian way of life to a more modern, noisy civilization. Laos is lovely, although Vientiane is pretty…..meh. We did have a spectacular meal in town at a small place in a colonial house run by a Laotian woman whose husband is a British wildlife photographer, both published and accomplished.

We went to the COPE museum in Vientiane. It was built to memorialize the US bombing of Laos during the American War in Vietnam and the NGO/Laotian medical/physical therapy/prosthesis response to limbs lost. We dropped 2,000,000 tons of explosive devices in 580,000 bombing missions, the equivalent of a bomb dropped every 8 minutes, 24 hours per day, for 9 years. Each of the cluster bombs held 648 bomblets, shrapnel explosive devices the size of a Valencia orange. 270 million bomblets were dropped, of which 10-30% remain unexploded. Beside the immediately injured and killed, children and families continue to lose lives and limbs to these wantonly-dispersed weapons. And why were we fighting in Vietnam and secretly bombing the daylights out of Laos? Until Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, the bombing of Laos was known only to military and high-level politicians. Not so much different from Russia, in terms of war criminality, I think. Russia at least feels threatened by Ukraine on its flank; Vietnam was far, far away from the US.  It is so easy to feel less troubled by our invasions than by the invasions of others.

Now I am in Bangkok, preparing to leave in an hour or so. My Mai Sot refugee camp sortie fell through—it is often difficult to get permission to visit these, even on humanitarian missions, I’ve learned. I’ll somehow get to the Surin Islands in the Andaman Sea, stay in a tent on the beach for 2 nights, and snorkel for 3 days. It is reportedly beautiful, and I may take a charter on Day 2 to visit the nearby Similan Islands for snorkeling, as well. I am wary about scuba diving anymore; both my age and my prior lung surgery give me pause.

When I returned from Vientiane, I wasn’t in a rush, so I took the Bangkok Sky Train. It was smooth and without traffic but I had to negotiate 2 transfers and waiting for each train was slow. It will be much easier going to the other airport in an hour, with only one transfer.  Also, I now have a sense of how it works. The BTS, or Bangkok Transportation System, is an amazing people mover and so pleasant and cheap. I’ll save $50 or more using it in place of taxis in the next week going to and from airports. And it is much more fun!!

Tucker getting fired doesn’t really give me much pleasure. Old Rupert  and Lachlan are still going to spew out their poisonous falsehoods, as they sell well. They really are analogous to the Russian oligarchs. But I am interested in the succession of DT’s legal challenges as they appear to be developing. Joe Biden is too old and we want a fresh face but looking at the amazingly forward-thinking legislation he has managed to squeak through Congress, I feel it is much better him than anyone on the other side, the right-to-life-supply-side-book-banners. Supply-side economic policy is such a tired card to play.  We all know that giving the rich more money doesn’t make life better for the poor and the working-class. It just makes the rich, richer. If they would just be honest about it and say that they believe the rich should have more than their share of the wealth, it would at least harmonize with their motives. It likely wouldn’t sell as well with ordinary people, however.

Now Gretchen Whitmer, that is a woman I can feel very good about and I’m not sure why she hasn’t been put forth. Michigan surely doesn’t want to lose her to the national stage!