Rivers of Time 20/2/08
I sit overlooking the river from our restaurant/ guest house in Vangvieng in Laos. The sun is about to disappear behind the layers of limestone karsts. These steep sided craggy cliffs are impregnated with huge intricate caves systems… The Lao people live beneath them in villages built from mainly bamboo and more recently concrete and timber. They wear happy smiles and greet the many tourists that walk amongst them with open hearts and ‘Sa wa de” greetings.
Yesterday we biked for 8klm to reach a blue lagoon and cave network. The road was hot a very bumpy as the surface had been built up from the river stones quarried from the beautiful green flowing river that runs through their town, and is the basis for the tourism trade here. From where I sit now I can see a stream of similar tourists returning from the same trip across the suspension bridge and back into town where they will party in the bars and enjoy the ambiance of this town with other travelers and backpackers. It is a beautiful place with a feeling of relaxation, fun, beauty and playfulness.
But to every thing it seems there is another side or perspective, an ethical dilemma, and it comes with the inevitable consequences of tourism. Yesterday as we crossed the bridge a group of small children, perhaps four or five years old who had been previously playing in the cool water s of the river, their playground, came up to us with out stretched hands, “money”…”pens”. I was saddened. Again today the same thing happened as we passed more children on their way home from school. This is a place where the land is rich and farmland and food is not in short supply. Children go to school and there is a degree of opportunity from the every increasing tourist trade. The carpet bombing by the Americans during the war did not reach this part of the country. The culture, the land and it’s people, from what I see here are rich with what life has to offer. Families work and play together and everyone seems to have a sense of belonging.
Everywhere I go I am conscious of the influence I have on these cultures. I also understand that change is the ever present consequence of time. As the river flows passed me now, so does the influence of time (and tourism).
One of the most outstanding impressions I left with after visiting the Khmu village in the mountains on our 3 day trek was their sense of playfulness alongside their usefulness or their role within their society. Children spent the day at school, and by the afternoon they were doing the chores required of them…building a fire for the kitchen, sweeping the leaves into a pile , or caring for the young siblings strapped to their back …young boys and girls from the age of seven or eight attentive to the baby’s every need. Amongst this was the laughter of children playing. Even now as the light fades over the river the air is filled with laughter and giggles, children playing in the river.
In the villages I see games that have long gone out of fashion in our society. I see girls doing elastics, and skipping, jacks (played with tamarind seeds), pick up sticks with freshly cut stalks, and boys playing volley ball and soccer with woven cane balls. I see two year old children dragging around a eight inch knife blades, teenagers laughing and hooting (as male teenagers do) high in a tree over hanging the river, and young boys ferrying the long boats across the river before in our society they would be considered old enough to swim let alone take on responsibility for themselves or others.
When I walk through the town it is filled with bars and internet cafes. Televisions blare out repeat episodes of the American sitcom “Friends”. Almost every village house, even in the most remote locations has a satellite dish attached to them for their TV reception. In one house in northern Vietnam that I was invited into, my heart and hope for these innocent people was gutted when amongst the smoke filled atmosphere of the rough cut timber slab cottage, the only light other than one dim light bulb around which four young girls sat sewing their traditional cross stitch embroidery, was the green glow of the television. There were seven or eight young children gathered around it, transfixed on it’s action. They were completely unaware of us in their home. They were bare foot on the concrete floor. The temperature was freezing, and out side was still and thick with fog. The inside of the one roomed home was blackened by the smoke from the internal cooking fire, and smoked meat and corn hung from the high pitched ceiling. Large sacks of rice were also stored up high from the latest crop to provide food for the coming year. They were watching an American cops and robbers shoot ‘em up show… just horrible!
It seems that we have the ability to pass on some of our most dreaded values…violence, greed, mistrust and dishonesty. Although I must admit I have not personally experienced the above here, I fear it will come with the ever increasing advance of tourism and technology as it is so closely associated with the western desire for power and material wealth.
Perhaps the gentle nature and graciousness of this largely predominately Buddhist nation has been saved thus far. And perhaps I myself am mistrusting the very nature of the Loa people, after all as I witness the horrific scenes of war and torture painted in graphic detail on the walls of their Watts, their most holy places of worship these scenes are there as a reminder of the strength of forgiveness and acceptance. And I also see many westerners impressed and greatly moved by the beauty they experience in the Lao people. Perhaps in the progress of time we are to be the ones to benefit by this cross pollination of cultures. Perhaps with time it is our culture that will be reminded of what we had in the past and what can be achieved in the future if we look closely at the nations we travel to before “progress’ wipes them away!
