Mekong Diaries: Day 57

Day 57

We spring out of the very comfortable folds of our beds at 4 am and polish our sleepy faces in readiness for Gordon and Verne. They are already waiting outside with a couple of Camrys, the national conveyor in Cambodia, (did you know that a Camry could drive up the side of a rain-soaked mountain, or ford a flooded stream? They can, it’s terrifying!).

We leave for the Kampi dolphin pools and are on the water well before the sunrise. It is chilly and in the darkness the water starts to glow with that deep indigo which signals the coming of the light, and in its beautiful surface we begin to make out the shapes of rising dolphins.

Mekong Diaries: Day 35

Day 35

Staying at the Tamila Guest house has proven to be a way into the hub of civil society workers that clearly operate in and around Chiang Saen. We have breakfast at the guesthouse overlooking the river and Houey Xai on the Laotian side with people from Living Rivers Siam, an organisation fighting for social and economic values of the rivers. Bennett our translator from the US, but working in northern Thailand, Gong and Bang explained that there has been lots of conflict about the casinos in Laos already. In one case, Chinese workers killed a farmer who was trying to get to his fields. The connections across the river are key to the work of Living Rivers, and they claimed to have family like relations with people inside Laos who are unable to speak freely about their situation. As Gong put it for local people, ‘the river is not a border’.

After breakfast we all caught upstream to visit fishing people on the Thai riverbank in Chiang Saen. All the way there we could easily see where farmlands were being lost to erosion. After a couple of hours we stopped to talk to locals at the site of a new port being constructed for Chinese freighters. We then continued on to the point where the casino is being built on the Laotian side. There in a small village of grass huts on the banks of the river fishermen were cleaning and folding their nets as the sun began to set. We interviewed two men relaxing next to their floating home, as they got slowly inebriated on rice wine. Each of the crew was offered, although not all partook, some rice wine. It is a quick and cheap way to forget one’s inhibitions. After the interview they took us on board the floating platform where they live and showed us a large carp fish, probably 5 or more kilo’s.

We caught a van into Chiang Saen proper and met up quickly with Miti again. After photographing the unloading of boxes at the port we drove back to Chiang Khong. Over dinner Gong gave us a powerful catch phrase relevant to the development of the Mekong River: ‘democracy you can eat’.