Picture(s) of the Week 27.10.14 – The Corridor of Opportunity
By Tessa Bunney on 27 October 2014I recently travelled on a new stretch (for me) of the Nam Ou river from Hatsa downstream to Sampan, in Phongsaly province. The trip was quite remarkable, it always is, you never know what you will see, but this trip was particularly so.
In Phongsaly province there are at least 28 different ethnic groups out of the officially recognised 49 in Laos, each with their own cultures, traditions, costumes and languages. In the area north of Hatsa the villages are a mix of Hmong, Laoseng and Tai Lue. Along the Nam Ou south of Hatsa, there are many small roadless Khmu villages some with only a handful of houses, no schools, shops or medical facilities, most of them having moved down from the mountains at the Government’s request relatively recently. They are now waiting for the Government to tell them when to move back up the mountains away from the river due to the construction of the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project Dam 5.
Renowned for their superior basket weaving skills, the Khmu belong to the Mon-Khmer language group considered to be the original inhabitants of Laos and are the largest ethnic minority with many sub-groups resident in all provinces of Northern Laos.
We spent a couple of days following a small market which travels each month along the river with products to sell local people. I’d thought the villagers would be selling their produce but in fact the traders were mainly selling every kind of Chinese and Vietnamese product that one might need – like biscuits and flip flops, washing powder and pants. Makes sense, why would you want to buy a cucumber when you grow your own. The enterprising local woman selling noodle soup on the beach did a roaring trade.
Their business has been somewhat hampered by the fact that Dam 5 has blocked the river north of Sampan so you have to leave the river and take local transport along new roads created by the Dam project and catch another boat the other side. As the river is also blocked by Dam 6 north of Hatsa, it makes the 78 km journey rather more arduous and time-consuming than in the past – the days of the long distance boatmen are already over. Some enterprising boatmen have spent their compensation money on buying a bus to take advantage of these new roads.
Anyway, on our way back to find a place to stay, our boat was flagged down by a heavily pregnant woman who wanted a lift because she needed to see a monk to undertake a ceremony for an easy birth.
In amongst and surrounded by trees, Mouanghoun is a predominantly Lao, and therefore a Buddhist, village and whilst some of the minorities are also Buddhist this is the only village along a large stretch of the Nam Ou with its own resident monks at the temple.
The local villagers are very upset at the prospect of moving their village due to the Dam project – their beautiful temple has been there for 480 years and they feel it cannot be moved.
In the morning it was an early rise to catch the alms giving ceremony (tak bat) as the older villagers give out sticky rice to the monks for their one meal of the day. This is an ancient, religious tradition and those who give alms earn merit for their next life.
There was one more even more remarkable story along this stretch of river but I’m saving that for another day – I need to go back and dig deeper.