*DUST*
from Rachael’s journal, written on the bus
Phonsavanh to Vientiane, Laos
We were right! The VIP bus had reclining seats with arm rests, swathes of apple green curtains bordered with yellow tassles and even air-conditioning ducts (not that they worked). The bus also travelled faster than a local. And this accentuated the winding nature of the road considerably. While we had not particularly noticed the twists and turns on our way in to Phonsavanh, we couldn’t miss them on the 3 1/2 hours of road back-tracking out again. Two rounds of plastic bags were handed out and even Mrs Iron Stomach here wondered if she would end up using one!
The day started in a thick mist and not long into the journey a sharp application of brakes startled us and sent the plastic stools in the aisle to the front of the bus; coming towards us on the wrong side of the road was an old wooden cart, and on the other side, preventing the bus from drifting too far into the other lane, were two young children on bicycles. We gripped the seats a little more tightly for some time.
The road level mist cleared and we found ourselves above the clouds again. No-one commented. No-one grabbed cameras. No-one even cared. Overcome by wave of windy-road-nausea, it was unfortunately too difficult to admire the grandeur spread before us.
But later we would. We would see new majestic mountains quite different to the others so far. These looked taller, steeper, with sheer cliff faces and the sun’s rays were beaming down like a waterfall between the ridges. Sheets of sunlight such as I have never seen before cascaded down the mountains, transforming the dark shadows.
At the base of the hills were, as we have come to expect, rice paddies. But these were not the many-hued green paddies we first encountered six weeks ago. Neither were they simply the used brown. Some of the fields were brown, but tinged with the green of new growth sprouting out the top of the stalks. Some sections had been burned black, others were dark muddy brown where the soil had been turned over in large clods. There was even an occasional already-waterlogged field, and the further south we travelled, the more of these we saw.
In stark contrast to the dusty brownness everywhere were the trays of bright green seedlings, often protected by wire netting or woven bamboo – I presume these were rice seedlings awaiting transplanting in the paddies.
Did I just mention dust? We passed through DUST. Everyone walking or cycling along the road had their shirts pulled up over their faces. It’s no wonder the houses stay shuttered-up all day long. In one village the dust covered the ground, the plants by the roadside (right to the very top of the banana palms there wasn’t a speck of green to be seen), even the roofs of the houses (judging by the sides of the tiles, one house had a bright bright blue roof, but the dust was so thick, no other colour was showing through the brown).
And so the brown houses with brown tables outside on the brown earth surrounded by brown rice paddies provided the backdrop for brown chickens and naked brown children to run through.
Suddenly the brown scene was interrupted by a staccato shot of green. A dozen paddies, cleared, turned, watered and planted were now sitting in the surrounding still-brown fields exuding greenness. Such fields would punctuate the rest of the trip in to the world’s quietest capital city, Vientiane.
It seemed a fitting contrast to notice as we head away from small-town and rural Laos, back towards the big city of Bangkok. I wonder if we will see it through different eyes this time, coming from a month of erratic water, sticky rice cooked over an open fire and dust, instead of from a month of gourmet dining in Malaysia like the first time. We’ll see.
Tags: housing, postcard: Laos, transport
rayres
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