The land of the rising sun has provided us with many things over the last two days. Delicious sushi and beer, orderly street crossings and clean air to name just a few. But one of the most exciting things for flashpackers like us has to be the uncensored and incredibly high-speed internet we have at our hostel. We have had our Mainland Southeast Asia highlight video finished for weeks but despite having a VPN we were unable to get it past the Chinese censors and uploaded to Vimeo.  Check it out below, and if you have not yet seen the first two episodes you can check them out here.

Also be sure to to check out our guest post on the Art of Backpacking here.  The post details our experiences and features some of our best pictures from Expo 2010 in Shanghai.  We will soon have a post here highlighting the different sustainability efforts we saw at the Expo, but this post gives our overview and recommendations if you are planning a visit to Shanghai and the Expo.  Be sure to leave a comment on Art of Backpacking with your thoughts.

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1. Out of the Comfort Zone (and into the Water)
2. Buddha’s Wisdom
3. Secret Doors in Shanghai

Looking to learn something new, Keith and I stumbled upon a one day silk dyeing and weaving class at the Ock Pop Tok Living Gallery in Luang Prabang, Laos.  Our goal was to walk away with two presentable silk placements made with our own hands.  The class began with a cup of tea and a tour of the Gallery’s garden and the plants that the staff uses to make natural dyes for their silks.  Then the hard work began.

Our first job was to crush and boil the natural pigments.  For orange silk, we used the seeds from the Annatto tree. Once the dyes were boiled, the raw, white silk threads were dipped and soaked in the liquid until it turned into the desired shade.

Next we learned how to reel the newly dyed silk threads onto the spools used in the looms’ shuttles.  This was harder than it looks – the thread must be spun only in the center of the spool and you have to be careful not to catch and break the threads. We didn’t exactly master this phase of the class and eventually our instructors sent us to lunch while they finished the job.

After a delicious traditional Laos lunch, the weaving began.  It was a little tricky at first, but once we found the zen-like rhythm of sliding the shuttle through the warp (the lengthwise threads stretched across the loom) and mastered the foot pedals, weaving the solid parts of the placements wasn’t too hard.  Then came the pattern.

To add a pattern to our placements, we followed the blueprint for the motif which is held in the rows of the heddle, the series of white strings that pass vertically through the warp.  Each row of the pattern is then transferred to the silk cloth by raising the warp strings.  With the very kind and patient assistance of our instructors, we painstakingly wove our way through each patterned row.

Some four hours later, our placements were finally complete.  While I think we did a pretty good job for our first weaving efforts, I don’t think professional weaver is a viable career alternative for when we return home.  Besides, where would be put the looms?

Be sure to check out the rest of our photos from Laos.

Related posts:

1. Stopping to Smell the Non-Timber Forest Products in Laos
2. Panning for Gold in Laos
3. Morning Alms Procession

Are those boys are panning for gold?  I learned, while kayaking on the Nam Ou River in Laos near Luang Prabang, that in fact they were.   Many of the poor rural villagers in this area practice small-scale artisanal gold mining.  The average family finds 24 grams of gold through panning at the river during the 4-month dry season (January-April)[1].  In Laos, where the per capita GDP is $1,776[2], that additional $850 represents a significant increase in income for these poor rural families.   With the chance of such significant financial rewards it should not have surprised me that there are some people willing to take substantial health risks looking for it.

One of the most surprising aspects were men that walk along the riverbed using homemade “scuba” systems. I observed this firsthand while kayaking in the middle of the river, 25 meters from shore.  As I paddled over a bubbly patch of river I looked over to shore and saw a bamboo raft, on top of which was an air compressor with a plastic tube running from it into the water.  I asked our kayaking guide, why were the villagers putting air into the river?  He told me that there was a “diver” attached to the other end of the tube and he was collecting sand for gold panning.  I was at first impressed by the ingenuity while also remembering from my PADI scuba certification that air from a standard air compressor can be very dangerous.   The air fed to the “diver” by these petrol-powered compressors is filled with exhaust fumes and dangerous carbon monoxide.

While most of the gold panning on the Nam Ou is done by local villagers, there is also an increasing presence of larger, more commercial efforts.  These are marked by the use of heavy machinery that is able to move significant amounts of earth on the banks of the river.  And while the villagers have been panning for gold on the Nam Ou for at least 25 years, these industrial scale operations are new in the last couple of years.  My guide informed me that the larger scale efforts are largely Chinese, permitted by the Laos government to mine the river in exchange for building badly needed infrastructure projects such as roads and schools.

With much of rural Laos being industrialized by the Chinese, it is only a mater of time before the quiet beauty of this mountainous country is transformed forever.  There is no doubt that Laos is changing fast.  For those looking to experience its laid back charms, now is the time to visit.  I was encouraged and inspired to travel to Laos due in part to Kathy Dragon from TravelDragon.  I had the good fortune to make her acquaintance through my work at J&J and she shared with me her amazing pictures and stories from her own travels to Laos.  She insisted that Laos was changing very quickly and to be sure to made it there soon.  I am very glad we did.

Related posts:

1. Stopping to Smell the Non-Timber Forest Products in Laos
2. New Found Freedom
3. Weaving Our Way Through Laos

One of the amazing traditions in Luang Prabang, Laos is the early morning procession of the monks to collect alms, which they will later eat for breakfast.  We managed to get up around 6 am three of the mornings we were there to witness the procession.  The pictures below are some of our favorites.

Related posts:

1. Weaving Our Way Through Laos
2. Panning for Gold in Laos
3. Glorious Japanese Fish

In Vang Vieng, Laos, Keith and I had the happy coincidence of running into Gillian and Jason from one-giant-step.com.  We spent the next few days together exploring caves, kayaking down the Nam Song River and just hanging out enjoying the sunsets behind the karsts.  Perhaps our greatest adventure was learning how to ride a scooter and going out on our own to explore some of the caves and waterholes off the beaten tourist path.

Having never really ridden on a scooter before, Keith and I jumped at the chance to learn from people with experience.  While Jason gave Keith a lesson on how to drive the bike, I suited up in my jeans, facemask and bubblegum pink helmet.  Not exactly the most stylish outfit, but I enjoy keeping the skin on my body intact and my lungs dust-free.

It didn’t take long for Keith to get the hang of the bike and soon the four of us were off on the quiet dirt roads that branch out to the west of town.  The roads were bumpy and dusty, but with almost no other traffic.  And while the fact that no one drives faster than 30 or 40 kilometers per hour can be incredibly frustrating on long, hot bus rides, the slow speeds make riding a scooter an easy experience even when we had to share the road.

The most amazing part of learning to ride a scooter is the new found freedom we have to just jump on a bike and take off, without having to find public transportation (which is often quite limited) or join a tour group (which are often too big or too expensive).  For the first time in five months on the road, we were completely on our own schedule, able to spend as much or as little time as we wanted at the different sites around town.  Having this freedom will transform how we travel through the rural parts of northern Laos and Thailand.  Those sites that once seemed too obscure or difficult to get to are now easily within our reach.

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1. Panning for Gold in Laos
2. Fun-filled Victoria, B.C.
3. Stopping to Smell the Non-Timber Forest Products in Laos

After three months on the road in Southeast Asia, moving from city to city every three or four days, Keith and I made the decision to slow down the pace of our travel.  Part of our decision was rooted in the sheer exhaustion that comes from having to constantly find a new place to stay, figure out how we’re going to get there and learn the lay of a new city.  But an even bigger part of our decision to trim down our itinerary was based on our experience in Phnom Penh, where spending a few extra days allowed us to connect with the expat community and learn about all the amazing sustainability efforts under way in Cambodia.

The opportunity to find out about local efforts in sustainability presented itself yet again in Vientiane, Laos as we spent an afternoon wandering around the sleepy capital city.  Outside the market we spied a poster on the bulletin board for a presentation about non-timber forest products in Laos.  The speaker, Joost Foppes, is a consultant on rights based approaches at Village Focus International.  The presentation, sponsored by a women’s expat group, was planned for that evening at a local bookstore.  Having plenty of time in Vientiane, we figured why not check it out?  We’re glad we did.

Foppes’ presentation focused on the issue of food security in Laos, where Chinese developers are quickly buying up forested land in order to extract and export natural resources back to China.  In local villages, much of what is eaten (other than rice) is taken from the forest.  This unique wild food culture, where 80% of the population is dependent upon wild foods for sustenance, is linked to the incredible bio-diversity of Laos.  The destruction of this bio-diversity has implications that go far beyond the environment; the economic value of the non-timber forest products eaten by villagers is equivalent to 32% of Laos GDP.  A more astounding statistic is that the replacement cost for these products is estimated at 120% of current Laos GDP.

The unsustainable deforestation resulting from the export of natural resources is creating the need to replace the food and non-timber forest products that nature provides for free at a cost that is greater than the country’s current GDP. Foppes illustrated this fact with the case of the new Nam Theun II hydroelectric plant.  The controversial plant was built to produce electricity for export to Thailand.  Only a minimal amount of the production remains in Laos, and the cost to the local food system is substantial. For example, the annual economic value of the fish that have been lost since completion of the hydroelectric plant is estimated to be $1.6 million.  However, the cost to replace the nutritional value those fish provide each year as food to local villagers turns out to be $7.4 million.

We saw firsthand just how important local fish are to the villagers of Laos.  While kayaking on the Nam Song River outside of Vang Vieng, we witnessed local village boys armed with masks and spears fishing for food.  They weren’t out on the river for fun; they were hungry and the fish they find will provide the sustenance they and their families need to survive.   By taking the time to learn about the issues of non-timber forest products in Laos, what might have been just another quaint photo opportunity was transformed into a meaningful face-to-face interaction with a pressing environmental issue and the people effected by it most.

Related posts:

1. Panning for Gold in Laos
2. Weaving Our Way Through Laos
3. Finding an Australian Solar City