For me, there is nothing that makes doing these tours more worthwhile than to read participant accounts of their journey.

In the grand scheme of things, the tours are not particularly long: 2 or 3 weeks of biking, at the most.  But that’s  long enough to see and experience plenty that leaves an impression.

Anyway, I returned home from the last Tour d’ Indochine (Vietnam and Laos) to find a couple things written by participants:

1. A  letter from Fred Carson to the Lao Ambassador in Washington DC.
2. An account of last year’s Tour d’ Indochine, written by Joan Oppel, appearing in “The Pedal Patter”, the monthly newsletter of the Potomac Pedalers Touring Club.

Below is Fred’s letter.  I’ll put Joan’s lengthier write up in a separate post.

Best,

Bob

here is the article

City ranks bottom in poll of 827 worldwide « Express & Star.

That’s a title that is sure to grab some attention, but Vangvieng is not an accurate representation of Laos.

There are plenty of inner tubes and I imagine a lot more than that.  But Vangvieng is an outpost.  It’s like characterizing the US based on a visit to a water park.

There have been changes over the last 10 years in Laos, but I don’t think you can say that Laos has sold it’s soul either.  The people in the countryside are doing the same thing they have always been doing….harvesting rice, spinning cotton, grinding corn.  Every year I tell people hurry up and go the place is changing, but every year I go back and pretty much the same thing is going on.

We spend most of our time in the countryside.  I notice new buildings every here and there.  I notice people opening up shops.  I notice some of them when they disappear too.  We stop in guesthouses that have installed electric water heaters (instead of a cold bucket showers).   If the last is losing some soul, most people would say “go right ahead, lose it!”

I still think now is the time to go.  I’m about to put Laos on the schedule again for November.

Be glad you didn't go when this pic was taken...huge floods on Mekong!

Don’t fret over Vangvieng.   Ironically, Vangvieng is the one place that hasn’t changed.  It’s the same as it has been for a long time.  The only difference is that there is more of it.

Laos | Laos Travel.

The Sethha Palace in Vientiane and 3 Nagas in Luang Prabang are both high end hotels.  They are not really a good representation of what most of Laos is all about.

We did, however, find a good wine shop on the main drag in Luang Prabang.  I don’t recall the name but someone reading this might.  Here is a picture:

Luang Prabang

Wine on the main drag in Luang Prabang

What I do remember well is our adventures in fine dining on water buffalo.

Like the time Jeff C ordered water buffalo soup at Kem Khan gardens on the banks of the Nam Khan in Luang Prabang.  What Jeff didn’t know, until he had a mouthful, was that the water buffalo in the soup was skin.  Trying to chew water buffalo skin is something like trying to eat a radial tire….a losing proposition.  In Jeff’s case, too tough to chew and too big to swallow.

I also remember, from the Nov 17, 2009 tour, Boun Yang ordering water buffalo steak tartare for breakfast in Pak Mong (picture below) which he graciously offered to share with me.  “Ah, thanks Boun Yang!  but I try not to eat raw meat before 9am.”

Water Buffalo Tartare

Here is the article that inspired all this:

Asia: The really new world of wine

Over the years we have been able to do several things.   Last year, with the aid of Howard Stauffer’s Rotary Club connection, a new school building was built in Ban Vangtang.  In Ban Faen, where we usually have a homestay, not only has a new school building been financed from donations, but new bathrooms and a playing field as well.  Last year, Chantal, with the support of the Canadian Officers Club in Washington DC, raised $6,000 to fund the publication of schoolbooks.

This year, on the Tour d’Indochine, we pooled donations from the group and purchased sets of reading books.  We dropped three sets off at randomly selected schools along our route.  We split the last set up and we each gave individual books to kids we met along the road and/or their parents.

There is a strong sense of community and family in Laos.  Perhaps that is the reason that there is always a certain formality that Loatians demand when you make a contribution, no matter how small it is.  It usually goes something like this:  the school people come outside and line up;  you have to formally present whatever it is you are giving by first bowing your head and and then handing the item to a teacher;  then everyone has to shake hands (men shake hands, but for women, you put your hands together as if praying and bow your head).  They then make some speeches that we can’t interpret and then they like to hear us say things they can’t interpret.   As if this isn’t enough, if they have any advance warning, the kids will dance or put on some kind of performance.  Then there are pictures.

We may not understand much of what is said, but the message is always crystal clear.  They are letting you know that they truly appreciate receiving some books.

Here are some pics of what went down:

Lao Kids

Lao Cycling Tour

Lao Cycling Tour

Lao Cycling Tour

Lao Cycling Tour

Lao Cycling Tour

Lao Cycling Tour

Don had come with us to Laos back in 2005 and was scheduled to come with for the “Tour d’ Indochine” this November.  Don was an avid cyclist and a lover of Southeast Asia.   Some of you will no doubt have read about his return cycling trip through Japan after being away for 40 odd years which appears elsewhere in this blog (see “Don’s Deja Vu”).

I will remember Don as someone who always had a story and who always, always loved to ride.  He was a very strong rider and that only comes about by doing.  Don’s wife, Diny,  said “he was able to to do till the end what he liked best: biking”

Don Rhatigan

Savvy Marketing Is Seen Making Tourist Favorite a Hot Trend in West

By JAMES HOOKWAY
July 30, 2008; Page B8

VIENTIANE, Laos — A Soviet-trained female brewmaster is trying to turn an obscure Laotian lager into the world’s next great cult beer, largely by tapping into the buzz about the brew being carried home by visitors to this small communist country.

The 49-year-old Sivilay Lasachack, who seldom drinks beer, preferring sweet tea instead, thinks her Czech-inspired Beerlao has what it takes to follow in the footsteps of Mexico’s Corona Extra.

[Lasachack Sivilay]

To some, the idea that a Laotian beer might one day be the toast of a cosmopolitan cabal of beer drinkers might not seem very promising. Laos has no brewing tradition to speak of and little international business.

The nation of six million people is nestled between China, Vietnam and Thailand. It has become a trendy destination for backpackers and adventure tourists, in part because of its slow pace and relative lack of exposure to the West.

But Ms. Sivilay, chief brewmaster at Lao Brewery Co. is counting on savvy marketing to overcome the beer’s relatively unimpressive pedigree, in a bid to emulate Corona’s rise to global stardom.

That rise began in the 1970s when Corona’s brewer, Group Modelo SA, noticed that lots of empty bottles of the beer weren’t being returned to distributors for redemption. The reason: After partying the weekends away at Mexican beach resorts, American surfers and college students were taking cases of the beer home with them. In response, Modelo started marketing Corona in a low-key, unconventional way, linking it to memories of sunshine and the beach.

Ms. Sivilay says she concluded Beerlao might find a similar niche after she and her colleagues heard that backpackers who had visited Laos were trying to find the beer when they got back home. “It was just after Laos began opening up to tourism and business in the 1990s,” Ms. Sivilay recalls as she strides down the gantries crisscrossing her shiny, modern brewery.

“A lot of visitors were going home and asking bars and supermarkets for Beerlao, and then local beer distributors began contacting us. That’s when we knew we might have an international brand,” she adds.

Taking in the sunset over the Mekong River while knocking back an ice-cold beer has become a must for visitors to Laos. Along a half-mile stretch of the river in Vientiane, the capital, hundreds of stalls and bamboo-frame restaurants have sprung up to cater to thirsty tourists, providing a unique Asian twist on the German beer hall.

[Despite the fact that most Laotians aren't big beer drinkers, Lao Brewery, which produces Beerlao, is the country's largest taxpayer.]

James Hookway/WSJ

Despite the fact that most Laotians aren’t big beer drinkers, Lao Brewery, which produces Beerlao, is the country’s largest taxpayer.

“There’s nothing like kicking back with a Beerlao,” says Brian Walters, a 23-year-old visitor from Charlotte, N.C., while his companion, 24-year-old Lindsay Stapleton from Denver, waves off a woman trying to sell them some fried grasshoppers to accompany their drinks.

Ms. Sivilay and the rest of Beerlao’s management team are trying to amplify a similar buzz overseas. They appear to be making some progress. Carlsberg AS of Denmark recently doubled its stake in the brewer to 50% and is prepared to put its global distribution chain at Beerlao’s service, company officials say.

But Lao Brewery doesn’t want to come on too strong. Its marketing manager, 47-year-old Bounkanh Kounlabouth, fears that promoting Beerlao too aggressively will scare off its grass-roots following. Instead, he would rather follow Corona’s example of becoming an “accidental” brand. “We don’t want to undermine Beerlao’s word-of-mouth appeal, so for us it is better to let it grow naturally.”

Mr. Bounkanh spends much of his time trying to engineer such an “accident.” Because he is relying on foreign tourists to spread the word about Beerlao, he is promoting the brand heavily in Laos. “We won’t let the competition get a foothold,” Mr. Bounkanh says.

The next step: Bringing Beerlao to the rest of the world. The beer is already sold in several major markets, including Britain, Australia, Japan and the U.S.

“We were a bit skeptical at first,” says James Morgan, a director at British distributor Milestone Point Ltd. “But it’s one of the few brands where the customer seeks it out rather than the other way round.”

Beerlao is winning fans in the U.S., too. Paul Sher, general manager at one of the beer’s U.S. distributors, H.C. Foods Co. Ltd. in Commerce, Calif., says Beerlao is picking up some momentum at supermarkets and other outlets.

Beerlao’s rise has followed an unusual path. Most Laotians aren’t big beer drinkers. In fact, Lao Brewery was founded by French and Lao businessmen in 1971 mostly to slake the thirst of French colonists.

After the Vietnam War, Laos’s new communist rulers sent the country’s best and brightest for training in physics, medicine and other disciplines in communist states in Eastern Europe. Ms Sivilay was assigned to study brewing and spent six years in what was then Czechoslovakia learning from Prague’s master brewers.

Ms. Sivilay’s big break came shortly after she returned to Vientiane to work at Lao Brewery, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the financial lifeline to the brewery’s Soviet sponsor cut, its managers turned to her to keep the brewery going.

Her first move was to introduce rice to replace some of the imported grains which the brewery could no longer afford. Mixing the mash by hand, she also began recycling yeast-a trick she learned in Prague-and brought Beerlao much closer to a classic European pilsner. Sales figures are hard to come by in Laos’s state-run economy, but Lao Brewery currently produces 200 million liters of beer a year, and it is the country’s biggest taxpayer.

Ms. Sivilay says these days she rarely needs to taste a beer to see if it is any good. “I smell it and see how the head settles in the glass to judge whether it’s a good beer,” she says. “The tourists seem to like it though.”

As do some international beer judges. Ms. Sivilay’s brew has won a string of prizes, including honors at international beer competitions in Moscow and Prague, and she hopes Beerlao will one day put her tiny country on the map.

“The judges often say ‘We love your beer, but where is your country?’ We hope to change that,” she says.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@awsj.com

Many Far and Away “alumni” and friends contributed items, placed bids, made unsolicited donations of cash and/or attended the Wine and Cheese Party. A big “thanks!” goes to them and to all the many organizations and people that supported the cause.

The amount raised is sufficient to publish two new books and sponsor several book parties for children in Laos, most of whom have never before seen a reading book.

The auction will be on-line. All you have to do is register. You can watch items, enter proxy bids, do searches for items, etc etc.

It is all set to start this week. Sign up for the Far and Away Newsletter to make sure you get the official notification. You can do that on the main Far and Away website.

Auction