Trucking, Keeping on Trucking

Yesterday, Friday 30 January 2009 was another great day here in Isaan. Although we had not planned anything special for the day, the day became memorable for several reasons.

After we did our grocery shopping, we drove out to Tahsang Village to visit family and to deliver the "Kwan" DVD. As we arrived at the village, Kwan was outside as usual with her grandmother and two other relatives. We had gotten there in time for her bath. Her grandfather brought out a black plastic tub of water that had been left out into the sun to warm and placed it on the wooden platform that serves as Kwan's playpen as well as community center. Kwan thoroughly enjoyed her short bath.

Kwan's bath and our visit brought out many villagers. Duang had purchased some fast food in Kumphawapi so in no time at all there were 5 other people sitting around eating and socializing. "Fast food" in Kumphawapi is food such as chicken noodle soup, fried rice, and such that is for sale from a "restaurant" on the sidewalk. The food is very good and very cheap. It is take -away food - take away in small plastic bags.

After everyone had finished eating, including Kwan, we viewed the DVD at Duang's parents house. Kwan's reaction made the entire effort well worth while. She recognized herself and went crazy over the music. She sat cross legged on the tile floor and danced by bouncing up and down in sync with the music - one English song and two Lao songs. At one point she stood up on her own without any additional support and squatted up and down three times to the beat before a big squat on her bottom to the floor. She is just learning to stand and is apparently ready for a quantum leap to dancing.

Duang's sixteen year old cousin who is a local dancing machine dropped by just as the big local song was playing. The song is about eating snails "Hoy" but "Hoy" is also a term to refer to part of the female anatomy (kind of like oyster or clam in English). Isaan entertainment tends to be rather bawdy and the popularity of this song is a testament to the fact. The song is kind of like "Louie Louie" - when it is played the party really begins!

Anyhow, I put on my ski toque from my last trip to Yellowsone in January 2006 and showed Duang's cousin some of my latest Isaan dance moves - bouncing up and down while alternating rapid stomps with each leg. The knitted hat is part of the Isaan dress code for men and women in Isaan and the dance moves are what the young people do to hard driving songs such as "Hee Hoy". We all had a good laugh especially when we noticed Kwan sitting on the floor moving her legs in imitation.

After our visit, we headed back to Kumphawapi to visit Duang's daughter. As we drove along the heavily rutted roads, we passed many heavily laden trucks hauling harvested sugar cane to the local sugar refinery on the edge of Kumphawapi. Somewhat similar to the "Good Ol Boys" of the USA with their gun racks in their pickup trucks, I typically carry my backpack of camera gear on our forays out into the countryside. Yesterday was no exception.

I pulled into the large flat staging area just outside of the refinery. The large field was about 50% filled with trucks loaded with sugar cane. Along the edge of the road headed into Kumphawapi, people had set up booths selling fruit, drinks, and prepared food to the truckers.

I have written before about the sugar cane harvest and the trucks clogging up as well as destroying the local roads. This blog has a picture of a typical rig. When the trucks arrive at the staging area of the refinery, they log in and wait their turn to enter and discharge their cargo. I had seen this before in Brasil in conjunction with the soybean harvest and shipping port of Paranagua. During the height of the soybean harvest, on a trip to the port, I saw 22 km (12 miles) of loaded trucks parked bumper to bumper alongside the road from the port, through town and up into the mountains awaiting their turn to be offloaded. I was told that the drivers had to wait up to 5 days for their turn. It is the same here at the staging yard - sit and wait. The men sleep in their trucks just like in Brasil.

The staging yard for the sugar cane trucks was covered in about 5 cm (2 inches) of an extremely fine iron rust red powder. The main path through the yard had been watered down in a vain attempt at dust control. Near the guardhouse/tally office of the yard, some truckers were sitting around drinking - soft drinks, and tea.

I ended up going over to photograph them and talk to them - mostly through Duang. They were very friendly - most likely happy for someone new to talk to. I suspect that had already heard each other's stories several times. I found out later from Duang that they had been waiting three days. They wanted her to talk to me about me buying the refinery. They had been waiting three days because the refinery is owned and managed by Chinese people. We had Chinese new Year at the beginning of the week so the refinery had not been functioning well. They believe that falang owner would do a better job.

I took photos of them relaxing and joking. One man wanted to be sure that I got his photo with his mustache - or rather his Isaan facsimile of a mustache. Lao Loum men are not very hairy. His mustache was a few straggly wisps of hair sort of like Genghis Khan. Earlier he had touched my hairy arms. I tried to get 5 baht from him for the privilege but he knew I was only joking. I do that all the time now - no point in getting upset over invasion of my space or privacy - they mean no harm. When people come up and touch the hair on my arms I ask for 5 baht and then tell them that touching the hair on other places of my body will cost them more. Since I have a smile on my face and a twinkle in my eye, they quickly realize that I am only joking. From that point I get to take their photographs with them thoroughly relaxed.

I got even with Mr Mustache yesterday. After he ran his fingers over the few hairs to straighten it out, I set up to take the shot, stopped looked at my camera, looked at the front of the lens, walked up to within 12 inches of him and squinted at his mustache - his buddies went crazy laughing! He laughed too.

The men said that the harvest will last two more months. I asked if they were going to fix the roads when they were done. I mentioned that the local politician said the road would be fixed in four months. One of the drivers told me that I could go report bad roads to the police.

I told him my limited Thai that I didn't like the police - police see me and they want 200 Baht (typical fine for any number of driving offenses - real or imagined). I told them that police like to drink beer. When they drink beer each time they drink a new bottle they say "Thank you foreigner". The truckers roared. They enjoyed the joke completely.

It was time for us to move on. We had miles, I mean kilometers to go, before we sleep. The truckers invited us back.

We went on to visit Duang's daughter and another surprise - a woman was in the rice paddy looking for ... the subject of the next blog