20 Sept
Two days ago I breezed through Bangkok and Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, before crossing the Mekong River to Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), specifically the riverside town of Thakek, and inward to Gnommalat where I currently am.
Nakhon Phanom looks uncannily like Jaro, Iloilo on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or Lucena in Quezon, with far fewer cars. The streets are narrow but navigable and clean. The houses lining the streets are typically of town center flavor: on the ground floor stands a small neighborhood grocery or some local service – locksmith, seamstress and what-have-you, and a second storey presumably used for residence. Balconies are scattered here and there, in a type of architecture that appears to be authentic Thai. The corner shop is almost always a local drugstore. Nearby on the riverbank is a ten-floor hotel for visitors like me and others waiting for the ferry to Laos. In front of the hotel is a tiangge, where you can find used rubber shoes (ukay!), children’s toys and an assortment of street food such as dried squid, boiled eggs on a stick and chopped roasted chicken. A local Baclaran, if you may. To get to the tiangge you have to risk your life in a way, what with the speeding motorcycles criss-crossing the road. Not for the faint of heart.
Nakhon Phanom is rural – certainly not Bangkok – but you can’t mistake it for being backward. It moves in a pace that seems to satisfy its people, and does not compromise their quality of life. It seems to be a happy, bustling place that has nonetheless decided to remain laidback and easy.
21 Sept
Meanwhile, Thakek on the other side of the Mekong is…a forgotten place. On the riverbank is a small office where non-Asian foreigners, their long-sleeved dress shirts wet with sweat and suede shoes half covered in red mud, queue in front of a tiny office to get their visas on arrival.
The town isn’t rundown by any means, unlike the abused blighted sections of Manila. But the empty, dust-filled buildings tell a story, one of seeming disregard and possibly - dare I say it - helplessness.
Now though, Thakeklooks to be rebuilding itself. Or at least trying to. This rebuilding is brought about by the same thing that brought me here: the Nam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project.
21 Sept
pm
Being a project manager, or pretending to be one, is pretty tough. Especially if you’re doing for the first time and you haven’t had any training whatsoever.
I’m not supposed to be here, not really. By some twist of fate, our original project manager for this project was pirated by our client’s contractor; I now deal with her from the other side of the negotiating table so to speak. And again, through sheer luck – or misfortune – the replacement manager gave birth just as we were about to embark on our first mission. So here I am, plucked from my desk job and thrown to this strange land. Not that I’m complaining. This is the kind of work environment I want to be in for the most part of my life. But the manner through which I got here is somewhat confusing. And greatly embarrassing at various points, given that I’m working with extremely experienced consultants (whose work I’ve actually used as reference in my graduate thesis and other papers), an international contractor and the Government of Lao, on a World Bank-funded, billion-dollar, high-profile project that has caught the ire of and been endlessly criticized by national governments and organizations the likes of International Rivers Network and no less than the UN Commission on Human Rights. I’m an inexperienced neophyte, so yeah, this is freaking me out a teensy bit.
23 Sept
I am dying of hunger here. The Laotian diet and I definitely do not mix. I’ve never seen so much fish and vegetables in my life! And the dishes are full of MSG, too. Dear lord I do not want to get cancer. Even the junkfood is a downer. For some reason the Pringles here are different from those back home. They’re thicker, smaller and rather tasteless.
As a result, I’ve been eating bread and feta cheese. Plus lots and lots of salad. And the occasional beef at the overpriced French restaurant near the staff houses. The other day we bought suha, lanzones (imported from Thailand) and melon, so that was good. But overall, I miss the gluttonous diet of Pinoys. Hay.
