Laos Part 3-Haiter

When I was planning the trip to Laos I was advised that I would need security for the trip to Haiter, but not to worry because it would be arranged by the villagers in Ban Nadi. Accordingly, I had left it to my interpreter to arrange and concerned myself with other logistical and technical issues. I retrospect I realize that I didn’t know what I to expect in terms of security at the time, but I do know that I was not expecting what showed up. Our muscle for the trip was four guys, probably about 18-20 years old, each toting ancient Chinese-made machine guns. They didn’t look particularly menacing, but they did look careless, and they spoke no English. It was not a comfortable feeling.

The team I was responsible for had swelled to thirteen people at this point, including two drivers that and our newly acquired muscle. We drove about 20 minutes south out of Ban Nadi until the the road ended. I instructed the drivers to meet us back there in two days' time. The drivers departed and I briefed the team on our objectives and on my expectations as far as safety was concerned. They guys packing the heat seemed to pay attention, but I was still nervous as we set off into the bush.

It turned out I had little reason to be concerned. Apart from wandering off the trail at times (I think in an attempt to find bush meat) and leaving the slower people behind, they were model team members. They were clearly not acquainted with the finer points of weapons safety but they walked with the safeties on and mostly avoided pointing their weapons at other people. Under the circumstances I couldn’t have reasonably expected better.

The walk was mostly downhill but through many twists an turns and several short steep inclines that required scrambling on all fours. The further down we went the hotter and more humid it got. It was tough going . By the time we stopped for lunch we had gotten through most of our water and we weren’t even halfway to Haiter. I filtered water from a nearby stream while the rest of the team prepared lunch. When I got back the muscle had made mats of banana leaves and laid the food out on them. Everything was left over and cold, but we were hungry and didn’t care. As I was serving myself some rice I noticed the regional power agency representative to my left gnawing on something odd-looking. I realized it was rooster’s head. He had fished it out of soup bowl and was chewing the comb off the top of the head. I looked down at the banana leaf where what used to be two chicken’s feet lay in front of him. He had stripped the skin off the feet, sucked the connective tissue out of the joints, and I’m not sure but it looked like he might have gnawed on one of the spurs for a while before giving up.

This experience illustrates the Lao attitude on food. I was ready for all sorts of weird gastronomic experiences and was fully prepared to be asked to eat things I wouldn’t feed to my dogs back home. But I had always assumed that this was because that type of food was all that was available. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s not an issue of not being able to obtain or afford “good” food; everything on the leaves that day was free to the chicken head-eating government official. It wasn’t a matter of his being poor and therefore accustomed to sub-standard food either, because he was a relatively high ranking government official with a reasonably comfortable salary by Lao standards. There was plenty of “good” food available to this guy, but he was eating rooster combs and chicken gristle because he wanted to eat it. I don’t know about the rest of Asia but in Laos eating weird things isn’t a matter of survival, it’s a matter of tradition and preference.

They don’t waste much at all, but it’s not like they polish their plates at every meal either. In fact there were leftovers at every meal while I was in the countryside but they just re-serve uneaten food at the following meals until it’s eaten. What little material they consider unfit for human consumption they recycle as animal feed. I can’t recall seeing anything thrown away while I was there, but the Lao do not permit frugality to dominate their approach to food. They’ve worked out a system that is efficient without being draconian. My only advice to Western travelers in the Lao bush is to bring an open mind, plenty of snacks, and Immodium.

The trail to Haiter got steeper the closer we got. We walked around large patches of forest that the locals were burning to make way for new rice fields this season. When we finally got there, Haiter turned out to be far and away the most primitive place I saw in Laos. The only sources of domestic water were the Nam Sanh and an open bamboo pipe running down from the mountain. There were no toilet facilities at all, not even a designated latrine area, so you had to watch your step because of human and animal waste alike. We stayed with the village chief and his family as we had in Ban Nadi. His house was on stilts like the ones in Ban Nadi, which kept the living quarters out of the dust and filth from the free roaming livestock on the ground level. However, almost half the houses in the village were built on the ground and had dirt floors. There was no way to keep contaminated runoff out of these dwellings. Some of the women walked around half naked, and several children had not a stitch on. It was like something out of National Geographic. Thankfully we had no problems out of the Hmongs, but we got some pretty piercing stares from some of the residents. I found myself glad to have the muscle with us, and was relieved when we hiked out the next morning.

The way out of Haiter was just about all straight uphill. We took frequent breaks which afforded the locals in the team plenty of time to forage in the bushes. By the time we got back to the pick-up point they had filled 3 plastic bags full of edible flowers, and had snacked liberally on other fruits and berries along the way. They had also picked up some traditional medicinal plants with the aim of selling them later. Thankfully the trip finished without incident and we arrived back in Ban Nadi in time for dinner, which consisted of sticky rice and steamed flowers. The next day we would be leaving for good, so I really took time to enjoy the company of the chief and his family. They had shown us great hospitality over the preceding week, and I was a little sad to pack up my things and leave the next morning.

Photos:

1. The trail to Haiter.

2. A Lao-style trail lunch, and the site of the rooster head-chewing incident.

3. Overlooking the Nam Sane valley near Haiter. The haze is from deliberately set forest fires burning off camera to the right, below us.

4. Identifying fish caught by the locals for us in Haiter. After we identified them they were quickly cooked and eaten.

Laos Part 1-Vientiane and Phonsavanh

I haven't written at all until now about work, because really who wants to read about someone else's boring job? But in March ERM sent me to the People's Democratic Republic of Lao, or Laos as we know it. It was an unusual assignment to say the least, so I'm breaking with my heretofore reluctance to talk about work to give ya'll some of the highlights.

I have to admit to being more than a little apprehensive about the coming fortnight when I got on the plane in Perth. I was being sent to a mountainous region in Laos to basically act as a biological detective, figuring out as much as I could about the aquatic biology and habitat in the region as well as local fishing practices. Sounds like a peachy assignment right?

Maybe. The adventure and challenge aspects of it appealed to me but as I began my descent into Singapore for my first of two connections the reality of what I was about to attempt began to penetrate. First, there was the basic headache associated with getting there. You have to take three flights through three countries just to get to Vientiane, the Lao capital. Then it was another flight up to the mountains, a day's drive from the airport higher into the mountains, then another day's trek through higher mountains yet along a river where waterfalls have killed people as recently as last year, and that was just the first half of the trip. Suffice to say it was more than a walk around the corner, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

On the way from Singapore to Bangkok I had time to ponder the unknowns surrounding my assignment. I couldn't speak one word of the language. I had never met the people I was going to work with (and on whom I would be nearly completely dependent. We had no accomodations arranged in the outlying areas we would be visiting because tradition dictates that travellers arrange accomodations in each village with the village chief on arrival. Even if you wanted to arrange things ahead of time there is no reliable way of contacting some of these places from the outside, so it doesn't matter. I was also going to be doing biological field work in an area where I knew exactly zero about the local flora and fauna, so if my local contacts weren't hotshots the team's professional credibility would be on shaky ground. Speaking figuratively I wasn't going to be off the edge of the map, but I'd be be very close.

One the way from Bangkok to Vientiane I considered that ignorance might might be a good thing, because what I did know was more frightening than what I didn't. Laos has the dubious distinction of having been bombed more intensely per capita through history than any other country on Earth. It is wedged between Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar (the former Burma), and Vietnam, and China isn't far to the north. All of its neighbors have at one point or another waged military campaigns in, over, or through Laos. A long history of home-grown conflict coupled with foreign interference on the southeast Asian penninsula by the USSR, China, French, and the US over two major wars has rendered unexploded ordinance shockingly common in Laos, and leftover bombs still kill people in the area I would be working in. I also knew that the Hmong ethnic group was active in the most remote village to which I would be traveling. They are armed and don't like the government very much, and we would have government officials with us.

Vientiane is a city with an identity crisis. Half of it is a crumbling relic of the fervent communist imperialism of the middle 1900's. This part looks as if an army of Soviet barracks builders with unlimited supplies of concrete built the entire city in about three weeks back in the 70's, then packed up and took off and nobody has even washed the buildings, let alone engage in any substantive maintenance since. It looks bad, and thanks to the open sewers on the roadside it smells worse. The other half is composed primarily of brightly colored, ornately decorated Buddhist temples which are cleaned fastidiously by the monks. The temples and monastaries are as vibrant as the rest of the city is dull, and far cleaner than the neighborhoods that surround them.

As you probably have gathered by now Vientiane lacks many of the conveniences you might expect to find in a western capital, but the place has no shortage of character. Laos' long history of foreign occupation means its capital has been home to expatriates from all over the world. As a result Vientiane has a surprisingly diverse selection of ethnic food, particulary along the Mekong riverfront. You can sit and have a German beer with a Chinese, French, Indian, or American-style dinner while overlooking a traditional Laotion food market against the backdrop of Thailand on the far shore. The fact that many of the same seats in the same food stalls that I and other consultants and travellers were in were occupied up until 20 0r 30 years ago mostly by spies and mercenaries only added to the mystique.

I'm also pleased to report that the omnipresent foreign influences in Vientiane do not appear to have overly diluted the indigenous Buddhist culture. You can't walk a block in any direction without encountering a shrine, temple, or monastery. Even though Laos is communist and fundamental communism officially discourages overt religious activity, monks in saffron robes walk the streets freely accepting alms. Ancient wooden bells chime from the temples throughout the day and monks chant prayers over loudspeakers from behind the monasterys' walls. Prayer flags are hung on the gates and fenceposts along main streets, and the temples and monastaries are open to the public during business hours. In a curious concession to modern culture, the monks have taken to chanting ancient prayers over bass-heavy beats from contemporary rap music. I guess the struggle to stay relevant is universal for religous orders around the world these days.

Some people are around, scurrying about on some errand or another, but Vientiane hardly feels like a national capital. Those people who are around get around mostly on teeny motorbikes or in a curious version of a taxi called a tuk-tuk. A tuk-tuk is best described as half motorbike, half wagon. It's got one front wheel and a bananna seat for the driver like a motorcycle, but the rear of the vehicle consists of two bench seats about four feet long over a pair of rear wheels. There is a tin roof over the back, and passengers climb in and out through the open back. You share the back with as many as eight other passengers and hold on to any handhold you can find for dear life. I would consider tuk-tuks absolute deathtraps except for the fact that I don't think they possess enough power to do any significant damage. Their engines only have one cylinder and the name comes from the tuk-tuk-tuk-sound they make as the single cylinder chugs them down the street.

I didn't have much time in Vientiane; my assingment was to have some brief meetings with government ministers and then get to the remote parts of the country where the real fun could begin. After a day of meetings and tuk-tuk rides, the next morning I caught a short flight to Phonsavanh. Phonsavanh is the gateway to Xieng Khouang province and rest of the wild part of northern Laos. It's the last place to get a decent meal or semi-warm shower. The pavement ends not far from the town's outskirts, and the bombs start showing up in earnest here. I saw them used as fence posts, signage, lanscaping elements of every description, and even support columns on the front of a building. At least the Laotians have a sense of humor about unexploded ordinance; in Phonsavanh two 500 lb bombs form the entrance of a restaurant appropriately named "Craters". After an uneventful evening in Phonsavanh, it was off to the untamed parts of Xieng Khouang the next morning.

Photos:

1. Gateway to a Buddhist temple in Vientiane.

2. Buddhist monks in Vientiane.

3. Dragon statue on the grounds of a monastary in Vientiane. Feeding the statue is supposed to bring good fortune; the little balls of rice visible on the statue's lower jaw have been left by observant Buddhists seeking divine favors.

4. Tuk-tuks.

5. Bombs decorating the entrance to a hotel in Phonsavanh.

6. More bombs in Phonsavanh. How many do you see here? I see six: one used as a sign, another as a picnic table with 2 benches (also made of bombs), one used as column supporting the roof of the front porch, and another just sitting out front.

Samson fish

At one point I mentioned to my Mom that over the last ten years or so a small number of charter boats have begun specializing in jigging for Samson fish on the west side of Rottnest Island. She asked if we could go. She didn’t need to ask twice, I had been waiting to try Sambos as they are called here for some time.

Samson fish are like a freakishly large and strong version of our amberjack. Beyond being larger overall than our amberjack, they are also deeper bodied than our fish which provides them even more strength when they pull sideways. Their name refers to their strength and stamina, which Australians apparently regard as Biblical. The technique is similar to jigging for rockfish on the bay except that everything is several times as big. The jigs are close to 10 inches long. The rods are similar to what you use for tuna. The fish average 40-50 lbs. The reels hold several hundred yards of 50lb braid. The adrenaline rushes when you hook one, and if you catch more than one or two you feel it in your arms and shoulders for days. One of my stouter coworkers told me caught two on a recent trip and then had to lay down in the cabin for the rest of the trip. Now I know why.

On the hour and a half boat ride out to the fishing grounds we got to know the rest of the people on the boat for the day. There was a British guy who had taken a break from driving one of the iconic black cabs in London to tour Australia with his 10 year old son. There were two couples from Victoria, one of whom had recently caught a black marlin out of Cairns but had come to WA to fish for Samson fish after hearing how strong they are. Two others in their party hadn’t done much fishing before and later had to be restrained by the captain to avoid being pulled overboard by their fish. There was a chain smoking miner from Calgoorlie who had clearly done it all before, and jigged so violently that he frothed the water with his line. There was another American who works as a sales rep for one of the major offshore sportfishing yacht companies out of Atlantic City NJ. There was an Aussie teenager who I later realized I had met before at the local tackle shop. He had one of nicest custom rods I’ve ever seen, which he had made himself. Then there were the captain and mate. Between long drags from their pungent hand rolled cigarettes they told stories of week long trips to exotic but fairly close locations like the unsettled portions of the Abrohlos archipelago, and boatside encounters with dangerous bronze whaler sharks.
I’ve caught Yellowfin tuna on 20 lb spinning gear before and that was fun, but Samson fishing is more exciting than any tuna fishing I’ve done. There are many reasons to love Sambo jigging. You have the rod in your hand when the fish strikes so you feel every head shake and tail stroke from start to finish. They are aggressive, often hitting several times before being hooked. One of my Mom’s fish struck so violently that it bent the jig, which is about ½ inch thick and has a steel pin running its length. The initial run is blistering. The Samson fish we caught were about 200 ft deep so the initial run often came very close to spooling the reels. That makes drag adjustment and line management critically important, and makes the fish that much more challenging to catch. Needless to say my Mom and I had a blast. Between the two of us she caught the biggest one, a 44 pound fish. Mine were slightly smaller at around 40 pounds. The biggest fish on the boat was over 70 pounds, but the captain said he’s seen many bigger than that and the record is over 110 pounds. It’s primarily a catch-and-release fishery, but one of the approximately 30 that we caught didn’t make it so we kept that one. It provided enough meat for everyone to take home a good portion, and our portion fed all four of us that night. I never thought of amberjack as being particularly good to eat, but grilled Samson fish is delicious.

Sadly I just recently found out that I may have gotten in on the tail end of the Sambo fishery’s heyday. This year the fish got scarce just after our trip. More worrisome is the fact that lately the sharks have learned that hooked or just-released Sambos are vulnerable, and they are taking increasing numbers of these fish. Many of these fish are large pre-spawn females and the Australian captains pride themselves on taking a conservationist approach toward the fishery. It is critically important to these skippers to minimize mortality in this fishery, but increased mortality from shark attacks has prompted some captains to curtail their fishing activities. I’m thankful for having gotten to experience it, and can only hope that the fleet’s good stewardship is rewarded with many more years of good fishing.

Photos:
1. My Mom with a nice fish.
2. The English kid with as much fish as he can handle.
3. Me with one of mine.
4. The >70 pound (32 kilo) fish; the biggest of the day.
5. The guy from New Jersey. The release apparatus is visible hanging off the left wall of the transom opening, level with the mate’s right hand.

The Holidays

Over the holidays my Mom, sister Erin, and Erin’s boyfriend Zach came down to visit me in Perth. After 5 months of not having seen anyone from home it was great to have them here. Their arrival on Christmas day was a fantastic Christmas present, and one that I had been looking forward to ever since I got here.

We spent the first few days just hanging around Perth. On the first day we checked out King’s Park which overlooks the Swan River and the CBD (Central Business District, it’s what Australians call downtown). King’s Park is Perth’s version of NY City’s Central Park. At over 400 acres, it’s by far the most significant green space within the city, and that’s saying something because you can hardly walk two blocks anywhere in Perth without hitting a park of some sort. It has monuments, open lawns, bushland, fountains, cafes, and elevated glass walkway through the treetops, and botanical gardens. Kings Park was a hit with the family and a quick way to get them adjusted to the climate considering it was about 115 ˚F the day we went and they had just come from winter back in the US. Must have felt like they stepped off the plane and into an oven to them but they came right after a while.

After hanging out in Perth for a few days it was time for an excursion to Rottnest Island. Rotto (as the locals call it) is located several miles off the coast and is completely owned by the government. Like most of Australia’s best real estate, and in fact all of Australia if you go back far enough, Rotto was once a prison. Now the government operates it as a park. The only full-time residents are a ranger, lighthouse keeper, and perhaps a couple of seasonal support staff as needed. Everyone else gets there by ferry, and no private automobiles are allowed so most people get around by bike. Picture a version of Smith Island with clear water, wallabies, and filled with Aussies in bikinis and swimming trunks and you’ve got a fair idea of what Rottnest is like. Rottnest also marks the southern terminus of the Leeuwin Current which brings warm water south, so it supports some of the southernmost corals in the world.

We rented bikes and snorkeling gear and set out to find some snorkeling sites on the west side of the island. After a few stops to snap photos of quokkas (dwarf wallabies that are peculiar to Rotto and a couple of other spots in WA) in the underbrush and views of a couple nearshore shipwrecks we got to our first snorkeling site. We waded in and started swimming toward Africa. The lumps of limestone on the bottom were half covered with macroalgae and coral. There was abundant fish life, consisting mostly of buff bream and various wrasses, parrotfish, and damselfish.

After another bike ride north along the west coast of the island we stopped at another beach. We surprised and ultimately displaced a nude sunbather from a spot next to some limestone cliffs. A brief snorkel was enough to conclude that this beach had nothing new to see, and then we were almost displaced in turn by a dugite (a deadly snake) slithering though the rocks overhead. Fortunately no one got bitten despite some other tourists chasing it and poking at it with sticks. This behavior prompted us to be on our way. We rode back to the main settlement and caught the ferry back to Fremantle after a bite to eat. About halfway through the trip the waves picked up and started to break on the bridge above the passenger cabin. The captain called passengers off the upper deck. The main cabin started to leak, and the projectile vomiting began from some of the less stalwart passengers. We arrived shortly afterward in Fremantle none the worse for wear, but keen to get out of the reeking cabin.

My Mom was keen to drive in a foreign country but we both thought that baby steps were in order, so before her debut in a full size automobile we rented a Scoot car, which is basically a plastic bubble mounted on a backwards trike with training wheels and a windshield. I can’t explain why but these things are street legal, and looked to be the perfect way to introduce my Mom to Aussie rules driving. My Mom drove like a champ, but the episode was not without its more entertaining moments. When we showed up the proprietor of the establishment told us to be careful with the car because it was made in France, which meant it was cute, shoddily constructed, and exceedingly difficult to acquire parts for. He also didn’t relish speaking to the French on the phone. He said a typical conversation with the parts distributor went something like this: Bonjour......G’day mate!.......Bonjour?........Hello, do you speak Strayin?……Silence……….Do you speak English?...........Click……..followed by a dial tone. He then called the French “cheese eating surrender monkeys” admonished us not to take turns at more than 20 km/hr lest the car tip or we fall out, and wished us “Bon Voyage” before disappearing into his office.

During the rest of their vacation we did more things than I have space to write about, and very likely more things than you care to read about. The highlights included going to remote beaches as we worked our way along the southwest coast toward Cape Leeuwin. The Southern and Indian Oceans meet here, and the whole area is in the middle of a travel corridor for white pointers (Great white sharks). Unfortunately at Gracetown Beach we came across a memorial to a surfer who was taken by one there in 2004. Incidentally, Scarborough beach is part of the same corridor and a white pointer ate another guy right in front of some café patrons having their morning lattes about 2 miles south of where I live a couple years back, but nobody really likes to talk about that and I haven’t seen any white pointers yet. We toured the Margaret River wine country which has WA’s premier vineyards. Zach, Erin, and I paddled into a surf break in Yallingup, but we decided that the risk wasn’t worth it when we learned that many locals wear helmets in case they get thrown into a limestone reef that’s about a foot under the water’s surface just in front of the best waves. We saw wild kangaroos. We got up close to wombats, wallabies, Tasmanian devils, potteroos, walleroos, brush tail possums, and other native wildlife at a local wildlife park. We played Supagolf, which is like regular golf but with bigger clubs and balls. It’s a more forgiving variety of the game with all the fun and challenge, but without the pretense, cost, and cursing that often accompanies the regular version. It’s apparently made it to the US but I had never heard of it. If you get a chance to try it, I recommend you do. We accepted rides from strangers and lived to tell the tale. We watched fireworks on New Year’s Eve over the Indian Ocean, and my Mom nearly shot the windows out of a beachside concession stand with a champagne cork. It actually went over building and clanged its way to its current resting place atop the corrugated roof. It was fantastic.

Photos:

1. Left to right: Zach, Erin, my Mom, and me at Kings Park

2. West side of Rotto

3. A quokka

4. Unidentified shipwreck, widely thought to be the Shark, a dredge that broke loose from its mooring in Fremantle in the 1930s and was never recovered (but no one knows for sure)

5. Coral off Rottnest

6. Chasing buff bream off Rottnest

7. Scoot car in Freo

8. Gracetown Beach, one of many perfect beaches with no one on them in SW Australia

9. My Mom gets close to a wild Western gray kangaroo

Kata Tjuta

After the day at Uluru we got up bright and early to catch the sunrise from a sand dune between Uluru and Kata Tjuta. Kata Tjuta is the lesser known part of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. It's a collection of sandsone and conglomerate domes that together cover just over 8 square miles of bush west of Uluru. I was particularly looking forward to visiting Kata Tjuta for several reasons. It's bigger than Uluru, its less well known than Uluru, its more sacred to the Anangu than Uluru, and more of it is off limits to non-Aboriginal people for cultural reasons than Uluru. Neither site has been commercialized to any great degree but to me Kata Tjuta feels less touristy than Uluru. I can't describe why exactly, but Kata Tjuta felt more primordial to me than anywhere else in the Outback.

Uluru is big in an obvious way. After all, the incongruity of a massive chunk of sandstone rising hundreds of meters straight out of an otherwise flat-as-a-pool table landscape is difficult to miss. Kata Tjuta, on the other hand, is as understated as Uluru is obvious. It's far more massive than Uluru, but deceptively so. It's not a single monolith, but a series of gigantic stones several of which are inidividually taller than Uluru, all packed together with spaces in between. The enormity of Kata Tjuta is easy to miss because the relatively featureless scrub surrounding it can make it seem a lot closer than it is at any given point, its far enough away from Uluru that an accurate visual comparison is difficult to make, and Kata Tjuta's stones are arranged in a roughly circular pattern. This means that from anywhere except overhead Kata Tjuta always looks more 2-dimensional than it is in reality.

The law component of Tjukurpa includes certain aspects that are particularly relevant for men or women. In our language these are called simply women's law and men's law. I was only able to scratch the surface of the Tjukurpa associated with Uluru and Kata Tjuta, but I was left with the impression that the significance of Kata Tjuta cannot be overstated, particularly in men's law. I was told that Kata Tjuta means "many heads". In Tjukurpa the domes of Kata Tjuta are understood to be the tops of the heads of the Mala men, ancestral giants that figure prominently in the Tjukurpa stories surrounding Uluru as well. There are several other snippets of stories about Kata Tjuta that seem to have leaked out the Anangu culture, but for non-Aboriginal people there remain many more secrets than explanations of the traditional significance of Kata Tjuta.

There are only two routes that non-Anangu people are allowed to take into Kata Tjuta's interior. I took the Valley of the Winds walk, which is the longest of the two, and as its name suggests follows a natural wind tunnel between the rocks. It opens into a natural ampitheather formed by the surrounding domes. The expansive landscape inside Kata Tjuta is undetectable from the outside. As with Uluru, the geologists seem to be unable to agree on a scientific explanation of Kata Tjuta's origins, but they do agree that much more of the domes are currently below ground than above it.

Maybe the geologists ought to talk to the Anangu. They seem to know exactly where Kata Tjuta came from. Too bad they're not telling.

Uluru

The next morning began my 3 day tour of the center of Australia's best known attractions. Between stops we took in some other sights, including some wildlife, a working cattle ranch, and some interesting roadhouses. Uluru was first on the itinerary.

For those who have heard that Uluru is in or near Alice Springs, it isn't. We spent the first morning from about 6 am till right about noon covering the roughly 250 miles of bush between them. A word to the wise concerning outback travel: you can get more places in a ute than you can in a big air conditioned tour bus, but they are nowhere near as comfortable. If you ever find yourself on a ute tour of the outback sit in the front seat if you can. Your back and butt will thank you. Also, pack light, wear comfortable shoes, and don't bring anything that you don't want impregnated with stubborn red dust. And one more thing: be ready for scenery that's out of this world.

Before we got to Uluru we had to gas up at a roadhouse and a quick inspection of the back paddock revealed a pair of camels. Few people outside Australia understand the significance of the camel in Australia's history, but this animal was critical to European exploration and settlement of the outback. The camels came to Australia as pack animals with Afghan immigrants, who were themselves brought to Australia to work on developing infrastructure (primarily railroads) in the arid center of the country. The transcontinental railroad here is called the Ghan in honor of the Afghans' resilience in the desert environment, and their contribution to early exploration of the interior. Their camels quickly became the favorite mode of trasportation for savvy outback travelers due to their durability, ability to haul heavy loads, and modest food and water requirements when compared with horses. Given these attributes, their less desirable behaviors such as spitting and biting were understandably forgiven. I gave the local cameleer a couple of dollars to do a lap around the paddock on one of his beasts and was immediately impressed by how tall they are. I have ridden horses a fair bit, and you are a LOT higher off the ground on a camel than on any horse. They are so tall that you can't climb onto them like a horse. The better trained ones kneel so you can get on or off, otherwise you have to use a ladder. Camel saddles are much simpler and harder than horse saddles, but they were a welcome respite from the horrors of the back seat in our ute. To borrow an Australian turn of phrase, riding in that ute was hard yakka. It got to feel like a kick between the big toes.

Once we got to Uluru we had a walk around the the base and visited a few of the culuturally significant sites around the base. The most striking thing to me about Uluru is its size (the path around the base is nearly 4 miles long), but almost equally as surprising is the way the texture of the rock changes with location or perspective. From one place it may look perfectly smooth, from another it will look wavy, and from another it could appear jagged and craggy. In some places the rock almost appears to be rotting away as the surface is pocked with hundreds of little caves and tunnels. The walk around the base took almost 2 1/2 hours and it seemed that at every vantage point the rock had a different texture or appearance, even though the entire structure is a single giant piece of stone.

The Anangu people are the traditional residents of this part of Australia. The Anangu consist of two separate groups, the Yankunytjatjara and the Pitjantatjara. Their Tjukurpa or Wapar (in the Pitjantatjara or Yankunytjatjara languages, respectively), which means roughly religion, heritage, and law all rolled into one concept, provides traditional explanations of how many of Uluru's features came into existence. In some places this knowledge is recorded in rock paintings, but the Anangu say the natural texture and color of the rock tells the history of their land, which in turn forms their religion. In their traditional belief system you don't need a natural history textbook to tell you how modern landforms came into existence because the land itself is the text. The Anangu are not unique in this regard. Most Aboriginal groups regard ancient history to be self evident in today's landforms to those who know how to interpret them. The law component of Tjukurpa or Wapar is conveyed orally.

One of the most important aspects of Tjukurpa or Wapar is that long ago, ancient beings called Tjukuritja shaped what was previously a featureless earth through their activities. The Tjukuritja were the ancestors of modern humans, plants, and animals. When humans inhabited the earth the Tjukuritja didn't leave, but either took spirit form or became integrated into the land. Thus in Tjukurpa, a mountain or stream may not only be the track left by Tjukuritja, it may be the Tjukuritja itself. Because the land not only tells the stories of their ancestors but also contains the ancestors themselves, the land is sacred to the Anangu and stewardship of the land is their sacred duty.

There are many stories that together make up the history of Uluru as the Anangu understand it. Most of them revolve around a conflict between two giant snakes. Even in my very short time there I heard different versions of the story, but the basic thrust of the story as I understand it is that one snake, Kuniya, came to Uluru from the west. At the same time a venomous snake called Liru approached from the opposite direction. A conflict ocurred in which Kuniya ultimately killed Liru. In some versions Kuniya and Liru take the form of opposing tribes which identify with snakes, and Kuniya is often associated with a mother or motherhood. The versions that include the tribes of people explain that the holes in Uluru's face are the marks left by the combatants spears, and waterholes around the base are drops of blood from wounded combatants. I was told that one rock formation in particular is supposed to be Kuniya in snake form looking back at Uluru as she left the battlefield. I came away from Uluru thinking that like most purely oral traditions, Tjukurpa or Wapar seem to have central themes that are constant, but that the details can be adjusted to suit the teller or the audience. To me the story of Kuniya and Liru seems to be about the conflict of good over evil and the cost of waging that fight.

Photos:

1. Our ute and trailer next to the quintessential outback road: long, straight, dusty, and empty.

2. Camel riding

3. The group with Uluru in the background. The couple on the right were from Scotland, the two in the back were students from the US studying in Australia, the woman on my left was a British traveler just in from southeast Asia, and the one in black to her left was Dutch.

4. This is probably the best photo I have to demonstrate the size of Uluru. It seemed to go straight up, and the summit isn't visible in the photo.

5. The stone that is supposed to represent Kuniya. The snake is looking back to the right over itself.

Alice Springs

For those of you who have been reading this and giving feedback through Angel and the rest of my family, thanks. It's nice to know people are reading this. I apologize for not keeping up to date over the past several weeks but there hasn't been much to write about. Hopefully that's about to change so stay tuned.

In the meantime it's a good opportunity to catch up on my trip to the center of the country. After I got done in Sydney I was off to Alice Springs, which I used as a jumping-off point for Uluru, Kata Tjuta, and Kings Canyon. Uluru and Kata Tjuta are also known as Ayers Rock and the Olgas, respectively, but as mainstream Australia has become more aware of Aboriginal culture these landmarks are becoming better known by their traditional Aboriginal names. All are well known but Uluru in particular is one of the most photographed landmarks in world.

Most people get to these places through Alice Springs. I had a day to spend in town so I gave myself the walking tour. I had read that it was home to nearly 30,000 people and growing rapidly so I expected a busy town. I could not have been more wrong. If nearly 30,000 people live in "Alice" as it is known, then most of them are either invisible or were on vacation that week. School was in and the holidays weren't for another month so vacation seemed unlikely. More on the invisible residents of Alice later.

I ambled through a couple Aboriginal art galleries on my way to the one thing in Alice that I was keen as mustard to see: the Royal Flying Doctor museum. The RFD is a medical service that provides emergency care to rural Australians who live so far away from urban centers that conventional emergency services aren't practical for them. Alice Springs is just about the geographical center of the country but isn't close to anything else. In a quirky way that is oh so Australian, its extreme isolation makes it the perfect place for the hub of the RFD network.

Lots of museums I've been to are filled exclusively with old stuff, but not the RFD museum. The museum touches on the history of the RFD but emphasizes the RFD's important role in contemporary outback life. The RFD is so integral to the security of outback residents that some households maintain private airstrips just so the RFD will have a place to land in case of emergency. In addition to flying ambulances, the RFD provides medical chests with drugs and equipment to outback residents, and will dispense advice on how to use them by radio. Everything in the chests is numbered, which helps clarify potentially confusing instructions. They even have an observation room where I watched dispatchers take calls and plot the day's flights. These dispatchers often have to share microphones with doctors giving critical advice to caregivers in order to keep victims alive until the RFD arrives on scene.

Like many things in Australia the RFD has its share of amusing anecdotes. My favorite concerns an old stockman who's wife became ill. The stockman radioed the RFD for advice, who prescribed a single pill from one of the vials in the cattle station's RFD chest. The stockman had been less than fastidious in his maintenance of the chest's contents, and found that he was out of the required medicine. Not to be deterred, he administered enough medicines from the other numbered vials to add up to the number on the vial that had been prescribed. Apparently outback medicine is equal to the sum of its parts, because the stockman soon radioed the RFD that his wife "came right straight away".

On the way back to my hostel I walked by the Todd River. The term "river" is a bit of a misnomer for the Todd. It's really a dry gulley that gets a little damp once in a great while. When I was there the "river" hadn't flowed for six months or so. Every year the town has a cardboard boat race down the Todd. Contestants have to construct a boat to enter, but rather than paddle them down the river they sprint down the dry riverbed carrying, dragging, or wearing their craft as they go. The organizers are quite proud that this event is the only boat race in the world that is cancelled in the unlikely event that the race course is actually wet.

Aboriginal culture is prominent in Alice Springs. There are several Aboriginal art galleries in town that appear to generate tidy sums for the indigenous communities, and many Aboriginal people work in the tourism industry as guides, for the government as park rangers, or running their own businesses. There is growing pressure to conduct the tourism industry that drives Alice Springs' economy in a manner that is not only sensitive to Aboriginal culture, but that emphasizes the Aboriginal perspective on natural and human history, and empowers and benefits the Aboriginal communities around Alice Springs.

This brings me back to the invisible residents of the town. A progressive approach to tourism has not benefitted all Aborigines equally. After walking along the Todd for a few minutes I had noticed quite a few Aboriginal people coming and going across the channel, and it became clear that there was a sizeable group of them living on the outskirts of town. I talked with a townie about it and she confirmed that there are quasi-settlements on the fringes of town where some Aborigines live in deplorable conditions, and that substance abuse is rampant in these communities. According to her the people I saw in the riverbed were members of these communities. Tourism drives the Alice economy, but poor inebriated indigenous people don't make for a pleasing tourism experience. These folks are the invisible part of Alice Springs' population.

Photos:

1. The nerve center of the Alice Springs RFD hub. These dispatchers were taking emergency calls as I watched and had one patient with a life threatening injury in transit when I was there.

2. The mighty Todd River.