Back on my beloved Mekong

This is how steamy my camera gets in the morning because we are in a very, very frigid hotel room; all my colleagues HATE the heat and the dirt of SE Asia.  I am definitely the odd-ball, not that I'm not usually an odd-ball, but here I am decidedly the most peculiar.  I run in the heat, I eat the food, including shrimp heads, I talk to the people, and I walk everywhere.  

Here are some fishermen getting themselves ready for dragging some nets, still in the mist of morning and steam of camera.

This is the first encounter I've had with the Mekong River Commission and I itch to get in there and ask them some questions about that Xiabouri dam that Laos is building!

The river is low, but I don't recall that there was such a boardwalk when I was here last.  Still, the little boats and the devoted fisher people are there in their Mekong, doing what they do best.

This is part of the walkway that is being built with fancy octagonal brick-like material and greco-arena steps going down to the bank of the river.  I made that up about "greco-arena," the it does remind me of running around the arena at Delphi when Jack was little.

I think she is sorting her nets, but what a lovely moment of quiet and concentration.

These are the boats I remember, tangled along at the shore of the river.

Steps down onto the banks go right onto the grass because the river is so low.

Lest we think building up the bank of the Mekong doesn't hurt anybody, here is evidence of an abandoned building and some graffiti.  At dinner last night, younger colleagues were forcefully arguing in defense of the dam although they argued with raised voices and no facts or gentle data.  I am sick of academic pedantry that is based on bravado alone.  Everybody here knows everything - how tiresome it must be to require no curiosity, no evidence, no experience.

I am cranky today because we have three lectures that will take us all the way through until evening while Oonie is fishing in Maine.  I wish I could jump into one of those long, low boats and go out onto the water of the muddy Mekong and just linger with a fisher person for the day, watching the Irriwaddy dolphins, the birds, the boats, the fish, and the life along the banks of either side of the river, both Laos and Thailand at work.