Dipping and shipping in Mekong.

(20-31 Jan 2012)

The land of golden flowers, Laos was the place where we had to study for a hydro plant as a source of energy for local community. Don Xom Island, situated in the middle of Mekong, with only 80 household and 2 hotels is a remote and peaceful place to be. The peacefulness was strange too, because the neighboring island was completely filled with tourist while this island had no tourist inflow. The people are friendly although they don't understand foreign language. Thai is common language in Laos.

To get to one of these islands, you need to either travel from neighboring country (Thailand, Cambodia) or you can land at Vientein, the capital of this country and travel to these islands. The island lies in Champasak provenance. I had entered Laos from Thailand border at Ubon Ratachathani. They give tourist visa on arrival. The visa fee is about $20.

The movement of rock in geological times has created many beautiful falls along the region which has become the attraction of tourist. There is fall of about 12m along the Mekong River at this area.

IThere is a Buddhist monastery in this island which lies at the center of the village. The temple is covered with rusted roof and supported by wooden frames. Although monks are supposed to be ascetic and free from wordly preasure the monks of this island seems to be the most romantic. They own the largest music system, lives in concrete house and smoke the best cigarette. Sometimes wondering tourists come to this island without clothes and passes the house of monk. The monk also seemed to be the most innovative among the islanders. They have installed manual water pump which require a men to peddle a cycle to pump water from well.

I noticed that, Lao people have strange hobby to drink alcohol housed in a bottle along with some strange woods or animals. Yeh, I had a glass of that lousy drink too in an uninvited picnic. And I bought one with snake and scorpions at the border of Laos and Thailand.

Fish seemed to be plenty in this area and is the main source of food and income of this island. People sell sun-dried fish to a marketplace. As this island, they have to take fish in boat to market. All the river bank was littered with fisth to dry it in sun.

The cost of living seemed to be cheaper here than any other part of world, especially beers. A bottle of beer cost a dollar. And it's really good beers which don't give head ach even you consume liters of this stuff. The next good thing they prepare is ice coffee. This coffee was the best cold drink among all the foods these people prepared. And because the temperature is so hot, you have to drink this cold drink every hour. At $200, you can survive here for a month.

Ubon Ratachathani Airport	Statue of Pakse market
Sunset at the Mekong	With Andrew
Ride on bike (Ajoy the rider)	Preparing for the bath
Typical Lao-dinner	Family I lived with in Laos
Our hotel	Our office
The Mekong fall	The Lao girl
Ajoy karki and Bibash Amatya	Me on other island
Bibash, helping the boat to move	Super iced coffee
Cobbler at Ubon	Bikes at Ubon
The rickshaw ride at Bangkok	Subarnavumi Airport at Bangkok
The smiling aeroplane

A week in Africa (Kenya)

Jan 12-18 2012

With a job to carry out field survey work, i got chance to visit Kenya. This was my first trip in an international flight. Sabin, Dr. Subarna Shrestha and Ajoy Karki were also traveling together with me during this trip. To reach Kenya from Nepal, a transit at Doha was required. (Un)Fortunately, we missed our flight at Doha and we were stranded for whole night in the Airport but the airlines authority provided free meal.The next morning we boarded the plane to Nairobi and reached there after 6 hours.

We reached Nairobi after 6 hrs of flight. A hotel was booked for us (Methodist Guest House, a service of church). There we took rest for the night. We were scheduled to travel from the next day.

The visit to Kipsonoi

The first destination was Kipsonoi river in the north-western side of Kenya. To reach the place, we had to cross the Rift valley. In the first day, we traveled and met with authorities of Kenyan Tea Development Agency (KDTA) and we briefly visited the headworks site and powerhouse site with the authorities. That day, we stayed in the nearest town called Kerenga . From next day on we would be going to visit the Kipsonoi river from the same town and return back. On the next morning, we traveled to the headworks site. We made inspections almost half of the waterway alignment and rest was scheduled to be completed for the next day. We returned back to Kerenga and had our dinner in a hotel and drinks at a club house.

With KDTA people

The guest house

Next day was same as the first day. We traveled to the Kipsonoi and then made inspection of remaining part of the alignment. That afternoon we had feast of Beef and Potato's prepared by Mr. John, our driver. We then returned back to the town. That day we had our dinner at a sports club.

Next day we were scheduled to reach Nairobi. In the way, we visited two power plants. One of them was almost 80 years old named Kerenga power station. The powerhouse was maintained clean and neat. It was impressive to see the managed powerplant. Similarly, we visited Taghabi power plant which has gone in renovation and up gradation recently. After inspections, we traveled back to Nairobi.

Kereng power station ESTD 1932

Tagabi Power plant

The visit to North Mathiyoa

The next destination of the visit was North Mathiyoa. We spent two days there traversing the alignment of waterways for development of hydropower project. We had meeting with officials. We also visited the tea factory and the guys there gifted us Kenyan tea. Kenya is world's largest producer and exporter of tea. For this site Muranga town was our base station.

Later we returned to Nairobi and stayed in a sports club. The hotel was grand but only few people were there. The next day we traveled to Nairobi and had meeting with Graeme Watson. On the same night we had dinner at Man Bdr. Rai. Tusker was the obvious beer in Kenya. We had same beer at Man Bdr. On the next day, we had flight back to Kathmandu. In the Nairobi airport we bought some African wine.

In Doha airport, Dr. Subarna was so drauzy that he left his newly bought DSLR camera in the airport while boarding the plane. Fortunately, the airport guys brought it back to plane.

Rift valley in the background	Standing on Igneous Rock
Wetland African	Clouds over tea
Tea garden along kipsonoi river	The kipsonoi river
African school children's	Nairobi
Taking rest in church	Thikka road
African banana	Tusker!!
The white crow	Lunch