Deadliest Roads | Laos | Free Documentary

[Music] [Applause] hey [Music] um [Music] [Music] nakai is a small isolated village in the middle of laos when the rainy season ends the traveling salesmans can hit the road again salta is a typical vendor hiking through the remote villages selling her waves [Music] because of the tremendous downpours she hasn't been able to get to her customers for three months i can't reach them the phone isn't working which is never a good sign the journey will be difficult but kem salter's husband has to make his new truck profitable the family agreed and got together it costs the equivalent of nearly 22 000 euros a fortune in laos chem and salter can't afford to risk the family's investment but the roads here are notoriously tough on vehicles [Music] laos is landlocked and is one of the last marxist leninist regimes on the planet the country has long been isolated from the rest of the world the recent introduction of limited capitalism has yet to improve the lives of the country's six and a half million people three quarters of the road system in laos are simply dirt track we're [Music] you're not going to get through that way some roads completely disappear under the monsoon rains i love driving fast faced with battling mother nature humans often have to resort to brute force and give up on mechanics i have to be real careful if the cable snaps that could be it but other dangers lurk in the undergrowth the heart of the tropical forests a wilderness many days trek away as a sanctuary for several mysterious ethnic [Music] groups suta and kem are awake long before daybreak to begin loading up their trunk it's a lot of work we're taking cakes and chinese soups and beer you can spread them out a bit more no need to stack them so high back home now their 12 year old daughter who will also be traveling is preparing the sticky rice enough to last for two days at least suto in the meanwhile is buying the charcoal for when they camp out at night how much is it five euros let's go [Music] [Applause] in laos gas and electricity are expensive most families cook using firewood producing charcoal is a job that provides many in laos with just enough to scrape by mai is 22. her husband is 28. they work from morning till night to earn enough to feed their children [Music] to make charcoal you need to spread out the wood [Music] so we can get something to eat it's the only way we can make any money to buy our food [Music] sang and mai are slowly ruining their lungs with the toxic fumes and are making barely 40 euros a month all day and it makes my throat hurt and i got a bad cough your throat hurts yes a lot in laos one quarter of the population lives below the poverty line with their truck loaded up with goods suta came and their daughter head off into the jungle the father knows the route but every year there's no knowing its condition the path will be very tricky since it's rained so much lately after the monsoon season the roads are ruined it's very dangerous rainfall in the region has caused huge potholes and in some places washed away holds sections of the road kem has to constantly slalom between the ruts and the path fortunately the power steering helps in these conditions you couldn't drive without it two hours later the route turns into a roller coaster [Music] kem is mainly concerned about not damaging their precious truck oh slowly slowly it's hitting stuff underneath [Applause] so the harder the going gets the less i want to force it the 22 000 euro truck gets broken it would spell disaster for the entire family at the bottom of the slope is the first stop the village of vang diem [Music] there's little here and the arrival of a travelling salesman is a much anticipated event come on i have soup cigarettes shoes and beer [Music] the locals are a little timid but souta knows how to land the catch have a look at these dresses nice huh look at that everyone's wearing these in town these days oh i really like the color oh it's beautiful yes the sales pitch seems to be working but she always seems to have some miraculous products to sell buy some of these energy bars that'll perk you up don't you have any flip-flops rather flip-flops oh yeah i do have some they're one euro 60 a pair a euro 60 well i charge 170 at my shop so this is a good price and i need to live as well you know souta sets whatever prices she likes here there's no competition so the customers have no options they're happy it's not every day that salesmen have to drop in here the little shopper is actually a tough business woman [Music] the take comes to under 100 euros that's just about covers the petrol they hope the next village bantom will prove more profitable [Music] along the way the impact of the monsoon can still be seen and felt by insisting kerm is getting more and more bogged down you can't get through that way the solution might be to take a run-up and force the truck through but about 30 minutes later will you look at that there's nowhere to turn around [Music] it might not get through my husband's going to take a look the plane is completely flooded just the electricity pylons indicate a road might have once run the monsoon has been particularly heavy and it'll take several months before the water recedes in the meantime cam and suta will need to drum up business in new villages to make up for the delay laos has many areas that are virtually unreachable including vast tropical forests [Music] its precious woods attract fortune hunters to help reach the sort after and rare wood humans have a powerful ally that dates back 6 000 years elephants who are perfectly adapted to work in the ravines of the forest [Music] bye his driver directs him by using his feet and the tone of his voice the animal's only failing is its immense appetite stop eating the animal chomps its way through 250 kilos of plants and leaves a day it's too slow come and help me the lumberjacks pay buntang and his elephant to fetch the wood they've cut in the more inaccessible places [Music] hey [Music] was hurt trying to climb a steep slope like this one it was raining and slippery and he twisted his foot we'll need to tip that tree over we'll lift it so [Music] ah on such steep slopes the symbiosis between man and animal is vital right to the right down more [Music] the elephant needs barely 10 minutes to release the 850 kilo tree trunk makes his driver very proud we started training this elephant when he was just three years old today he's 28 and we can make him do anything getting the huge hunk of wood down is a long and perilous process if the tree hurtles down the slope it could break kombu's rear legs to avoid accidents the assistants need to act as counterweights being able to get through the wildest forest and the hardest to reach places is what elephants are for in laos [Music] soon trucks will come and remove the rosewood tree gathered by the elephant the wood will be used in luxury furniture and fittings in beijing hanoi and elsewhere come on let's go and have a swim to elephants a swim is more than just a pleasant break despite its tough appearance the animal's skin is very sensitive the water helps destroy parasites as well as preventing its hide from becoming too dry kneel kneel down come on get down the maneuver soon turns into a game between human and elephant catch me catch me come on man [Music] [Applause] elephants are our livelihoods without it we'd make no money we love each other we go everywhere together here come here you their relationship goes back more than a dozen years man and elephant have similar life expectancies and if all goes well kambu and buntiang will continue to work together into old age [Music] elephant drivers are itinerant and move to where there's work this time boontang has had the good fortune to be able to rent a house in a nearby village which isn't always the case [Music] often there's she's my wife's mother he's my uncle and she's my aunt they borrowed money to buy kambu he cost them the equivalent of eighteen thousand euros almost as much as a truck well stay here as long as those work if there's enough to do it could be another two or three months and when there's no more wood to pull we'll just go somewhere else to another operation an elephant can earn its owners a lot of money 400 to 3 000 euros a month depending on how hard the work is to earn big the drivers are willing to risk a lot in a few days time boonchang will be taking on a dangerous job despite their strength elephants are slowly being replaced by machines even these ancient soviet era trucks sang has been driving one for four years the tyres get worn out all the time the engine however is reliable even if it doesn't look like it the truck was made in the ukraine in the 1960s it's a crash 255 it's been modified and it's part stripped down to basics and in others reinforced not much is left of the original they saw it on my mind if we can't find spares we make them ourselves i lick my head we get scrap metal to make the parts we just make do ok with an engine in that condition even filling the tank is a challenge open that it takes 300 liters of fuel to fill the tanks [Music] how many liters for 100 kilometers it's a liter for every two kilometers so 50 liters for 100 kilometers that's a real guzzler sen hits the road with his assistant tent the truck's nine meters long two and three quarter meters wide and 3.6 meters high one of the largest trucks the soviets ever made driving this 12-ton heap of scrap metal is no easy matter during the cold war power steering was rare visibility isn't great either once in the forest the assistant has to guide the driver through the trees further on a tree trunk has fallen across the track the two men are experienced and know how to deal with this with saying at the wheel the truck acts in much the same way as an army tank clearing all before it 25 kilometers and five hours later seng and tent finally reach the loading site the pinewood is on its way to a furniture factory each trunk weighs between three and five tons take the hook and attach it over there to move it all they have is the simple winch okay pull moving such bulk with such basic equipment means going one small step at a time once the front's in the back end needs lifting attach it to the other end it'll make it easier so first i put the cable around the trunk and then securely fasten it and then i shout for him to get the winch started oh [Music] it's a dangerous procedure especially when the cable comes off the trunks are unstable careful the worn out equipment only adds to the risk i have to be real careful if the cable snaps that could be it have you had accidents oh yes there have been what happened well the track can actually turn over if the cable breaks go ahead winch it up the giant game of pickup sticks stretches on for three hours the trunks are twice as long as the trailer to stop the truck from tipping backwards the loading has to be as far forward as possible go ahead sang who's not exactly big can just about lift his head over transporting 30 tons of wood and scrap metal in such road conditions as a real test when it's heading downhill it's not good to use the foot brake i use the engine brake otherwise it would overheat because of the weight of the wood at the back i have to climb the slopes and low gear otherwise the engine wouldn't make it it's a matter of experience because i know my truck and that's why i can keep going the two men are paid by the cubic meter of wood they can transport this journey will net them 37 euros two thirds for the driver the rest for his assistant it's well paid even if the risks are substantial most people in laos get by with barely one and a half euros a day on average [Music] 700 kilometers away in the heart of the jungle the elephant driver is looking for kambu his elephant to head out for a hazardous mission keeping an elephant close to the village is not possible there's not enough for it to eat there so we keep him further away otherwise he'll eat all the plants and trees in the village's gardens we need to keep him further away untrain him an elephant's trunk contains some 40 000 muscles both agile and powerful they can pick up a coin or maneuver a tree weighing several hundred tons today and his team are out looking for a rosewood tree of exceptionally fine quality the crew stands to make 1 200 euros [Music] only an elephant can manage such work [Music] the stump must weigh about five tons or one and a half times the weight of kambu the problem is an elephant can only pull its own body weight hey come on fast faster to the left [Music] despite its efforts it's too much for cambuur usually the chain is around the trunk so the elephant can lift it but we've got a problem here the chain won't go underneath [Music] makes just enough room for the chain to fit put it through the other side and we'll pull it up from this side here it is it's coming by cutting up the stump into several pieces the men will save themselves considerable trouble later on we'll get less money from the ownership [Music] after 40 minutes of hard work the elephant has finally managed to extract the wood but the ordeal is just beginning now he needs to drag his burden for three kilometers to the village how's it going up there that's a really large rock [Music] [Music] after a desperate three-hour struggle the elephant is close to collapse the stump has barely moved a dozen or so meters is ready to throw in the we couldn't towel to move the trunk uh today we'll cut it into two and then we'll be able to pull it up and that's for tomorrow for today that's enough the elephant is too tired the wood will lose some of its value and while bunching could have been stubborn the consequences might have been serious for kambu other drivers aren't as thoughtful william yvette working for the elephantaisia charity is about to tend to his first patient of the day [Music] three weeks earlier this driver was forced to shoot his elephant it was the only way to calm it down as it had gone into a must or violent frenzy to which male elephants sometimes fall victim he'd broken his chain and i couldn't do anything he was going to kill me what did you have as a weapon a rifle the elephant must have been in pain what did you do yeah he was hurting so i took a rope and made a noose why weren't you scared oh yeah so this elephant was quite difficult to treat he's quite a nervous character he can very quickly change and become a little bit aggressive so you have to be a little bit careful with him elephants never forget when humans have treated them badly i think we can leave it there for the moment so uh obviously the elephant is so big so powerful that if you if he grabbed me with his trunk if he put his head on top of me could potentially be fatal you're not afraid um am i afraid sometimes i'm nervous i'm not afraid i of the elephant that i can't do my job but i have a healthy respect for them known in the middle ages as the kingdom of a million elephants today there are just an estimated 800 left in laos traditions and elephants may be disappearing but laos remains a largely rural society two-thirds of the population survives by growing rice with methods that have barely changed over the centuries there's not much rice the harvest isn't great we're many in my family we barely have enough to eat the thankler's work is plagued by other risks some paddies are littered with fragmentation bombs when i dig i find some sometimes they're just below the surface so i take them and throw them somewhere else i need the field for a paddy and i don't want them exploding under my cart and me so i just throw them further away every year the bombs continue to maim or kill civilians during the vietnam war u.s war planes dropped 200 million tons of bombs over laos the americans wanted to destroy the so-called ho chi minh trail a series of roads used by the vietnamese to supply weapons through laos for ten years the laotians were targeted an average of every seven minutes thus making them the most bombed people in history [Music] it's common to see the relics of war having been converted into objects of daily use [Music] laos has asked for international aid to help demine its territory michael dulk a swedish army veteran now works for the british ngo mines advisory group so that's a blu-26 we have a rice field just a few meters away most likely the farmers here have found it in the rice field and then picked it up and put it there and that's quite common and does it mean that it's not dangerous anymore no absolutely not you can pick it up 10 times and the 11 times it will go they're an increasing number of women bomb disposal experts nang is in charge of about 30 young women who earn about 170 euros a month it's a good salary for laos but the job is of course a dangerous one every square centimeter has to be inspected [Music] when the bombs explode they send out small ball bearings everywhere anyone within range the deadly cloud of shrapnel can travel as far as 400 meters the work is tedious as the detectors are constantly sounding the alarm there's a lot of shrapnel lying around here it can take two or three days to clear just a small area at every alert the young women have to stop and start the delicate task of digging by hand they never know what they might uncover in the 12 months to the summer of 2012 the disposal experts destroyed more than 15 000 bombs and cleared over 1 hundred hectares in northwest laos the former royal capital luang prabang is celebrating a daily ritual attack bat ceremony every morning the monks walk the streets looking for donations from the public glutinous rice fruit even soap the buddhists depend entirely on begging for survival somsek visits the temple before each of his a prayer to our ancestors to bring me luck and happiness i do it so nothing will happen to me during the journey he looks sweet and pious and yet this 42 year old lives a life that's far from safe he's a speed boat pilot the boats are used to travel at high speeds up and down the mekong river for those in a hurry it's an ideal solution so long as you have the physical and mental guts for the ride sunset has been doing this for 14 years his boat is a basic cockle shell with a powerful outboard motor the engine's a toyota from a motorcar it's 1440 cubic centimeters it can do 70 kilometers an hour such power costs more than 3 000 euros and a good deal of resourcefulness [Music] m the speedboat corporation is well organized it sets the fares and imposes the traffic regulations for the pilots the number of customers is limited to those who can afford the fares of between 14 and 30 euros a trip the equivalent of several weeks salary for most farmers so while they wait who's what is that the pilots pass the time playing the national sport an activity reminiscent of the south of france [Music] if it's not for this week it'll be for next you touch one of their bulls go on you can knock this ball out the pastime is a legacy of french colonialism if you touch that one he would have gone in and we'd have got the point the arrival of some customers cuts the game short some sack casts off they'll need to put these on given the black helmet that way you'll all have the the same ones distributing the safety equipment he sets about making sure his fragile vessel is well balanced come this way a bit please he should sit next to you their destination is pak ben a village 150 kilometers to the west the pilot should be able to get them there in a bit less than three hours compared to a normal boat that takes the best part of the day i love driving fast some sack is speeding at 70 kilometers an hour minute counts and it's the reason the passengers are willing to pay so much despite the noise and the bumps my passengers aren't afraid and have they already been in the speedboat yes of course now the first time is always scary afterwards you get used to it in fact you get to love it in fact all you can do is put yourself in the pilot's hands the speed boats aren't renowned for their responsiveness to break the propeller has to stop turning it's not like a car where you can stop more or less like that that takes us longer [Music] depending on the level of the mekong the rocks disappear or reappear some sac has to remember where they all are [Music] i was born in a family of speed boat pilots all my family works in the business when i was small i used to accompany my father i traveled backwards and forwards along the mekong for years and i know it like the back of my hand but preparing for the unexpected like tree trunks and other obstacles carried down river is also a useful trait the speedboat is the taxi of the river and drops off passengers along the way then continues his race against time how many more years he thinks he'll do this dangerous job is uncertain as the road networks slowly improve the number of speed boats is falling the country has seen a decade of change here the only political party's propaganda begins at five in the morning [Music] from morning till night the national radio service feeds the public an endless litany is the largest town in the north of laos near the border with china and vietnam [Laughter] in the market among the meats fruits and vegetables are some more exotic items [Laughter] is it good oh it's delicious you have to try it how much sixty thousand kips which is about six euros given this price it must be a popular [Music] food is perched in a basin at about 1400 meters altitude these are the foothills of the himalayas for centuries the wild ravines and jungles have served as a refuge for those who have been hunted and persecuted in tibet china or burma dozens of near-forgotten ethnic groups still live here [Music] tong is a primary school teacher he's getting ready for an arduous journey when i set off i always bring clothes and supplies especially packard soups and of course what i need to teach with [Applause] the young man leaves his family behind for four weeks he's going to teach in chacampa an isolated mountain village he's just become a father but the farewells seem unemotional the custom in laos is not to show one's feelings okay well i'm off then take care of the children his trip begins at the small port of hatsa he heads up the namu river the only means to reach the isolated areas [Music] the 50-minute journey leads to the village of vatai [Music] this is one of the least populated regions of laos and it's here the trek up to cha kampa begins [Music] tong gets underway on a trek that will take many hours it's mid-morning and he wants to make a start before it gets too hot love my love [Music] it might be weeks before someone else heads up this way if he slips into a ravine or hurts himself there's no one around to help the humidity is at eighty percent making the trek even harder and danger lurks beneath the dense enriched foliage look there look at this over here look hey it's a large centipede now that's dangerous its bite is highly toxic tong avoids the danger with a deft kick but he's not always so relaxed he was just 20 when he first faced this hostile terrain [Music] the jungle was thick and oppressive scared of them actually and yeah there are all sorts of parasites here what's that a leech are there many oh yeah plenty look the leeches can make their way into the most intimate parts of the body their bites can cause serious infections [Music] after having rid himself of about 20 of the bloodsuckers tong sets off again through the jungle three hours later he enters the territory of the akka one of the lesser known ethnic groups here up the slope lies the village of chat kumpa [Applause] the akka people jealously maintain their traditions the women wear loose indigo robes and ornate headdresses the clothes represent their status married or single up here a pig is a valuable commodity and they're only slaughtered on special occasions today they're celebrating the return of the school teacher but when tong first came here four years earlier things were quite complicated as persuading the men their children would be better off in school rather than in the fields was no easy matter i had to consult the council of the seven wise men and the head villager i told them how do you expect me to do my job what do you expect from me i heard them out and took their advice akka society is patriarchal cooking cultivating the rice on the mountainsides cutting the wood for fires spinning the clothes and making wool means the women have very long days [Music] and in the morning they're the first to get up before the mists have dispersed the women fetch water from the wells several dozen meters down the mountainside a bamboo container like this can easily weigh more than 20 kilos tom gets ready for his working day he lives here in a small cabin built by the villagers at eight he rings the bell for the start of school five days a week he teaches the laotian language and culture to some fifty kids aged between six and fourteen everyone here at ease the school master does not take discipline lightly go on what's that what's that button this up he inspects each of his pupils as they file into the classroom you need to wash your feet go on sit down tong teaches six different classes stand up what's this this school adorned with the colours of the popular democratic republic of laos is a political tool for 20 years the government has been trying to stamp its authority on the minorities including by forcibly displacing thousands of people the fate of the akka of chat kampa is already sealed in three years they will have to leave their mountains and move near a town abandoning their lands and their [Music] traditions then

Channel: Free Documentary

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Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, most dangerous roads, most dangerous journeys, worlds most dangerous roads, worlds most dangerous journeys, deadliest roads, deadliest roads in the world, dicing with death, deadliest journeys, dicing with death laos, most dangerous roads laos, deadliest roads laos, dangerous roads laos, dangerous laos, deadliest journeys laos, laos

Id: IBjfVjKCTs4

Length: 49min 30sec (2970 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021