SUBTITLE: Hessischer Rundfunk SUBTITLE: Hessischer Rundfunk The Mekong in Southeast Asia, one of the most fascinating rivers in the world. Breathtaking wilderness and endless diversity. The river rises in the Tibetan plateau and is over 4,300 kilometers long. The river has many faces. Sometimes it flows slowly through tropical landscapes, sometimes it plunges through steep gorges. The Mekong is the lifeline of Southeast Asia. It is a transport route for millions of people, bringing work and food to many countries. On its way it flows from China to Myanmar through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to the South China Sea. This makes it one of the longest rivers in the world. We are traveling on it, in the north of Laos. In search of the proverbial serenity of the Lao people. 50-year-old Selisack lives in a small village on the mighty Mekong. Twice a day he goes out on the river in his small fishing boat. Over 1200 different species of fish live in the Mekong. This makes the river one of the most fish-rich inland waters on earth. Yes, I have been fishing here for over 20 years because I moved to the village to live with my wife as a young man. I then learned to fish from the older men in the village. But fishing is not my main source of income. I also work as a teacher at the primary school in our village. But I enjoy fishing the most. I love the river, and this way I can always earn some extra money. Laos is currently experiencing a severe economic crisis. High debts and the corona pandemic are causing the country a lot of trouble. The legal minimum wage is the equivalent of 60 euros per month. Almost one in five residents lives below the poverty line. For fisherman Selisack, the fish are a good source of additional income. * Selisack sings * Selisack needs a lot of patience lately. A big catch is rare. But the fisherman takes it calmly. Not a single fish in the net. I suppose that did not work. Unfortunately for Selisack, this is not uncommon. Because of dams, sand mining and climate change, fewer and fewer fish are swimming in the Mekong. Recently it has become difficult to catch fish. The river and weather have changed a lot and the fish seem to be moving differently than before. I don't understand what happened there. But Selisack has a second net in use, from this morning. He attached the net to plastic bottles so that it wouldn't sink and he could easily find it again. I love the thrill of fishing. When you catch a big fish it's a great feeling. I feel that in my whole body. And of course the money I earn from selling fish at the market is important to me, even if it's not always a lot. There wasn't a big fish today either. But at least he caught a few small ones. At least that's enough for his family tonight. One two three four five. I will prepare these fishermen for myself and my family tonight . We then grill them and eat them with sticky rice and sauce. There is also our local rice schnapps. It goes perfectly with the fish. Selisack lives with his wife not far from the shore. Like the majority of Laotians, he lives self-sufficiently in the countryside. Incidentally, every third resident here is under 15 years old. Selisack also has two daughters - his everything. I first cut the fish into pieces. Then I skewer her. * Music * Then the fish just has to dry a little in the sun and can then be fried in oil. A traditional Laotian dish. Cheap and fresh from the Mekong. Laos is located in the heart of Southeast Asia and is eleven times larger than Hesse. Compared to its modern neighbors Thailand and Vietnam, Laos is a little more original and therefore less touristy. It is a country with ancient traditions and known for meditative slowness. In the mountainous north of Laos lies Luang Prabang, an oasis of peace. Many call it the most beautiful city in Asia. Luang Prabang is the former royal city of Laos and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Around 70,000 Laotians live here. The historic old town is known for its very special charm and unique architecture. As the sun sets, the hustle and bustle at the night market in Luang Prabang begins. And it's not just popular with the locals. There is everything your heart desires here and it smells tempting. For the equivalent of 50 cents, Joy offers Laotian soups and meat in banana leaves. Mok Khai is the most sold in our market. This is seaweed from the Mekong. I have been working here for ten years, now in the second generation. My parents also sold food here. And his neighbor Vilaipon has also been offering her food at the night market for many years. I sell water buffalo meat, pork with garlic or with kaffir lime here. Sometimes it is also taken with sesame. And water buffalo fried with bamboo and of course sticky rice. By the way, water buffalo meat tastes sweet and salty. But during the pandemic, the young woman had to become inventive. That was not easy. During Corona I tried the internet. Luckily, I was able to sell a lot on Facebook during that time. That worked out quite well. A few stalls further on you can put together your own soups at Khone , with vegetables, mushrooms, sausages or tofu. I've only been selling here for five weeks. I also sell online from home. But I wanted to test the market and see if it works here too. The 36-year-old now stands at the night market every evening from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. She is satisfied. Their fresh soups sell well. And people enjoy them well into the night. And if you stay up long enough, you can experience something new early in the morning. * Flute music * In Luang Prabang, religion determines the rhythm of the city. At 4 a.m. the monks begin their morning prayers. We monks sing every day in the temple to honor the deeds of the Buddha. For us, singing is a form of meditation for the mind and body and teaches us to become calmer and better people. * Prayer chants * Many parents come to us and want their sons to try out being a monk. But many older men also want to try out life as a monk. After the prayer, Sombat goes to the old town with hundreds of other monks. They collect their alms in silence, also called Tak Bat. An ancient Buddhist ritual. As a Buddhist monk, working for money is forbidden. That's why the monks receive donations of food every morning from devout Buddhists. For them it is an honorable task. This increases your chance of a better rebirth. Traditionally, all monks walk barefoot. They are only allowed to wear flip flops in summer, when it can get over 40°C during the day . We come here every day and give them some food, except when we are sick. There are few other places in Southeast Asia where spirituality and tourism come together so closely. But the monks' ritual is increasingly becoming a tourist spectacle. Everyone wants a selfie with the monks. Recently there have been repeated problems because tourists do not behave respectfully towards the monks. The tourists sometimes get in our way. They then take lots of photos and blind us with their flashlights. In doing so, they disrupt our almsgiving. A lot came together during the alms walk. In addition to rice, there is a stew, pumpkin soup, sausages, lamb, steamed flowers and steamed fish in banana leaf. Even now at breakfast the monks are still silent. A big challenge, especially for the child monks. At the age of ten, boys can enter a monastery. Many families from the region give their children to the monastery so that they can learn something from the monks. Some children want to learn something, but their families cannot afford the school fees. In the temple we teach subjects such as English and mathematics. This is a great opportunity for young people to receive education. But older people who no longer have a family or feel lonely also come to us to find peace and quiet. While the little monks go to school, Sombat takes care of public relations. Because digitalization has also arrived in Buddhist monasteries. The monk regularly broadcasts his prayers and meditations via livestream on his Facebook page. People come to us on Facebook and say, "Oh, I think that's exciting. I'd also like to meditate. I'd like to live a happy life." If you watch our videos on the internet, you can join in. That's why we have to use smartphones. That's why there is no ban on cell phones in the Luang Prabang temple. Over seven million people from different ethnic minorities live together in Laos . The government divides the residents into three regional groups: the highland Laotians, who live on the mountains, the mountain Laotians, who live on the mountain slopes, and the lowland Laotians, who make up the largest proportion of the population. Almost two thirds of all Laotians live from agriculture, many of course from growing rice. Rice is also the main food in Laotian cuisine. But that's not the only reason why farmer Den Neng grows the popular grains. The 23-year-old also gives rice workshops for tourists. But before he can reveal the secret of growing rice to his guests, Den has to dig up the muddy soil. The water buffalo Susan helps him. Rice farmers have been doing it this way for hundreds of years. Some farmers in the mountains who don't have enough money to buy a tractor still use the buffalo. Or some families who don't grow a lot of rice tend to use water buffalo rather than the machines. Rice is the most important staple food on our planet. And that also interests many tourists. Den now welcomes guests from all over the world, today from New Zealand, Singapore, France and Germany. These seeds are from last year and we want to sow them today. I was born into a farming family and learned from watching how everything works and what is important when growing rice. At 14, Den came to work on the farm. He also went to school here. He then completed his high school diploma in the city. He is now working on the farm again and takes care of rice and tourists. This plant is about a week old. Look at the long root. The plant grows best when it sits in wet mud. Growing rice traditionally involves a lot of manual work. When the rice plants are one month old, they are transplanted into the fields. There they have more space to grow and it helps against weeds. The tourists help with the transplanting. Make sure you only use three fingers, otherwise the hole will be too big. You can really only use three fingers. Stick the plant straight into the mud. By the way, traditional rice cultivation is very stressful. *Music* We're really lucky here. We can grow rice all year round because we have a waterfall nearby. Normally you can only grow rice twice a year. It takes four to five months until the rice stalks are ripe enough to harvest. That too is exhausting. The tiny grains of rice are hidden in stalks at the top and would now have to be separated from the panicles. Traditionally, farmers thresh their own rice. They look different. Turn this upside down, put it over the bunch and wrap it around. Not easy work, as the tourists quickly notice. In a week, a family of four to five people in Laos eats 20 to 30 kilograms of rice. That's at least one bag of rice per week. The Laotians then use this to make their sticky rice. Before you cook the rice, you have to soak it in water. So. You put it in normal water. Then you clean it and then throw the water away again. Then fill it with new water and leave the rice in there for a day or night. Maximum, minimum, but two hours. In sticky rice, the rice grains stick together completely and only separate again when they come into contact with a sauce. All in all, a lot of hard work for a bowl of rice. * Music with singing * The Mekong forms the border between Thailand and Laos for over 800 kilometers . But the two sides could hardly be more contrasting. While there are many modern buildings on the Thai bank, there are always small traditional villages in the middle of nature on the Laotian side . There are also a few tourist boats on the Mekong here. Huan works as a captain on a small cruise ship. The 72-year-old often spends many weeks traveling on the river. The Mekong is my life. I have been working on the Mekong since I was 17 years old. My workplace is up here and I have fruit and rice here so that I don't have to leave the bridge during the journey. And this is my Buddha shrine, which guards me and blesses me with luck when I travel. And I sleep down here. There are four of us sleeping here: two captains, a mechanic and a mechatronics engineer. My parents used to own a cargo boat that transported goods. My father was also a captain and showed me every rock and every rapid that needed attention. That's why I'm a Mekong expert today. Huan still has to take turns with another captain. He doesn't know parts of the river that well. I only learned the route from Luang Prabang to Vientiane from my father. If you want to sail here, you would first have to study the fairway for five or ten years. You can try, but it takes time. A shore leave is planned for the tourists from the “Mekong Sun” today. To do this, Huan has to carefully dock his ship on the unpaved shore. A difficult maneuver that Huan fortunately also learned from his father. Chef Laenoi is responsible for the culinary catering for the 28 tourists on board . The 33-year-old wants to use his shore leave to do some shopping at the market. I have also been working on the ship for 17 years. I am now head chef and head of the three-person kitchen team. * Music * Laenoi often travels by ship for a few weeks. He rarely sees his little daughter. But he accepts that. Cooking has been his dream job since he was ten years old. I always enjoyed cooking at home. When I was older, especially duck or fish. Today, Laenoi's menu includes a typical Laotian soup. And what you need above all is fresh vegetables, plus some salad and fruit, everything fresh from the region, even the plantains from the grill. A welcome midday snack for Laenoi. In Laos you pay in Laotian kip. Ten euros is the equivalent of over 180,000 kip. You can often pay in the country with dollars or Thai baht. I'll take the beans. Can I get three long beans for 10,000? No, but I'll give you two bundles for 10,000. Do you still have any of the mint? Yes, I have them back here, freshly harvested yesterday. Okay, then I'll take some more. All together then for 10,000? - Because of me. You just always have to bargain with the saleswoman. In Laos we actually trade all the time. That's just part of shopping. This is the only way you don't pay too much and always get a good price. Now the ship's cook only needs something very special for his soup : the mussels. Now I should have everything for the vegetable soup tonight. Salad - yes, that should be enough. I'm quite happy with the prices. I've already negotiated well. Only the mushrooms were quite expensive. I had to pay almost two euros for 100 grams. That is a lot. The Laos taxi takes you quickly back to the ship. Dinner still needs to be prepared. While the chopping is already going on in the galley, Captain Huan sits relaxed at the steering wheel. He knows his routes inside and out. He doesn't need a navigation system. But how long Huan will be able to control without satellite technology is uncertain. The river is changing rapidly. China and Thailand's dams are causing water levels to fluctuate more and more often. That has consequences. Villages have to be relocated. There are fewer and fewer nutrients in the water and more and more fish are dying. Even today there are difficulties. The water level is quite low and dangerous sandbanks form in the river. Huan has to concentrate. I'm not very afraid. I know my ship pretty well and what it came from. Last time, Huan marked particularly shallow spots with sticks, which now float like buoys in the river. Nevertheless, the captain prefers to have the water depth checked. Huan has never run aground on a sandbank in over 50 years, and few captains on the Mekong can say that. And then the “Mekong Sun” finally has enough water under her keel again. * Music * While the captain is now relaxing on the bridge, things are getting hectic down in the galley. The vegetable soup needs to be ready. The most important things are fish sauce and spice powder. It gets hot in the narrow galley. Sometimes it gets up to 40°C down here. And if we're fully booked, I have to cook for over 28 people here. Nevertheless, Laenoi doesn't want to swap his job on the ship with anyone on land. I prefer to work on a ship. You see so much great nature, the small villages and all the people on the banks. They often wave at you. This is a very special experience. I don't want to miss out on that. Perfect, good, really tasty. Really good Laotian food. I just have to be careful with the chilies. For the Lao, add ten to 15 chilies or more. For the tourists I prefer to just take one. Laenoi knows what is good for his guests. And while they are enjoying themselves, the chef is off work. I really love cooking on board. But after a day like that I'm pretty tired. The guests like the soup, even if it is unusually spicy today. * Flute music * Good taste is also important in the small village of Somchone. The 67-year-old makes her own whiskey from rice. But she worries about her future. We're actually doing very well in the village. We have everything we need here. Nature gives us food. But we have big problems because of the dams that are being built here by investors who are buying up more and more of our fields. Our villagers then no longer have any fields where they can grow the rice that I need for my whiskey. Five families in the village live from the sale of rice whiskey alone. The whiskey recipe is a family tradition and is very old. Somchone himself doesn't like alcohol at all. There are still buyers. Many locals drink the inexpensive liquor that doesn't require many ingredients. I use sticky rice and this yeast powder here. This is mixed together well so that it can then ferment. In the bins it takes seven days. Then Somchone tastes the liquid and if necessary adds a little more water. A week later the fermented liquid is brought to the boil. I'm always very nervous while cooking because it decides how much alcohol will come out in the end. Somchone measures the temperature. 70°C. The temperature is almost good. Somchone produces over 500 liters a month. She then sells the bottles to the traders at the market. A bottle costs 30,000 kip. That's the equivalent of 1.60 euros. But unfortunately not enough to fulfill all her dreams and wishes. I would like to repair my house and help the poor people in the village so that they can send their children to school. Many people on the Mekong live in great poverty and many houses are in a pitiful condition. * Music with singing * Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world and yet has suffered greatly from the coronavirus. But with the decline of the pandemic and China's new Silk Road, the economic situation in the country will improve, the Laotians hope. Things are slowly improving again in Laos and in the villages you can benefit from free building materials from the nature that surrounds them. Some homeowners even build their own bamboo houses, like Kongmy. Today we have to repair a wall in our house because the old one broke and it rained in. It wasn't nice for our daughter, but it happens all the time. I hope we can finish this today. Look at that. This is the old wall. And here are all the holes the mice ate in it. The mice are really a problem. Kongmy inherited the house from his parents. Now he lives there with his brother, his wife and his daughter. Kongmy is actually a farmer and grows cassava, an exotic type of potato. They have to replace the bamboo walls about every ten years, which is no problem for the 28-year-old. He now knows his way around bamboo. The bamboo from the forest is free. We can go and just get as much as we need. We don't have to pay anything for it. I don't have to drive into town. It's good that I can work with what's already growing here. But we still have to process, cut up and flatten the bamboo , otherwise it will bend under the heat of the sun and cannot be used. There's still a lot of work to be done. Bamboo is an important source of livelihood for many people in Asia. The fast-growing natural product can be used not only as a material for houses or furniture. Many people also use it as firewood and you can even eat bamboo. Kongmy weaves his new house wall together with his wife. It is then waterproof and quite stormproof. I prefer village life to city life. In the city you need a lot of money to cover all living expenses. Here in our village you don't need that much money. I hope that in the future I can save some money to buy a small truck. It's not easy, but it would help us a lot. Because I could take my cassava harvest to the city with the truck and sell it there at a higher price. That would be good. Kongmy and a neighbor assemble the new bamboo forest on his house. A few blows of the hammer and the house is finally sealed again. I could no longer sleep peacefully at night because of the many holes in the wall. But tonight I will finally sleep well again. The Than family also has their own house with a garden. Chinese ginger, also known as fingerroot, grows there. The plant belongs to the ginger family, But it doesn't taste quite as spicy. The root is often used as a spice in Thai curry, but also as a medicinal plant in China. The plant helps well against headaches and dizziness. A few of the plants grow right behind the Than family's house. To harvest them we have to dig them up with all the roots. But we also use the leaves. We cut the roots into slices and dry them in the sun for two or three days. Chinese ginger originally comes from the mountainous regions of China. It is now grown in almost all of Southeast Asia. Once a year, the Than family sells almost their entire harvest to China. Because that's where they pay best and they can make a good living from it. This saves the Than family the trip to the market in the capital, which is a few kilometers further south along the river. * Music * Vientiane lies directly on the banks of the mighty Mekong. The country's capital enchants with its many temples, bustling markets and historic buildings. This is where modernity and tradition meet. Viengkham also lives in the lively city. In her shop, the fashion designer sells very high-quality woven scarves, clothing and bags made of silk. She has had great success with her special business idea. I used to weave using traditional patterns. But then I realized that everyone does that. That's why I wanted to design patterns that would also be interesting for foreigners. Now I make modern designs incorporating traditional Lao patterns and motifs. In her shop she exhibits the fashion she designs herself. Viengkham is one of the most successful businesswomen in the capital. This is a traditional Laotian pattern. At the top it's traditional and at the bottom I've evolved it with a new, modern style so that the patterns on the side still fit together. My customers like this style and it sells well. A scarf like this costs Viengkham the equivalent of around 200 euros. This is unaffordable for the normal Laotian. But it is a popular souvenir among tourists. My customers come from all over the world. But I export most of the scarves to Japan and America. It is also produced in the backyard. A dozen women sit there at their looms. It takes around two weeks to make one of the expensive silk scarves. In the past, women in northern Laos were trained to prepare to leave home and become good wives. They had to learn to weave and cook. Since women received no formal education, finding a good husband sometimes actually depended on being good at weaving. Viengkham takes good care of her weavers and ensures that her employees lack nothing. I've been working on the scarf for six days and I enjoy working here. Viengkham is a member of the Lao Handicrafts Association. Because it is important to her that poor workers are supported and their work is paid appropriately. But Viengkham is also strict. She always controls the production of the scarves herself. You have to check the quality very carefully. Weaving is not that easy. In order for me to be able to sell the scarves well, the quality has to be right centimeter for centimeter. Vien Kan is internationally valued for its good quality. Nevertheless, the successful designer always has new ideas and plans. I would like to open many more shops with young people who are creative and motivated. It is these many young people full of energy and ideas who give the poor country of Laos hope for a better future in an increasingly confusing world. And it is this absolute calmness of the Laotians that impresses. There is a Laotian proverb: "The wise do not hurry and those who hasten are rarely wise." * Music * Copyright subtitles: hr 2023 Copyright subtitles: hr 2023
