Laotian Tourist Town Tragedies

"Obviously it's like a famous backpacker place."

"You go from Thailand Luang Prabang and then to Vang Vieng and then  you keep going."

"I've just heard good things about it and it's where most people go."

Frida Svedberg, Swedish tourist in Laos

 

"[Canadians should] exercise a high degree of caution, never leave your food or drinks unattended or in the care of strangers [and be wary of accepting food or drinks from strangers as] they may contain drugs that could put you at risk of sexual assault and robbery."

"[Watch out for food and drinks like] happy pizzas [and] special shakes [that may contain unspecified amounts of opium or] other unknown substances."

Canada travel advisory

Nana Backpackers hostel, Vang Vieng, AP

Vang Vieng in Laos, one of South-east Asia's poorest nations, is a one-party communist state. It is also a go-to place for fun, easy living, outdoor adventure, companionship, and food and drink destination for young people in their late teens and twenties. It teems with young people from all over Europe, North America and Asia looking for a good time. All these tourists are a source of revenue for the village, its environs and Laos in general.

There was a time that the town was celebrated as a venue for partying when young backpackers thronged there. At night the town is full of visitors along its main neighbourhood bursting with bars, restaurants and food stalls. Daytime activities focus on the nearby river thronged with kayaking tourists, expressing exhilaration in their dalliance with nature, making friends with other tourists and anticipating a night on the town after dark.

 

Around the years 2005-06 Vang Vieng became popular among European backpackers for whom exposure to the serenity of nature surrounding the area with available opportunities of tubing along the river -- tourists seated on a tube, floating along the Nam Song River would stop to party impetuously along its banks where a variety of bars invited their presence. 

 

Backpackers roam the main street of Vang Vieng, Laos November 22, 2024. Associated Press

 

The combination of cheap liquor, illegal drugs and river sports drew people into a free atmosphere of exuberance and rowdiness. On occasion that exuberance linked with alcohol and drugs could become deadly. People drowned, or after leaping into the river on a rope swing, would suffer a fatal blow to the head in accidents from which there would be no recovery.

There was a record of 27 deaths linked to river activities in 2011, when the government felt obliged to react by passing a number of mandatory safety regulations to stem the tide of deaths, and with them bad international publicity and a reduction in the number of tourists, impacting deleteriously on the country's tourism industry.

Since that time Vang Vieng has seen a return of tourism in greater numbers, but tourists not necessarily of the backpacking set they were previously accustomed to. While  young western backpackers still arrive, there are plentiful visits now by Chinese and South Koreans, looking to enjoy a wider range of activities.

Over 600,000 tourists visited Vang Vieng in 2023. Expectations were that even greater numbers would arrive in 2024. Sometimes methanol is added to mixed drinks at disreputable bars. Methanol is a cheaper alternative to ethanol but severe poisoning or death can result from imbibing it. Inadvertently this byproduct of poorly distilled homebrew liquor could have been used to make liquor go a little further.

Foreign tourists boating along the NamSong River, Laos, November 22, 2024. AP

Earlier this week, news of two Australian teens becoming critically ill following a night out drinking in Vang Vieng went into circulation. Hospitalized in Thai medical facilities neither survived, and methanol poisoning was confirmed in one case. A woman from Britain also died. As did an American and two Danes, while their exact causes of death have not yet been revealed. It is as yet unclear how many tourists have been affected, although a New Zealander has also become a victim.

Despite the concerns of perplexed and worried tourists and the dark memories stirred of the town's past of reckless partying, the situation does not appear to have affected the many tourists circulating in and around the town, crowding its downtown bars and restaurants as usual, come night.

Foreign tourists enjoying activities in Vang Vieng, AP

Recreational Pleasure and Health Benefits

"Walking and running provide an ideal test of the health benefits of moderate-intensity walking and vigorous-intensity running because they involve the same muscle groups and the same activities performed at different intensities."
"The more the runners ran and the walkers walked, the better off they were in health benefits. If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable."
"Walking may be a more sustainable activity for some people when compared to running, however, those who choose running end up exercising twice as much as those that choose walking. This is probably because they can do twice as much in an hour."
"People are always looking for an excuse not to exercise, but now they have a straightforward choice to run or to walk and invest in their future health."
"It takes longer to walk a mile than to run a mile. But if you match them up on the energy expended, they are comparable. If you do the same amount of exercise – if you expend the same number of calories – you get the same benefit."
Paul T. Williams, staff scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Life Science Division in Berkeley, California

• Running significantly reduced risk for first-time hypertension 4.2 percent and walking reduced risk 7.2 percent.
• Running reduced first-time high cholesterol 4.3 percent and walking 7 percent.
• Running reduced first-time diabetes 12.1 percent compared to 12.3 percent for walking.
• Running reduced coronary heart disease 4.5 percent compared to 9.3 percent for walking.

"Walking at any speed costs some energy, but when you're changing the speed, you're pressing the gas pedal, so to speak."
Ohio State research team

Benefits to walking as a leisure time activity that gets you out and about: breathing fresh air, appreciating an outdoor landscape, bringing you closer to nature, allowing you to relax, your mind to wander and your daily concerns to recede into the background as your mood lifts. Walking is known to help in the reduction of anxiety and depression symptoms; as a mood elevator; being in tune with nature, in a green setting has few parallels. According to some researchers, happiness is boosted when walking becomes a regular feature in one's life.

Women in a study reported having greater energy, were more inclined to be socially active, less likely to surrender to out-of-control emotions, and less hounded by depression once they began routinely walking on a regular basis, amounting to 200 minutes weekly. Researchers from Santa Clara University gathered 176 college students, assigning them a walking schedule, because their study goal was to discover if "a simple walk might lead to more free-flowing thoughts and more creativity".

The walkers, it turned out, were more creative once they returned to their desks, compared to those who didn't participate in the experiment. Creativity flourished while the participants were out walking, regardless of whether they walked in fresh air or used a treadmill instead. The end result was more ideas coming to mind while walking in comparison to those who simply remained at their desks.

Yet another, earlier study undertaken in 2013 took 33,060 runners and 15,045 walkers as participants to determine whether the intensity and energy expended in walking serves to produce similar heart health benefits as running. The Berkeley, California researchers reached the conclusion that "If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable". Walking reduced risk of hypertension by 7.2 percent as opposed to a 4.2 percent drop in runners.

Runners' risk of high cholesterol was reduced by 4.3 percent, while walkers' risk dropped by 7 percent. As for diabetes risk, it fell by 12.3 percent for walkers and 12.1 percent in runners, while heart disease was reduced by 9.3 percent for walkers and for runners 4.5 percent. So walking most definitely earns its place in the firmament of good health-achieving initiatives, and it can be done anywhere, at any time.

Another bonus comes by way of speeding up the walk for random periods to achieve an even greater health impact. Moving at an average or brisk pace, walkers benefited from a 20 and 24 percent reduced risk in mortality from all causes, in comparison with those who maintained a more leisurely stroll. For adults aged 21 to 40, moderate intensity in walking equates with 100 steps a minute, while 130 steps per minute is considered fast walking.

According to an Ohio State research team, changing speeds during a walking workout can burn up to a 20 percent greater number of calories, in comparison to remaining stuck at a single speed. Monitor walking speed simply by speeding up until you feel a bit breathless, then slow down to allow breathing to return to normal. As simple as all that.

Grooming With Care

"Kids are smart and they're watching everything and everyone."
"The conversations should be about authenticity and honesty."
"There is a difference between discretion and hiding. Hiding encourages stigma because it is something that you keep from people. Having discretion is about responsible use."
"It's maybe not that I don't trust my own kids. I keep it [cannabis] locked and away from them so that they understand that it's an adult-use product."
"My job is to be a responsible user and store it [cannabis] responsibly and have these conversations. I want to have a dialogue with my kids about this."
Ashleigh Brown, founder, SheCann

"I just asked myself, 'I know my adult children are smoking it, so why am I the one hiding it?"
"We're all adults here."
Sabine Dolby, 56, Toronto

"There are downsides to [cannabis use], but if we don't talk about it, how are we really going to know?"
April Pride, founder, Van der Pop, cannabis lifestyle, Seattle

In this post-legalization world of cannabis access beyond medical use and into the recreational sphere parents of teens find themselves suddenly faced with the need to discuss the use of pot with their adventurous children, adolescents forever attracted to the exotic and 'forbidden'. It's good strategy. Just as good strategy and very badly needed, as when parents begin to discuss with their children the ins and outs of intimate sexual relations, how babies are born and how best to deal with one's hormonal cravings to experiment and learn first-hand what all the fuss is about.

In the Toronto of recreational marijuana legality, a recent event titled Women & Weed took place, where a number of speakers addressed the audience interested to hear first-hand from those upon whom they look as 'experts' to guide them in their own perplexing search how best to handle the sensitive issue of parent-child discussions revolving around the use of cannabis. Uppermost in mind of these parents is the certain knowledge that young people will and do extend themselves to discover first-hand what's happening.

That, linked to the medical community warning of the deleterious effects of marijuana use for young people whose brains are still developing and who, with the use of pot, can expose themselves to harm, makes the issue of primary importance. At that event, the founder of SheCann, an online portal enabling women in Canada to share their own use of medical cannabis experiences, emphasized the importance she places personally on making these discussions a continuous dialogue.



Ashleigh Brown of SheCann spoke of her own experience with medical cannabis begun in 2016, using it medicinally giving her children the decided impression that pot was a medicine, nothing more. Then she initiated discussions with her 14- and ten-year-old daughters about cannabis used by different people for a host of reasons; not necessarily confined to health. Both she and April Pride stressed the importance of conversations with children, to prepare them for the inevitability of being knowledgeable to a degree about weed they'll come across in future on the street and at parties.

There is a correlation, they stressed, between advising and discussing with children the effects of recreational alcohol, and no less so with cannabis. And one of the critical issues in such discussions is to explain why it is that marijuana is meant to be used only by adults, and until such time as young people join that category of maturity, its use can present a future health danger. Both women explained that they lock their pot away from their children. Despite which they feel that avoidance of conversation about cannabis use creates an aura of stigma, unhelpful in persuading kids to make considered decisions.


They recommend using resources as for example from Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy which views problematic drug use as a distinct issue of health, not an issue for the criminal justice system, advocating instead for harm reduction support. Talking to children about why and how people make use of cannabis is a start. Sabine Dolby who uses cannabis by prescription hid it from her children when they were young. Now, aged 24 and 30, she smokes with her children as a regular user and with legalization, feels relieved not to have to hide her use any longer.

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction's position is that consuming cannabis on a regular basis during adolescence has the potential to cause loss of concentration and memory, and reduce thinking to incoherence. In a 2015 report, the Centre stated that regular use of cannabis is associated with experiencing psychotic symptoms and the development of schizophrenia, particularly among those with a family history of the condition.

There is a caveat that connection between cannabis use and mental illnesses, particularly acute anxiety, is not clear entirely, requiring additional research. The general consensus remains, however, that the effect of cannabis on not-yet-fully developed brains -- up to age 21 to 25 -- makes it imperative that such discussions do take place.

Maren Caruso/Offset (leaves); Kichigin/Shutterstock (head); Sergejs Makarovs/Shutterstock (leaf)

The Times They Are A-Changing

"To be honest, at the beginning we were saying we should attract younger people. But lately we're saying, why?"
"Retired people have disposable income. They have time."
John Boisjoli, chief executive, BRP Inc.(Bombardier Recreational Products)

"Most motorcyclists wave to each other. I've noticed with Can-Ams, that doesn't really happen. It's not that they don't wave, but they don't get a wave back."
"It [three-wheelers] took all the things you get from riding a motorcycle -- the freedom, the handling, the ability to lean into a corner -- and sucked the fun out of it."
Jeff Maguire, account director, ad agency for power sport products

"In the old days, a lot of senior riders would get a sidecar to balance their vehicle -- and put their dog in."
"I have seen a lot of students with disabilities, guys who have artificial limbs ... Their intentions are often to go and get a three-wheeled machine. I think it's great, it's fantastic."
"'As a real man, you ride two wheels, you don't ride three'. I think those stigmas are dropping today, I really do, because the technology is so fun to play with."
"Back in the old days, you would never, ever see a group of Harley riders riding with sport bike riders. Now you see it everywhere. Everyone's riding together."
Ryan Blake, motorcycle instructor, Learning Curves, Toronto

Move over you big burly, unshaven, tattooed musclemen on your Harleys with their patented roar, the old guys and gals are moving in.  "So  I put on my snowmobile helmet and popped on behind him and went for a little ride. I was hooked", explained Pam Fraser of Orangeville, Ontario, whose retiree husband, once a firefighter, had: "The next thing you know he's buying a Can-Am Spyder. Boys and their toys", she commented wryly, resistant initially to the very thought of travelling on a motorcycle irrespective of its three wheels.

The couple in their sixties have over 250,000 kilometres to their credit now, attained over a decade of owning seven Spyders. "I wouldn't say it's a hobby: it's more of a lifestyle", she stated. "It gives you a sense of freedom that you don't have in a car." The woman who had no interest whatever in travelling on a motorcycle alongside her husband now is the moderator of the 770-member Ontario Spyder Ryders Facebook page. Quite a transition, one the couple is so committed to, they racked up 1,000 kilometres a day to reach Deadwood, South Dakota last summer.

Boomers are finding life on the open road, seated confidently on a stable near-kin to the traditional motorcycle much to their taste. And with that knowledge the manufacturers of those vehicles are anxious to meet the new and growing demand for those products. From a minor industry side-product this still-emerging new attraction of the retired and footloose to three-wheeler motorcycles is fast becoming an industry staple.

In the province of Quebec alone the number of these vehicles being registered has risen 60 percent to 15,147 in the period 2014 to 2017, according to the Transport Ministry, while motorcycle registration saw a rise of 17 percent to 185,416 during the same period. Quebec is ahead of other provinces, but all indications are it will not be alone for long in notching up those numbers. And the Canadian recreational vehicle producers are now looking abroad to venues less dependent on seasonal weather opportunities.

BRP Inc., Harley-Davidson Inc., Campagna Motors and Minnesota's Polaris Industries are all planning to expand into the U.S., Australia, Japan and Europe. Visions of tripling global sales of three-wheelers over a five-year period to over $1-billion in sales dazzle the mind of BRP's chief executive to represent close to a quarter of total company revenues to be driven in large part by the newly-released Ryker roadster which decreases the earlier Spyder's sale price start of $17,000 to a more affordable $8,500.

For the time being there is an observable hostility emanating from traditional motorcyclists toward the upstart three-wheelers, with the former taking to ridiculing the latter. They're certainly non-conforming...! Age confers a certain amount of armour against ridicule, however and the older crowd appears to be more than happy with the more stable three-wheeler, not the least bit inclined to trade it in for a conventional model.

Then there is licensing and regulations where some states like California permit anyone with a driver's license to drive off the lot with a three-wheeler. Car drivers in Quebec, on the other hand, require completion of a special seven-hour course to drive a BRP roadster. The company itself has obligingly set up 17 driving schools in the province to ensure that the requisite course is readily attainable, in the interests of ongoing sales.

On the other hand, many states and a few provinces and territories require that riders enroll in a graduated motorcycle licensing system that might seem to represent a barrier to entry. There is the indisputable reality that the automatic transmission and stable handling of three-wheelers result in confidence for older people for whom motorcycling is an exciting new sport. A fact that will impel them toward overcoming all obstacles....

Can-Am Spyder

Stupidity As An Addiction

"We have to be aware that there are many species out there that are defecating, that are emptying the contents of their enteric tracts onto the land and into the water."
"There's a long human history of consuming raw water over millennia and centuries and that has resulted in numerous documented outbreaks of serious infectious diseases and fatalities."
Dr. Ray Copes, Public Health Ontario

We do have a tendency to think of fresh-water streams as crystalline pure. Dr. Copes reminds us that any water taken directly from nature is likely to contain bacteria such as E.coli, salmonella and campyilobacter, along with parasites like cryptosporidium and giardia, disease-causing microbes that farm animals, for example cattle and sheep, not to mention wild animals shed into the environment. All their shedding contaminates surface water.

When you take your companion pet to the veterinarian for an annual check-up and vaccination, you're given options to protect them against picking up any of these microbes occurring naturally in the environment that can be a threat to their health as well. Should they become contaminated they will become ill. Just as humans are likely to, and when that happens because a number of people have taken to a new fad the potential for disease outbreaks can shake our confidence in modern health science.

It's not that modern health science is in any way deficient, it is that people seem to have a tendency to cluster around any new idea that celebrates itself as 'green', or 'natural'. In this particular instance, it's 'raw water'. the rage among that demographic of environmentally aware/unaware people who believe that 'natural' means healthy. If they gullibly believe what promoters of the new raw water bottling assure them, it's because they haven't been responsible enough to themselves to educate themselves of the dangers inherent in the belief that 'natural' is superior for human consumption.

But guess what? Humans may be civilized to the point where we flush what we defecate down a toilet and do the same with the waste from our domestic pets and that waste is then processed at waste treatment plants, but animals in the wild consider nature itself to be their toilet. Everything gets washed by rainfall into streams and rivers and lakes. If you happen to be out enjoying nature by camping in a wilderness area, camping gear includes a vital piece of equipment, to render lake water sterile of most bacteria.

But now a new health craze appears to be sweeping the United States, the belief that raw water (read untreated) is "healthier" than water that pours out of a tap, or alternately bottled water. Healthier because it won't contain fluoride, retaining beneficial minerals and "good" bacteria otherwise removed by disinfection methods or through sanitary filtration. Remember what Dr. Copes explained? There's a kind of reverse psychology effect going on here.

But that scientific/health point of view doesn't appear to have given second thought to groups promoting living off the water grid such as Live Water, based in San Francisco, delivering untreated water to clients, water they source from Opal Spring in Madras, Oregon. The water that its promoters celebrate as 'raw' just incidentally, may be free for them to scoop and bottle, but they sell it for $70 a 9.5-litre jug. If it were freely given away, as a sweetly charitable act of public good after all, no one would be interested.

The great likelihood is that untreated water carries a host of micro-organisms that can cause severe illness and even death. Knowing human nature and the suspicion of science by those committed to a more 'natural', 'healthful' way of living and eating, however, some people are just hard to convince. Until such time as they become predictably ill and modern medicine aided by scientific protocols responds to rush in and save them from themselves.

It's a pretty safe bet that those people who love and respect nature and who make it an important part of their lives, searching out unspoiled areas of forest and mountain, lake and ocean to explore and simply enjoy the serenity and beauty of it all, have the knowledge it takes to ensure they don't become ill through that kind of exposure. They take precautions by carrying with them the gear required to make the most of their outdoor experience and closeness to nature while guarding against consuming or imbibing harmful organisms natural to the landscape.