Kids in Laos and India

We have seen loads of very competent and confident small children in Laos and India. 7 year olds carrying 2 year olds and looking after them with no parents in sight. 5 year olds swimming confidently is a fast flowing river. Many more examples which I will try to note as we continue our journey.

However something happens as kids in these countries grow up.

Many adults live in houses that are in a terrible state of repair. Many repairs cost money, but a lot of maintenance and general tidiness and hygiene is free.

Guest houses have bed bugs, and loose wires hanging out. Shower water stinks of sewage. In the Maldives, we stayed in someone's house where the shower water stank. They said it had been like that for 3 years. It took 2 hours to connect a pipe and fix the problem permanently.

Most people everywhere do about the minimum necessary to get by. Under qualified people in welfare countries take benefits because its enough to get by and easier than working a crappy job.

This could just be my limited experience, but the general condition of the human environment in both countries also supports the following idea.

This is what I have observed in India, Bali, Maldives and India. This is just my observation and could well be due to the selection of people I have met in these countries. Outside Europe, most people I have met are in the hospitality industry. Hotel staff, drivers, restaurant staff. I have also worked with plenty of Indian, Nepalese, Bangladeshi IT workers. I have also worked with IT workers and other freelancers around Europe.

1. Kids have a lot of freedom and are more capable, confident and independent than kids in Europe. They are more self reliant and display more initiative.

2. Adults do the minimum. They do things in inefficient ways. They are inflexible, show little initative and require more direction than adults in Europe.

So my question is, what happens between about 7 years old and adulthood in these countries, and how is that different to what happens in the same age range in Europe.

The state of the countries supports the idea that something negative happens in these years, but it could also be down to governments and general lack of freedom. India has the caste system, Laos is communist and Maldives lacks communications and natural resources. Also all these countries are hot, and it is hard to get stuff done when you have sweat dripping in your eyes.

While thinking about this I found a study comparing IQ by country - full list here http://www.photius.com/rankings/national_iq_scores_country_ranks.html - but the countries relevant to this article are as follows:
UK - 100
Sweden - 99
Maldives - 81

India - 82

Indonesia - 87

Malaysia - 92

Laos - 89

So again, smart kids grow into not so smart adults. But why?

I'm off to Equatorial Guinea to experience Idiocracy first hand.....

Vang Vieng

We paid 380000kip, about £30 for a day tour for the 4 of us. We booked it with our hotel reception. Children were half adult price.

We were collected by a tuktuk. Basically a minivan pickup with bench seats and a roof in the back. They squeezed in about 4 more tourists than was comfortable. The kayaks were on the roof.

We drove about 15km north of Vang Vieng, and parked by the river. We had to change in to our swimwear, so it would have been better to wear it from the start.

The first activity was to kayak accross the river. The guide made us more worried than we needed to be , but we still crashed in to a bush before landing on the other bank.

We walked though a village and some rice fields. It was really muddy everywhere and slow going. Henry slipped and fell into a rice field. After about a 1km walk, we arrived at the cave tubing place.

I sat in an inner tube on the water and Winston  sat on me. Henry sat on Caroline. The kids wore the headlamps. There were loads of groups there, many doing some zip lining between the trees, but it was not possible for Winston and Henry to do that.

Our group of about 12 people pulled thrmselves on a rope in to the cave. The water was high, so we could only just squeeze under a rock and into the cave. We went for about 300m inside the cave against the flow of water. There were other groups in the cave. One group thought it was fun to scream and splash, buy it wasn't fun for Henry to get splashed.  It took a while to get back out of the cave due to the amount of people.

We had lunch. I had a bit of rotten chicken which almost made me puke from the smell. Winston chose vegetarian as is becoming his habit more these days.

We walked back down to the river , stopping briefly at the 'elephant' cave where a stalagmite had formed roughly in to the shape of an elephant.

We followed the guides kayak quite closely on the river. The first rapids were a bit nerve wracking, and one of the other kayaks capsized and someone else crashed in to a tree and capsized. It wasn't that rough. The kids loved it. It's always a balance between making sure they know what to do if we capsize and not making them too worried.

Before the biggest rapids we held 6 kayaks together to make a more stable boat. It worked really well.  The other thing to make it more stable is to hang your legs over the sides. 

We stopped at a pub that was playing things like 'smack you bitch up' and 'gangnam style' very loud.  We had 2 sandwiches a bottle of water and a small beer for 60000kip £5.

There were loads of pubs along the river, many claiming to be the last pub, and many with banging tunes. 

The one we stopped at there was a guy who surfed against the flow of the river and when tubers came past, he would leap off and grab them and swim them to the shore.

We got back on the river. The scenery was stunning. Steep jungle covered mountains shrouded in clouds. The rain gradually got stronger and stronger.

Then we took a tuktuk, again over full, to the blue lagoon .  It wasn't blue and it isn't a lagoon. But it is good if you like rope swings and to jump off a tree in to water. The rain was too much and Henry was asleep, so after a while we just waited in the tuktuk.

£30 was excellent value for this trip.

We stopped at a chemist to get some hair lice treatment, but they didn't sell the comb, just the lotion.

For dinner, Henry wanted to go to the hotel's restaurant, and they only had either fried rice or noodles, so we had that and it was fine.  Dinner cost 90000kip or about £7.

The next morning we hired a private mini van to take us to Luang Prabang. It cost 880,000kip about £70. The aim was so we could stop at any time for toilet or puke. Henry puked, so we stopped and he did most of the puke outside.

The scenery is stunning. It feels very undeveloped and sparsely populated.

When we arrived in Luang Prabang, our driver wanted to drop us at the Vanvisa Guesthouse.  Caroline had arranged the transport to take us all the way to the falls. It was very clear, no room for mistake. She knew of this guesthouse and the possibility for confusion, so she really spelt it out before agreeing the transport.  The driver was a right twat about it, stomping around etc. We refused to leave the van until it was sorted.  Eventually, the commpany sent another van to take us the last 30km. They tried to get an extra 400,000kip (£35) for that, but we were not falling for that.

So for any out of the ordinary transport instructions, I would suggest write it down and get someone at booking place to sign it for proof.