BBC: In pictures: Life in rural Laos
It explains a lot of what we saw as we travelled around – cows or buffalo grazing on scraps of grass in what looked rice paddies. It was ‘burning season’ while we were there and it was amazing to see how much land was being cleared, particularly on the trip over the mountains from Luang Prabang to Vang Viang, and on down to Vientiane. I couldn’t see how much was being cleared in the south because it was dark. I really don’t understand why the government lets people clear land they won’t be able to irrigate, and I worry that they’ll lose their top soil in floods and dust storms once they’ve cleared the trees and destroyed the infrastructure of the soil. I guess sometimes you can only go for short-term solutions, but it was kinda heart breaking.