501 Places

Outside the laundry shop, Phnom Penh

I don’t know what it is about travelling, but we seem to be particularly aware of the extreme levels of service when we are away from home. We all have stories of the appallingly bad; whether it is imcompetence, incomprehension or service given with added undiluted hostility. Occasionally though we also experience the very highest standards of service, and often it’s found in the places where we least expect it.

One such case for us was in the suburb of Phnom Penh where we staying over Christmas. We were overdue for a laundry day, and needless to say the hotel we were staying in was not an option (it would have come to around $50; exactly what we paid for a night’s stay). Walking through the neighbourhood we didn’t find any of the $1/1kg laundry signs that were so prevalent in the tourist hot-spots of Laos. But we did find a place that looked as though they might wash our clothes (a general store with a clothes line hanging limply from a streetside pole along the side of the shop). I tried to ask the family seated around a table in the shop whether they do laundry but none of them understood a word and after many smiles and blank faces we walked away.

Undeterred, I returned later with a rucksack full of dirty clothes. It must have been around 5kg worth, and the main man greeted us and tipped out our laundry, carefully separating it into neat piles and all the while tapping numbers into his calculator. I feared the worst while he added the items and he seemed to add on many extra fugures before showing me the final figure: $4.81. I nodded with a poker face and he signalled I should come back at 8 o’clock the next morning.

And here’s where he excelled. When we walked past the shop that evening, we saw our washing hanging in the street. We went up and found that it was completely dry, so asked him if we could take it there and then. He was not happy for us to take it as he signalled that it wasn’t finished. After much persuasion he allowed Sam to take a couple of items she needed and he hung on to the rest. When I collected the remaining clothes in the morning, every item was neatly pressed and carefully folded. He was full of gratitude and the family later waved and smiled warmly at us when we passed the shop again during our stay.

Why have I shared this very ordinary story? For me he personified what it means to excel in delivering customer service. He could teach many businesses much bigger than his own about the essence of customer service. The pride he took in doing the job to the highest standards was striking. He could have easily let us take our clothes away and spare himself the extra task of ironing. We would have been happy customers at that point. But it wasn’t enough for him to leave it at that. He insisted on finishing the job properly, whether we appreciated it or not. How many of us will go the extra mile when our own pride in the quality of our work is the only reward?

I view tipping with a sense of distate, and see it as a sad legacy of a class system that should have died out decades ago. In a nutshell I don’t see why service staff aren’t paid a decent salary so they don’t have to beg to customers in order to make up for their employer’s shortfall. I’ve written on the subject already and won’t repeat my previous rants but I did recently find an example of a tipping policy that seemed to be novel, unobtrusive and above all else, highly successful.

Those who have spent any significant time in Laos recently may have found their way to Joma Bakery. It’s 100% geared to the falang market, and the prices will exclude not only the average Lao person but also many a hardcore backpacker. They do however offer a fresh cool interior, and their AC cafe is a welcome relief from the heat of the day in Luang Prabang or Vientiane. Their cheescakes and shakes are fabulous, and I have no doubt that if they produced the same stuff in London or New York they’d be constantly packed with regular customers.

Joma have a focus on their community involvement in Laos and Vietnam, and the posters in the cafe display their involvement with local villages (like Starbucks but it appears a bit more real). There is a Tips jar next to the till, and each time we visited the cafe in Luang Prabang it was fairly full of cash. We heard that this was not always the case, and had changed dramatically as a result of a suggestion by the local manager.

Tips had typically totalled around $15 a month; not much between 6-7 staff, even in Laos where average salaries are little more than $30 a month. The manager suggested to the staff that they start a policy where 50% of tips are donated to the local community projects. You might think that this would be resisted, given the difference that even a couple of dollars can make in a month. But the staff embraced the idea, and the policy was implemented. A sign was placed on the Tips jar, and the effect was immediate.

People came in, enjoyed the service (it was excellent) and wanted to tip. Knowing that their money would not only help the local baristas but also the local communities in the area, the tips rolled in and in the first month they collected $300: a great contribution to the community and a ten-fold increase in their tips.

No pressure, no suggestions, just a ‘tip what you like, if you like’ jar on the counter. As a result people tipped willingly, and not through fear of a likely confrontation. A small step, and such a big difference to the staff and others who benefitted from their initiative.

Akha women, northern Thailand - notice the Coca-Cola T-shirt?

In SE Asia, and no doubt elsewhere in the world, there is a growing trend for tourists to visit ‘tribal villages’. These are marketed as communities of people living in accordance with their ancient traditions. By inference, we are encouraged to believe that the state provides protection for these minority groups and that we, as tourists, can come face to face with a different culture while helping them financially by our visit.

We visited a number of ethnic villages during our time in Thailand and Laos. Most were normal working villages, but the most uncomfortable by far was a hilltribe village tourist centre just outside Chiang Rai. We hadn’t been so keen to go, but our driver had already taken us to the brilliant Wat Rong Khun and we had hiked up to a waterfall in the nearby hills. With a couple of hours to kill before our bus to the Lao border, we agreed to her plan of going to see the tribal village centre.

Our reaction was purely personal, but for us it was a place we didn’t want to hang around. Made up of four tribal communities, each one separated by no more than 100 metres along a footpath, this complex housed people from these ethnic groups who would normally have a large swathe of land on which to subsist. Here, penned in like animals in a zoo, they waited for passing tourists to wander up to their station. They would then perform a dance or offer scarves and trinkets for sale, in the hope of raising a few baht. Others may have found the same experience to be a positive one, but I couldn’t wait to get out and just felt wrong for even being part of something that made me feel instinctively uncomfortable.

Lao village

I have since read numerous articles, including this excellent piece by Tony at Contemporary Nomad about the compulsory resettlement of tribal communities in Thailand, and the overall policy in neighbouring countries of forceably integrating these communities into mainstream society. This is clearly a hugely complex subject and not one which I would pretend to understand. In our particular visit, did these people benefit from being in their enclosure and capturing a few crumbs from the passing farang? Financially they probably do benefit (although I wonder how much of the 300 baht entrance fee reaches them, and how much makes its way into ‘other places’). Is this the life they would lead if given the choice? I somehow doubt it.

We did visit other villages along the Mekong in Laos that left us with a more positive feeling. Sure, I learned that financial arrangements were made between the river boat company and the village elders – call it a landing fee. That’s perfectly ok. When we wandered into the villages we were mobbed by curious children and greeted with reserved smiles by the adults. Those encounters were far more pleasant, although even here there is evidence to suggest a dark side to the recent history of resettlement of ethnic groups along the river by the Lao government.

What do we do as tourists in these situations? Do we visit the tribal cultures in these environments hoping that a little or our money does make it into their hands, or we keep away, stopping the demand for such circuses, but subjecting these people to the alternative, whatever that is? Who benefits in the long run? Not the questions that the tourism chiefs would want visitors to leave with, but if ecotourism is to evolve maybe we will gain easier access to the answers.

A born poser!

Among my hundreds of photos from a trip I seem to have relatively few of people. I still can’t get over that discomfort of asking someone for a photo, even when they seem happy about it, and often stand back when others are clicking away.

As a result there are a number of people we met along the way who I wish I’d captured in a photo: the lovely lady who single-handedly ran the cafe in Nong Khiaw, the people we shared a long bus ride with and the many faces young and old who stopped to laugh at the strangers in their town.

There were however some moments in Laos where it seemed too easy to get a picture, and even as a reluctant photographer I was able to capture a willing subject. Here are just a few of those faces:

Our boatman on the trip to the 100 Waterfalls

Perhaps the most (or least) photogenic baby ever

The boy in the photo had just tripped over and was crying, so I organised a quick photoshoot to take his mind off the pain. Clearly I failed.

These kids in Luang Prabang were being very friendly. Soon after this photo they were asking for Cola. Lesson learned.

Heading home from school in Paksong on the Bolavan Plateau

Sam with the girls who took us to their school

Really not bothered about the falang with the camera. Way too cool to pose.

Left behind by her friends and staring at the funny people

Working in the fields

No cheese

Arriving in a new place, our senses are alive to the strange sense, sights and sounds that surround us. We revel in the unknown and absorb our environment and all its surprises. The joys of travel are all about the sensations we experience: tasting new foods, hearing  different languages and music and of course the many sights that are on offer in our destination.

After travelling for a while however, some of the excitement about these discoveries starts to wear off, and inevitably a longing for some familiarity kicks in. It does so more for some than others, and no doubt more when we don’t feel on top of the world. But I think for everyone who has been away even for a short break there comes a point where you find yourself thinking “I could really do with ……” or even “when I get home the first thing I am going to do is….”

Still no cheese

For me the answer is usually my own bed. Some hotel beds are better than others but I know my own bed and pillows like no other and sleep best in my own familiar place. For my wife Sam it is our own bathroom and the comfort of knowing that the shower is strong, the toilet is clean and the room laid out exactly as she likes.

But when we met travellers who had been in Asia for months and asked them what they missed most, the answer was almost universal: cheese! Whether on a pizza, in a burger, on toast or just on its own, it is a staple part of a western diet, and for those who rarely go a day without the stuff a long stay in Asia can be a challenge.

Everything for sale - except cheese

We did see pizza places in most towns. We even had a very good pizza in Luang Prabang with a friend we’d met who had been away for a lot longer than us and was in desperate need of cheese. But we also heard of Asian-cheese related disasters, none worse than the pizza where the base was covered with soft spreading cheese (you know the awful stuff that comes in triangles). Another pizza horror tale involved a base where instead of tomato paste the chef used hot chilli sauce, but that’s another story…

Is cheese really missed by all westerners in Asia (vegans excepted of course), or did we just meet a strange sample of travellers? I would welcome hearing what others long for when away from home, before I sell all my belongings and move to Laos to open a cheese shop.