At the far southern tip of Laos, just north of the border with Cambodia, hundreds of islands crop out of the smooth Mekong. These are stubborn islands that refuse to be swept downstream and instead force the water to flow around, splicing the current and creating impressive waterfalls, broad eddies, beautiful channels, and bloating the river’s width to an obese 14 kilometers during the wet season. During the dry season (October through April), many more small islands stick above the surface, making the region’s name, Si Phan Don (Land of 4,000 Islands), seem more in the ballpark. Many of the bigger islands are inhabited, and a couple- Don Det and Don Khon- are popular with tourists for three major attractions: rare Irawady dolphins, picturesque waterfalls, and an island Rasta vibe that pervades and often intoxicates visitors.
A few kilometers to the north lies Don Khong- bigger, much less touristy, and relaxed but in a much less chemically-induced way. Here most capable men and many women, except for the few making a living from tourism, are fishermen and rice farmers. One local tells me he guesses there are 3,000 regular fishermen on the island, and the total population can't be much more than 10,000 folks. Almost all Don Khong houses are on stilts (makes for a nice shady open-air first floor, which also serve as a shelter for animals, machine shop, wood shop, and flood insurance all in one), and dogs are sparse- there are no food scraps to be had, enough but no excess.
Branthuay is a man somewhere around 50, strong, quick to smile, a tan five-foot six, and can speak Lao, English, and French. This description would get me nowhere with the police blotter, as I could be describing one of many Lao men. Branthuay lives with his wife and kids on the east side of the island, seems to have the normal job mix for an islander. He fishes, and during the rainy season he tends the rice fields. He also heeds occasional attention to his five water buffalo, which are fairly autonomous and spend most of their days in the shadow of a Buddhist Wat (temple), or grazing on the town green, at this time of year very dry and brown. Branthuay has fished the waters within a kilometer or two of his island for the past 28 years, each year seeing the river flood and ebb in yearly cycles, watching fish pulse up or downriver according to the water, and seeing the fish get smaller over the decades.
In college I procrastinated by playing around in boats of different shape and size. One of these was a featherweight craft which was boldly named “The Eagle”. I remember the name seemed ridiculous, because the kayak, made for flatwater racing, was so unsteady without headway that it seemed to have a will of it’s own, very unlike an eagle (steady, soaring), more hell-bent on acting like a duck. It was all but impossible to balance the thing without a dramatic flip, and just sitting in the boat meant a never-ending, nervous twitch of hip muscles.
Branthuay’s bare-bones canoe was every bit as unstable as The Eagle. Going out fishing with him felt like trying a high-wire act. It must take Lao-level calmness to go out in this boat at high water and keep it upright.
During the day, especially early in the morning, the castnet is Branthuay’s tool of choice. He targets water depths between two and five meters, and then does the unthinkable- he stands up in the bow of his canoe. As he did this, I felt like lying flat on the bottom of the canoe to try to add some ballast, but to save face I settled on just easing back in the stern, hands clamped to the gunwales, feigning a relaxed recline. Gripping a handful of the net in his left hand, another handful draped over his right elbow, and the rest cradled on his right forearm, Branthuay rotates his whole torso starboard to port, his left hand leading a graceful fling. In his right hand, he holds a loop of strong line which is connected to the center of the net. With this discus throw, the net flies out of his hands, and the steel chain which lines the perimeter of the net plunks down on the surface in a perfect 10-meter circle. And the boat somehow stays upright.
After letting the net sink to the bottom, Branthuay slowly pulls back on the main rope, in pulses. Fish which were in the water within the one-meter ring should, in theory, now be caught in the folds of the net. Nothing but weeds this time. Move and repeat the casting dance. Again, only mucous-like algae and a few weeds.
The same day, after dark, we went out again, and this time Branthuay carried along a gillnet. A gillnet with mesh smaller than an inch- far too small to catch lobster or halibut bait. But bigger is often not better in fishing, and smelt taste every bit as good as a heavy salmon. We paddled out away from the island. The darkness was pierced by twinkling from all around- the flicker of house lights from the island and from the far side of the river, from the 40,000 stars above, from fireflies on the tiny islands, and from fishermen's flashlights as they checked their business and then saved their batteries. The hills above town on Don Khong were ablaze in long narrow lines. Oddly enough, it struck me as perfectly normal that in this mysterious tropical land the island might have a volcano, which would of course be active and trickling molten lava down it’s slopes. I then rubbed my eyes and realized that instead locals were burning their rice fields, cycling back nutrients for the coming crop.
The was an explosion going on right then, though not volcanic. As full darkness set in, an impossible number of tiny bugs rocketed out of the unseen in into my face, in my eyes, down my throat, in my ears, up my nose. Not a biting bug, but ones that are only more annoying because they don’t bite, and yet still have a magnetic attraction to a human face. Like the boat balancing act, Branthuay seemed unaware of the difficulties, and that his unnecessary sternman was walking a tightrope of temporary insanity.
To set the driftnet alone in decent current, Branthuay starts by dropping a rock overboard. The rock is leashed to a stout line, which he then connects to one end of his gillnet. Downstream we drift, setting as we go, plastic water bottles serving as corks. When fully out, Branthuay paddles up to the rock, frees the upstream end of the net from it’s anchor, and then tows this high end perpendicular to the current. From then on, it’s a matter of towing on one end of the net or the other, trying to keep a slight downstream smile to the net, and monkeying the net around any of the small river islands. (Thank you fireflies, mini lighthouses of the Mekong.) Although tough to sense in the blackness, we were drifting quickly, and Branthuay was busy. He hauled and reset his net three times this night.
The sum total for the day and night efforts was a whopping four potbellied fish, each about five inches long. Valued at 700 kip each (about 10 cents), this was not a red-banner fishing day for the Eagle II. Expectations are not particularly high in these parts- 100 finger-length fish or one or two bigger fish, adding up to a kilogram or two, are considered a normal day. Branthuay caught 130 small fish the day before, but tonight there fish were somewhere else. According to my Lao fishing friend, most of the common species- fish like Pa Pea, Pa Kung, Pa Tong, and Banang- are worth around 40-50,000 kip per kilo (around $5). Luckily, the fuel bill is measured in spoonfuls of sticky rice (or for others with external motors, in small quantities of gas). April marks the biggest pulse of upriver fish, as the start of the wet season commences, and is when the locals search for what (I think) translates to “economic fish”- nice densities of heavier fish. Until then, fishermen around Si Phan Don seem satisfied enough to go for not-so-economic fish.
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