Power

Most Lao villages that are not near major roadways are also off of the electrical grid, such as it is. Even provincial capitols, such as Phongsali, have no power between ten PM and six AM, grid or no grid.

Isolated villages, which is to say most villages, find other ways to generate power.

This photo shows a village hydraulic generator. When the water level is manageable, this creek is channeled, via crude wooden sluices, into a bamboo pipe. The generator is seven by a propeller on a shaft in the pipe. It is sort of like an electric outboard motor in reverse. The wires are run on bamboo poles back to the village.

The wires are strung just high enough to be above the heads of Lao villagers and just low enough to snag unaware farang.

In the rainy season, all of this had to be removed or it is washed away. Until a few months ago, this was a waterfall.