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The Great Float

Dr. Tom Dooley's account of a trip down the Namtha River in the fall of  1957.

Dr. Tom Dooley in Muang Sing

Excerpts from; The Edge of Tomorrow; Farrar, Strauss & Cudahy, 1958

The "Great Float" was John deVitry's idea. As the time for "phasing out" of Nam Tha approached, he argued that instead of going directly to Vientiane we ought to travel down the Nam Tha River in small boats holding sick-call in the isolated villages along the way.

The Chao Khuong [sic] provincial governor) was violently opposed to the scheme. He insisted that the river was treacherous and impassable, and that the people in the isolated villages were hostile to white men. Most of the political prisoners in stockade, he said, came from this region, yet his soldiers did not dare venture more than a few miles down river for mopping up operations. Moreover, he doubted that we could find boatmen who would risk their necks on the trip.

I sent a message to Dr. Oudom, and he promptly sent back his approval. The old Governor threw up his hands, and said he was no longer responsible. However, he did insist upon sending out a party of armed guards in advance, and assigned four gun-toting to accompany us.

We were to travel in pirogues, dugout canoes about 12 feet long, which were the only boats capable of shooting the rapids. As the Governor predicted, we had plenty of trouble signing up the boatmen. No one had ever made the trip before; and, in addition to bandits and impassable rapids, we would have to contend with the heavy rains of the monsoon season. However, extra pay plus some persuasion by the Chao Khuong prevailed.

John lined up three pirogues, each with a crew of four men. Two men sat in the middle of the dugout and paddled; the others mounted the "flying platforms" fore and aft and used long oars for steering. We carefully divided our medical supplies, food, and camping equipment among the three boats, so that if one was lost we would still be able to eat, sleep and hold sick-call.

The departure time was set at dawn, but following the usual Lao pattern we heaved anchor a little before lunchtime. We were ready to go and were down at the pirogues with our equipment. The chief boat man was to come down in just a few minutes. An hour later he ambled down, took a look at us, and then said he would have to go back to the Chao Khoung to get a paper of some sort. The interpreters said that they were afraid the boatmen were getting cold feet; they knew the banditry and the river and demanded more money for such a risky trip. I cannot say that I blamed them.

When they finally returned from the Governor’s, we said another farewell to our dozen friends who were squatting under a tree trying to avoid this constant drizzle. I squatted inside a little bamboo hut in the middle of this long dugout and when the boatman got aboard I yelled in good Navy style, "Heave anchor", but we did not heave anchor. The chief boatman did not like the way that his assistants, and the Americans, had loaded the canoes.

We then had to unpack and rearrange all the fear following the boatman’s orders concerning weights, and my orders concerning value of equipment. Finally we seemed to be loaded properly and, without adieu, we sort of drifted away from the shore. It was pouring in torrents but this time, it did not stop for the next four days. We waved a listless goodbye to our dampened friends.

That first afternoon’s float, as we blithely refer to rapid shooting, was as frightening as it was interesting. One boatman stood on the bow of the slender dugout and one on the stern, each with a huge paddle for steering. Tow other men squatted just inboard of them with short oars, used for thrusting us along. They did not have to stroke very much because the Nam Tha River current took care of us, propelling us with alternating heaves.

Anticipating that the cargo was tender, to say nothing of us, the boatmen wove palm leaf covering which allowed us to sit, hunched over on the wet floor of the canoe, and just fit our heads under this covered roof. But during the incessant rains even this was a blessing. However, it did not take long for the rain to break through the leaves and we were just as wet inside as we were out.
Our first stop was about three hours down the river. The boatmen got out and waded into the jungle to hack down some more of these long green bamboo logs to attach to the side of the boat. This is because we were rocking so very badly and the rapids were more severe than he had anticipated. The river here had no bank. The monsoon flooded waters had risen so high that there were large bushes and trees smack in the middle of the river, and the edges were not banks at all but simply trees on which the water had climbed up several feet. When we came to the first rapid of any size, the pirogues pulled over to the side once again.

This time we had to get out with the most valuable equipment, and plunge through the deep jungle on foot. We walked along the side of the river while the boats shot the rough part of the rapid, bouncing off of rocks, between logs and over the wild, white foam. Suddenly they came out into a small, quiet whirlpool and were able to paddle over to the edge where we were standing, knee-deep in water, with camera and gear over our head 0 as the rain poured down on them. And so passed our first day, stopping, diving along the edge of the rapid, getting back aboard again, and that constant, drenching chilly monsoon rain.

The first night we reached a small village where only a few old women could be found. With our four gun-toting guards we looked more like an invading force than a benevolent medical mission. The somewhat frightened women told us that the men folk were in the jungle hunting but would be back later. We said that all we wanted to do was get into an empty or abandoned hut, dry off, and eat. We were shown the village guest house, a miserable one. We somehow washed up, dried around the fire, heated up some C-rations and promptly tied up the mosquito nets, unrolled the bedding and fell into the dry warm arms of Morpheus, dreaming of martinis and hard, hard, land.
The next morning I woke to the sound of all the village mulling around our hut. We had no fear because this village was still close enough to Nam Tha that we knew many here had been to our hospital. Some we recognized as old patients. There were not too many people here who needed medicine because they frequently came on to Nam Tha.

Although the weather remained unchanged the trip became ten times more interesting. We were plunging down deep gorges, but instead of Colorado River-like cliffs on each side, we were closed in by huge luxuriant jungle giants. I was constantly yelling to the boys in the other boat, and they were telling back to me: "Look at that animal!" "Did" you see that, was it a bird? Was it a monkey?"

We stopped at several villages that day and at one we are our C-ration lunch. Each village along this river seemed to have its own epidemic. None of the epidemics seemed to cross or go up and down the river. These villages live in complete isolation from one another with no commerce and no trading. Although this is evil, as far as progress is concerned, it is good insofar as it prevents the spread of epidemic diseases. In some villages there was cholera, in others dysentery. Everywhere there were scabies, ringworm, beriberi, the alternating fevers of malaria, intestinal worms and yaws. I will never get hardened to this misery.

In the village where we planned to spend our second night…..It was a poor village and extremely isolated, even from Nam Tha. As we walked up the side of the jungle into the cleared area where the village stood, clinging to the mountain slope, we asked for the house of the chieftain. We were given directions and all the village stirred and walked behind us. Suddenly from the crowd a man stepped forward with his small son. The father, evidently an important man in the village, came up to us, fell on his knees, clasped his hands before his face and thanked us again for what we had done. He then welcomed us to his village. His had been one of the first cases of Kwashiorkor’s disease that we had in Nam Tha. We had cured him and were bale to explain to his father how to prevent a relapse. The son walked up to John and put his arms around John’s waist. He had absolutely no fear, for his had known the tenderness and compassion of my boys. This made us acceptable to the village immediately, and the Tassieng ( sub-district chief) came to the top of his stairs and beckoned us to enter into his home.

This Tassieng was a grand old fellow and answered a lot of questions for us. We asked him if he had ever seen white men here before. "No." We asked if he, or his family who were sitting around, found us droll. His truthful answer us, "Yes." As the evening progressed we became more interesting to them and they to us. We asked him if he had ever seen Chinese in this village. The old man said, "Oh, yes. Chinese have come here frequently but not recently." I asked, "How long?" The old man said, " Oh, not for about ten seasons."……………

It is hard to make these people hate. It is the custom of the land that a stranger in the village must be well treated. We were usually met at the river’s edge by some elder of the village with a small silver bowl containing some flowers, candles and other offerings of welcome to the visitors.

This little village was remarkable: it had side walks. It was the only village that I have seen…with sidewalks. Only here it was a centerwalk. The mud was so deep and so slippery in the monsoon rains, that the villagers had a raised path bordered on either side. Here caked mud and rocks a bit more solid were laid so that one could walk without slipping.

They found the spectacle of us Americans very interesting. They enjoyed watching us open our cans, cooking dinner, eating with bizarre instruments, mixing black powder or Borden’s, the white powder of Pream, the granules of sugar, and adding boiling water - these are strange-looking ceremonies to one who has never seen them before. To these villagers we were the greatest show on earth. And the miraculousness of our medicines were most welcome. They had heard a little bit about us, and were very anxious to see us here in the flesh. Again many in this village seemed to have something wrong, but there were no psychosomatic diseases in Laos. For the record, during my year I never saw one case of neurosis.

According to the ancient map the half way point for us would be the village of Nale. We arrived there in the late afternoon of the third day. This was not much different from other villages save it was a bit larger, and there was a police outpost there. Of course it was still raining when the village chief came out to welcome us. This could read and write, and spoke some French. And had a fine substantial house. He had spent several years of his life in the capital of Vientiane, during the French occupation.

Next door to his house was the thatched sickbay with a "nurse" working there. This nurse had nothing in the way of medicines, not even aspirins, quinine or adhesive tape …..

We had a long sick-call here lasting late in to the night. There was a woman with a fibroid tumor; a boy with a type of ophthalmia, which turns the eyeball into a whitish protruding globe; and several women with goiters; and man with a huge hernia.

We left many crates of medicines with the nurse, who seemed quite bright and very appreciative…..

The village chieftain gave us a fine little sinner mixed with our own food, and showed us then to the guest room. Because the advance pirogue of guards had told him we were coming, he had hastily constructed for the use of the white man some beds. "You know these bizarre white men do not sleep on the stuffed leave mats on the floor like normal people do. For some reason they put their mattresses up on a wooden frame and call it a bed." (Why do we?) He had had these beds constructed for us. But the measurements we a little off. They were only wide enough to lie perfectly still either on you back or on you stomach. If you rolled over, you would roll of for sure. Poor Bob with his husky six-foot frame really had a dangerous night.

We started up early the next day and several hours later we were overtaken by another pirogue. There was a frantic father in this boat who lived north of Nale. The night before, when we had arrived in Nale, his sister found out that we were the white doctors from Nam Tha. They had heard of us. She immediately set out by foot north to the village of her brother, and returned with him the next morning. They brought his dying daughter. We had already left the village so they borrowed a boat and came down to catch us.

We could not land anywhere because of the river and the jungle. HE shot on down the rapids with us to the next village and carried his daughter into the guest hut. She had fulminating pneumonia. Her respiration was already a death rattle. Her heartbeat was so faint that I could hardly hear it and her lips were blue from lack of oxygen. We did everything we could, gave her medicines and infusions, and finally turned to the father and offered him enough medicines to continue treatment for several days. I knew that the treatment would be futile. I knew she could not possibly live. And she was only about three, the age of my own brother’s daughter.

That night we spent in a Kha Kho village. It was an abhorrent little place where we were looked upon with real suspicion. Every child in that village had fulminating whooping cough. The night’s air was torn by their hacking. We had plenty of terramycin which is specific against this organism, but the thick mucous clogging the throats of the children was the worst thing that I had ever seen.

After a sleepless night, we packed up again. We loaded our gear, now considerably lighter, and continued on down the river. We stopped at several villages and around noon the sun came out. It was most welcome.

We went on down and reach the Mekong River by night fall. At the village of Ban Paktha, the Nam Tha River weds the mighty Mekong. This is a fine old village built on a lush piece of land between the two rivers. It was small and of course very muddy, but it had something about it that was dignified.

The village chief took us to a big decrepit, termite infested house that had in former times been quite a beautiful place. It had belonged to the Provincial Governor. But years of monsoons, disuse and tropical ravages had nearly converted this to the dust from which it came. And the Governor had moved north to Nam Tha. However this house was the very best that he could offer us and to our eyes it looked like Buckingham Palace. We held sick-call that night after dinner and it lasted until midnight. Kieu had come with us as interpreter for this trip. We sent Chai on to Vientiane by air, with all of the boys’ baggage, as they were going to America at the end of this float. Their personal baggage was too valuable to risk on the river.

Kieu had been a good interpreter. I will never forget how he gently reprimanded me for riding a bicycle to the Governor’s house one night in Nam Tha. It was only down the lane a bit and I did not feel like walking. I asked in the world I should not ride a bike. He replied, "Ce n’est pas chic." He was awfully worried about "face"; apparently I did not think about it enough. John, with a Continental background, was much more aware of this sort of thing. John always knew the right words and never gave offense, whereas my hot Irish temper sometimes caused embarrassment.

This particular night I was tired and cross. The crowds at sick-call were doing what so frequently happens, they were closing in on me so tightly that I could hardly breathe, much less listen to a man’s chest through a stethoscope. I instructed Kieu to tell them to move back as I was being suffocated. In his well-trained, gentlemanly manner, he said something. They did not move. I told him to get the mob back, I was getting a little frightened. He repeated something sotto voce. Finally I turned and yelled at him to tell the people to get back or I would stop sick-call. I had no idea that yelling at my interpreter would cause him to lose that much face. Kieu, being as tired and perhaps as cross as I was, just walked away and refused to work. John went to try to apologize for me and get him to come back. But he would not, for he would lose face. SO we held sick-call without him. We were all under a terrible strain, even the Lao themselves. It is no wonder that we were all edgy, cross and irritable.
While we were bathing from a bucket of river water, eating our dinner, or holding sick-call, we would always be watched by that audience of people, hacking, spitting, and being sick at both ends. But their smiles were so gracious and they were so genuine that I could never get really angry with them.

Late that night after sick-call when we were so beat we could hardly hold our heads up, the village chief of Ban Pak Tha asked us to come to his house. We wanted to get out of it, but we went and were glad. We found that he had laid out a little private dinner for us. We had some good Lao soup, Lao alcohol, and for one of the few times in Asia, potatoes.

The next morning we changed boats. We were now nearing civilization, on the Mekong. Here there were larger boats that had motors on them. These haul rice up and down the wide river from Luang Prabang to Ban Pak Tha and then further up along the Burma border. We were able to get a place on one of these on top of several tons of burlap rice bags. We left all remaining medicines at Ban Pak Tha with the schoolteacher. Even the bags and the small black footlocker in which we carried the supplies were left behind. With just our personal gear, plus a few gifts that were given to us, we left Ban Pak Tha for Luang Prabang……..

On the afternoon of the eight day we were still sprawled in confusion amidst the howling livestock, nursing mothers, sweating coolies, dried meats, and other accoutrements of this Mekong Queen Mary. Kieu, now better spirits, told us he had just heard the pilot say that we would soon be in Luang Prabang. We climbed out the side and up on the roof to watch beautiful ancient Luang Prabang come into view.

As soon as the crew had a piece of planking down, we scrambled off the boat and climbed up the banks to the road. Here, with the solid earth beneath us, we felt that the river trip was at last completed. We felt as though the last days had been more fruitful than perhaps the whole preceding month. We really had taken American humanity into the most unknown, untouched hinterlands. We felt as though we had done some service in the name of our country, our fellow man and our God.

Dr. Tom Dooley made two more trips down the river in December 1958 and February 1959. You can read about them in; The Night they Burned the Mountain; Farrar, Strauss & Cudahy, 1960