Sunday, July 13, 2008

Helllooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Is anybody still out there?

Well, I wouldn't blame you for giving up on me, since it's been so long. I can explain.....but do you really want me to?? I can see Peter shaking his head violently as he rocks to and fro, moaning, no, no....!

Well, many of you know that my internet has been busted since about april 1 when we had the grandaddy of all electrical storms up here, and it's been agonising getting something done about it, and you know that I have to schlepp around to various hot sweaty little internet shops when I have a spare moment to write and then there are the usual signal-dropping-out-just as one has produced a lovely long screed and the whole thing gets lost, or the urgent Mum-where's-the-Medicare-card type messages to answer and, yada yada....And I was back in Oz for most of April whichwas lovely, but hardly newsy....

Well, now here I am in the second-sweatiest internet shop, but the fan at this end of the shop is broken and the German family next to me enthusiastically writing to Grossmutti have only very recently removed their feet from sweaty trainers so I am already swooning from the heady mix that this produces and probaby won't last long.

Mainly I just wanted to let you know I'm OK, I am still deeply in love with this town, and now have an unexpected but thoroughly welcome new lock on solvency, having signed a one year contract to be the chief educational officer for the newest, poshest and most expensive hotel in town, still under construction. They offered about four times what I thought I'd try and ask for so I'm not quibbling. My new boss--(well, sub-boss as the wily Ping is still my guarantor and nominal boss. He gets more nominal every day that passes that he hasn't paid me.) is an affable, capable, easy-going Australian called Gary Tyson who was told that I was THE go-to-girl here in Luang Prabang by my dear friend Brian---another Affable Aussie who is part of the architectural/project management team. Ex opal-dealer from Coober Pedy who once ran an opera company in St. Louis.

And well, it seemed like the next logical step was to buy a car. So I went down to Vientiane to check up on one of my ex-novices who is starting college there and met up with two guys. One is a waiter at Sticky Fingers Cafe called Vong, who is also a bit of a wheeler-dealer but has a heart of gold and plays rugby union (would you believe!) being fairly un-Lao in size. The other was Mike Murphy, a Newfie in coke-bottle glasses who's got a big garage in town and has lived there for twenty odd years when he wasn't being framed by his bejewelled and jealous exwife, chucked out of the country, going into business unwittingly with a conman who carried a suitcase full of dodgy passports, thrown into jail, getting vindicated and then re-framed, but does a nice line in used cars and trucks fro he vaious international mobs who come to twon.

I set them to looking for me and Vong came up trumps two weeks later with a Hyundai Starex mini-van with power everything, only a year or two old and got us all the way back up here to Luang Prabang on less than a tank of diesel without a murmur.

That might not sound like much unless you've seem Highway 13, which is either flat and potholed or stunningly steep and twisty. Either way it goes through tiny villages full of dogs and chickens and motorbikes and big trucks and small babies and herds of dozy, apparently deaf cows, all of whom share the road. Some times this is because the land drops away inches from the edge of the road, and sometimes because there are people cooking and chatting and picking their noses right at the edge of the road, seemingly unaware that the nation's biggest and most amazing highway runs through their living rooms.

It's only about 400 k's but took nine hours with lightning stops for pees and one 20 minute pause for food and I am happy to tell you that I had the brains to hire Vong to do the driving, sending him back by plane the next day, a matter of 35 minutes.....

"We" consisted of not only myself and my head boy Sommay, but most of his family---sister Jumalee, brother Bounlay, Uncle Peng, Auntie Ti, their year-old granddaughter Gai and Auntie Phaw. Another brother and sister were treated to a plane ride as I don't have it anywhere in my heart to make anyone take the bus. Ten hours of lurching....you know the drill....

We'd combined the car-buying trip with the wedding of another brother Xai, who was marrying a girl from just outside Vientiane and the wedding was a ripsnorter. Took about three days, but we couldn't let him face her family on his own and I am sort of their mother and family elder. Not to mention their own travelling side-show. Yes, I wore the Turquoise Trainstopper and yes, I danced.....Let a veil be drawn....

No, really, I'll tell you all about it soon, and even try to whack in the odd photo, but I've been here for nearly two hours and it's G&T time. Nice to be back in touch. More when the modem is up and running. I promise.......