Some of you may be familiar with my weird phobia about half-dead balloons, but probably only a few are aware of my shopping phobia---especially Marion, who did 99% of our shopping, and my kids, who remember me ringing them up on my mobile, seeking counselling to get through the weekly grocery gathering at Coles.
I really hate trolling up and down the aisles trying to recall the list I left at home, getting more and more depressed by the screaming children, the Miserable Meanderers, the dreadful smells of all those room deoderants, and the squeaking, intransigent shopping trolleys.
But shopping here is another kettle of odiferous dried fish altogether. Mostly I rely on my maid Me, who picks up what we need in the markets on her way in in the morning, or Sommay who goes with me to the Chinese market and bargains ferociously and works economic miracles without a shadow of guilt. Sometimes, Joy is sent out for something, but the other day he came back with, inexplicably, thirty eggs in a plastic bag, many of which arrived unbroken after a wobbly ride in his bike basket, so we don't usually ask him to do that sort of thing any more.
So this past weekend, Joy was left here and Sommay and I went to the Big Smoke--Vientiane, where 234,000 of the 5.5 million strong Lao population lives for a shopping trip. The real destination, however, was Thailand, just over the Mekong, where I needed to renew my visa, and where one goes for shopping---much cheaper, better selection of goods, actual shopping centres.....We very much needed a new router to try and improve our sporadic internet coverage, and the odd wine glass and what-not.
This is a fairly routine trip for most folks; a 40 minute flight, a couple of nights in town bracketing a dash over the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge to Nong Khai and a 90 minute bus ride down to Udon Thani for the aforementioned shopping.
For Sommay, however, it was a huge, spine-tingling, ear-to-ear-grin moment in his life, as he'd never been to Vientiane, never been on an airplane and never been to Thailand.
It was a delight to watch his little face light up and his eyes dart about as he discovered all the fun things about airplanes, saw the world from the air and landed in the big city for the first time.
The traffic was a real eye-opener, and novelties like traffic lights, which he'd never seen, and he often lost his sense of direction completely which is very unlike him, but to me it's a small, flat, dreary town and I knew it well enough so we got around fine.
We found a centrally located guesthouse for $6 a night each, but soon discovered why it was so cheap. so we moved to a great place reccommended by our taxi driver. Only $9 each and wonderful!
But the real mission was the trip to Thailand, so we got to the bus station early for the 10:30 bus, very comfy, sailed along to the border, and then came to a grinding halt in the thick throng of fellow-border-crossers all trying to thread our way through the undermanned exit and entrance to the two countries. It took three and a half hours to do the 90 minute journey, but it was great seeing Sommay's happy face as we drove across the Mekong and he was suddenly an international traveller for the first time.
He was blown away by the merchandise on offer and by the prices as he scurried about buying various bits and pieces for friends a relatives in his village. I was over come by the sheer volume of goods, people, noise, and the fragrance of buttery coconut waffles being made and sold at several stands in the shopping centre, permeating everything with a golden miasma of toasty-brown cholesterol.
Anyway, we GOT the router and I got some speakers and a couple of tops and Sommay got his phones and it all took forever, so we were starving and decided, rashly, to eat before we ducked back to the bus station to book our bus trip back to Vientiane.
The food was great---BBQ duck, lovely veggies in oyster sauce---and the restaurant was one of those where some bright spark has decided to improve on a good thing and feature dancing waiters...Yes, suddenly the music hit a particularly peppy note and all the staff took up positions in the aisles and boogied away to a smart set of coordinated dance steps, while customers hoed into their steaming hotpots. It was halfway between charming and bizarre.
Less charming, however was the fact that we managed to get back to the bus station shortly after they had sold the last seat on the last bus, so we blinked a few times and asked for a taxi. This is where the adventure began.
The fellow yelled, no, he bellowed across the bus station to another guy who led us to a rank of tuk-tuks. It took a minute to realise he was serious. A tuk-tuk is a far cry from a taxi and great for pottering around town, being basically a three-wheeled motorcycle with covered seating attached to the back, but for a 60 kilometre run...
But, when the devil drives.... Actually, far from being a devil, the driver was a big cheerful solid-looking bloke who was willing, for just under $20 bucks, to drive us the 60-odd kilometres to the border and it was either that or walk....
So in we hopped, cheerfully thinking that it would be a bit of a lark, if a bit juddery. Until we looked in the direction we were headed and saw the blackest sky I've ever seen, getting blacker....
The driver pointed at the doomsday scene ahead and laughed and we joined in, but after the first 15 or twenty k's, it started. Just a fine spray at first, then a proper rain, followed by a deluge, a short period of fine mist and then back to pouring....
There is a roof on these vehicles and plastic curtains along the sides of the seating area, but they tended to flap uselessly under the onslaught of the rain, the splash from the larger vehicles and huge double-trailered trucks that hurtled past us in the dark.
Sommay got a good position right behind the driver and bore up stoically despite wearing only jeans and a T-shirt, so I had to do the same, with only a large plastic carrier bag to protect the side of me that faced the torrents.
At first it was actually refreshing and kind of fun, but gradually the water turned icy because of the speed we were travelling and began to trickle down my back, and I was, for the first time in the entire month I've been back in Asia, chilled to the bone. Also soaking wet.
I kept seeing road signs with the mileage, but soon decided to ignore them as it seemed to get longer between kilometres as we went along and even with only 16 ks to go, it wasn't a lot of comfort. Finally we slowed down as we got into Nong Khai, and it was at this point that we discovered that the driver had no idea how to ge to the bridge. After trundling down several dirt lanes and stopping to holler for directions from people sheltering under trees and roofs, he decided to follow the very obvious signs and we ended up at the bridge, feeling like refugees under the eerie orange halogen lights.
We slopped wetly through the routine of customs, departure, over the bridge, and then through the apply-for-a-visa and wait and then got through immigration and collapsed happily into a nice comfy minivan that took us, shivering in the air-con, the last 25 k into town and up and down several dark wet streets before we finally found our hotel and our nice warm showers and warm dry beds.
The next day was sightseeing and more shopping at a huge traditional market and at ITECC, a Lao style shopping mall, which was basically just a market but inside a brand new exhibition centre just outside of town. We got there after a lot of searching and adventures like running out of petrol on the lousy motorbike that we rented from the hotel and which Sommay distrusted deeply. You actually have to wear helmets in Vientiane so I had to do a lot of hollering in his ear to navigate , but it was a pretty good day, visiting the vast golden That Luang temple and the big lump of concrete that is Patuxai Arch with its fancy dancing fountains.
The best bit of the trip, beside watching the dear lad's delighted face, was getting home, where we celebrated with big bowls of noodles from our favourite (non-dog) restaurant across the road.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
Action Woman is on the case of the Kanine Kitchen
I thought you'd like to know that after an agonising afternoon yesterday of listening to non-stop barking and howling and that harrowing doggie-type screaming that they do when being clouted unmercifully with a stick, during which I contemplated getting one of those stun guns (Good thinking, Stu, I was only one synapse-firing ahead of you) that humane slaughterpersons use, then moved on to plotting guerrilla action and letting all the poor pooches go under cover of darkness, and finally was about to storm over there like a wrathful Valkyrie and start shouting at the poor bastards, instead I stormed off to town for a curry and a drink with friends and lay more constructive plans......
Obviously, none of the above would actually represent a lasting solution nor would it endear me to the ladies who run these places. And they're not the forgiving types, given an altercation that raged during most of the afternoon between two of the lady proprietresses. Heated invective echoed back and forth across the street, fingers were pointed, barbecue tongs were brandished, fists were shaken.
So, today I went to see my friend Manivonh of the Magnificent Mammaries (Call me Vonnie, baby!). She's the daughter of a general and speaks Chinese, Lao, French, and pure Californian from years spent in San Diego. There I met her friend Mimi, (Off to Paris for a week, but when I get back, I'll be having an opening at the gallery---you must come) and held a conference with these two formidable ladies.
The upshot is that they emphatically endorsed the idea of visiting the headman of our village and politely, diplomatically voicing my concerns about the welfare of the dogs, the tone of the neighbourhood and the international reputation of Luang Prabang---Heritage City---if this were to be played up by some farang travel journo.....Now who would that be, I wonder....
They were horrified and said We are Buddhist we don't cause suffering to animals! They also pointed out that dog restaurants are illegal in Vientiane and while they may not be here, they should not be permitted to do the killing there on site.
So, tomorrow morning, I will kit myself up in my Lao clobber, that I affectionately call my sauna skirt, cos it's so hot to wear in this weather, and Sommay and I will go to see The Man. Let''s hope he will see us and will do something soon, but I no longer feel like a lone voice, crying petulantly in a wilderness of cruelty and feel that I can get on with my life.
Hope you all feel better, too. Thus endeth the lesson.
Obviously, none of the above would actually represent a lasting solution nor would it endear me to the ladies who run these places. And they're not the forgiving types, given an altercation that raged during most of the afternoon between two of the lady proprietresses. Heated invective echoed back and forth across the street, fingers were pointed, barbecue tongs were brandished, fists were shaken.
So, today I went to see my friend Manivonh of the Magnificent Mammaries (Call me Vonnie, baby!). She's the daughter of a general and speaks Chinese, Lao, French, and pure Californian from years spent in San Diego. There I met her friend Mimi, (Off to Paris for a week, but when I get back, I'll be having an opening at the gallery---you must come) and held a conference with these two formidable ladies.
The upshot is that they emphatically endorsed the idea of visiting the headman of our village and politely, diplomatically voicing my concerns about the welfare of the dogs, the tone of the neighbourhood and the international reputation of Luang Prabang---Heritage City---if this were to be played up by some farang travel journo.....Now who would that be, I wonder....
They were horrified and said We are Buddhist we don't cause suffering to animals! They also pointed out that dog restaurants are illegal in Vientiane and while they may not be here, they should not be permitted to do the killing there on site.
So, tomorrow morning, I will kit myself up in my Lao clobber, that I affectionately call my sauna skirt, cos it's so hot to wear in this weather, and Sommay and I will go to see The Man. Let''s hope he will see us and will do something soon, but I no longer feel like a lone voice, crying petulantly in a wilderness of cruelty and feel that I can get on with my life.
Hope you all feel better, too. Thus endeth the lesson.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Good, the Bad and the Downright Horrible
Yes, I'm still happy as a clam at high tide up here in this sweet, sultry Shangrila, but I think you have perhaps tired of all my rhapsodising about how wonderful it all is and thirst to hear of the nasty negatives that you suspect must exist even here...
Well, yes, there are things that make me mad, sad and jest plain disgusted, so I'll get them off my chest right now and get it over with.
Lao dancing, while a graceful, gentle sight when done with skill and enthusiasm, and quite watchable for, oh, minutes at a time, is downright boring and insipid. And so , I fear, is the music that accompanies it. Plinky, plonky monotony, to put it brutally. Tiny mincy steps in an unfathomable order in a circle, whilst twirling one's hands as if limbering up for playing the accordion. Yes, that, too. And always at full blast. Weddings are particularly painful with vocalists churning out wailing, warbling tunes far into the night with loudspeakers so that everyone for miles around can hear it. As the resident large farang lady, I am usually asked to join in and they absolutely will not take no for an answer when I demur and then they look pained or laugh when I relent and can't do the damn steps.
And the pop version of the above, as encountered in one of the discos here particularly often, is even worse, a sort of sugary-sweet, pre-teen confection and it drives me nuts when I'm for a night of good ol' Beerlao-fuelled, sweaty, I-don't-know-who-I'm-dancing-with rock'n'roll.
What's worse is the line dancing that they do to it! The whole place moves in unison twirling their hands like demented taffy pullers and executing this labyrinthine series of steps.
Luckily the other disco, while relying rather too heavily on rap for my liking, offers more of the slam bam stuff that one prefers.
Well, I feel really wicked, but it's refreshing to get that out, so I'll go on.
Ok, well, there's the usual Asian bugbear of the hawking and spitting and manual noseblowing that all you backpackers know about. I've seen entire sweet little families on a motorbike, Dad driving, one kid on the back while mum in the middle holds infant or toddler, plus umbrella, and casually gobs one into the street as they trundle past. And in some places, the open drains, the rubbish in the Mekong, the totally unabashed public nosepicking....
Allright, that was awful, so let's go back to music. Monotonous plinky plonky doesn't even begin to describe the popular Thai love song crap that they play at full volume in the restaurants that line our street, at parties, on ipods of passing motorcyclists at 1 AM, and pretty much whenever they feel like it. It wails and it thumps and it whines and it all sounds the same, with plenty of accordion backing. The accordion or the anthill? I'd go the little biters every time.
Oh, I could go on, but many of my quibbles would be petty---like the shoddy building standards---Scotty, you will need to be sedated when you examine my renovations---but I have one lollopalooza to finish with that I really feel I must do something about. (And Fran...Darling...now is when you should leave us and go feed your puppies. Just don't read any further, sweetie...)
Across the road from my heavenly little house, there is, of course, the little patch of garden that my neighbour Meena and I take turns to nurture. Then to the right there's a little restaurant of rickety tables and haphazard tarpaulins where our neighbours serve wonderful noodle soup with a bit of pork and veg etc and we often order breakfast from them. $2 feeds me and my two hungry boys. Wonderful stuff, nice folks.
BUT, next to them along the banks of the river, are now three establishments that look much like the noodle place except that they serve dog.
Yep. BBQ bow-wow and hot dog stew. And they are hugely popular with what appears to me to be the rougher elements of local society, jolly, but rather prone to very loud drunken singing from time to time. And eating dog.
OK, so some of us eat cute little lambkins and fluffy chickies and even doe-eyed veal, so I cannot be hypocritical here. But the problem is not the noise of the diners and drinkers, their music or their hollering, it's the fact that the dogs are kept and killed within a few feet of where they are then served up. And this, dear reader, is not being done under the auspices of the R.S.P.C.A.. It is often done by some teenage menial with a stout stick, bad aim and a heart of stone. And possibly no ears, as the noise of the pups prolonged passings is soul destroying, not to mention the frenzied barking and growling of the caged, crazed animals who are sold to the restaurants by impoverished up-country folk and kept in a revolting kennel just over the river wall.
None of us in the neighborhood, Meena, the Noodle People and I suspect anyone ese who is not actually running one of these places, is very happy about it at all, especially when the doggers get up early and start to knock off a few pooches at say, 4 or 5 AM to get ready for the rush.
I have rhetorically announced that I will buy the bastards a freezer so they can just do their killing once a fortnight at a specified time and keep their supplies therein rather than reaching into the kennel every time they need another chop. So we would be spared the unholy racket. Added to which is the fact, unavoidable, that our own two doggies, Jacko and dear little Louie ended up in their pots. So we are thinking of going to the village headman and asking for some sort of intervention. After all, such cruelty just ain't Buddhist...
Right, had enough? Back to the rhapsodising....
Well, yes, there are things that make me mad, sad and jest plain disgusted, so I'll get them off my chest right now and get it over with.
Lao dancing, while a graceful, gentle sight when done with skill and enthusiasm, and quite watchable for, oh, minutes at a time, is downright boring and insipid. And so , I fear, is the music that accompanies it. Plinky, plonky monotony, to put it brutally. Tiny mincy steps in an unfathomable order in a circle, whilst twirling one's hands as if limbering up for playing the accordion. Yes, that, too. And always at full blast. Weddings are particularly painful with vocalists churning out wailing, warbling tunes far into the night with loudspeakers so that everyone for miles around can hear it. As the resident large farang lady, I am usually asked to join in and they absolutely will not take no for an answer when I demur and then they look pained or laugh when I relent and can't do the damn steps.
And the pop version of the above, as encountered in one of the discos here particularly often, is even worse, a sort of sugary-sweet, pre-teen confection and it drives me nuts when I'm for a night of good ol' Beerlao-fuelled, sweaty, I-don't-know-who-I'm-dancing-with rock'n'roll.
What's worse is the line dancing that they do to it! The whole place moves in unison twirling their hands like demented taffy pullers and executing this labyrinthine series of steps.
Luckily the other disco, while relying rather too heavily on rap for my liking, offers more of the slam bam stuff that one prefers.
Well, I feel really wicked, but it's refreshing to get that out, so I'll go on.
Ok, well, there's the usual Asian bugbear of the hawking and spitting and manual noseblowing that all you backpackers know about. I've seen entire sweet little families on a motorbike, Dad driving, one kid on the back while mum in the middle holds infant or toddler, plus umbrella, and casually gobs one into the street as they trundle past. And in some places, the open drains, the rubbish in the Mekong, the totally unabashed public nosepicking....
Allright, that was awful, so let's go back to music. Monotonous plinky plonky doesn't even begin to describe the popular Thai love song crap that they play at full volume in the restaurants that line our street, at parties, on ipods of passing motorcyclists at 1 AM, and pretty much whenever they feel like it. It wails and it thumps and it whines and it all sounds the same, with plenty of accordion backing. The accordion or the anthill? I'd go the little biters every time.
Oh, I could go on, but many of my quibbles would be petty---like the shoddy building standards---Scotty, you will need to be sedated when you examine my renovations---but I have one lollopalooza to finish with that I really feel I must do something about. (And Fran...Darling...now is when you should leave us and go feed your puppies. Just don't read any further, sweetie...)
Across the road from my heavenly little house, there is, of course, the little patch of garden that my neighbour Meena and I take turns to nurture. Then to the right there's a little restaurant of rickety tables and haphazard tarpaulins where our neighbours serve wonderful noodle soup with a bit of pork and veg etc and we often order breakfast from them. $2 feeds me and my two hungry boys. Wonderful stuff, nice folks.
BUT, next to them along the banks of the river, are now three establishments that look much like the noodle place except that they serve dog.
Yep. BBQ bow-wow and hot dog stew. And they are hugely popular with what appears to me to be the rougher elements of local society, jolly, but rather prone to very loud drunken singing from time to time. And eating dog.
OK, so some of us eat cute little lambkins and fluffy chickies and even doe-eyed veal, so I cannot be hypocritical here. But the problem is not the noise of the diners and drinkers, their music or their hollering, it's the fact that the dogs are kept and killed within a few feet of where they are then served up. And this, dear reader, is not being done under the auspices of the R.S.P.C.A.. It is often done by some teenage menial with a stout stick, bad aim and a heart of stone. And possibly no ears, as the noise of the pups prolonged passings is soul destroying, not to mention the frenzied barking and growling of the caged, crazed animals who are sold to the restaurants by impoverished up-country folk and kept in a revolting kennel just over the river wall.
None of us in the neighborhood, Meena, the Noodle People and I suspect anyone ese who is not actually running one of these places, is very happy about it at all, especially when the doggers get up early and start to knock off a few pooches at say, 4 or 5 AM to get ready for the rush.
I have rhetorically announced that I will buy the bastards a freezer so they can just do their killing once a fortnight at a specified time and keep their supplies therein rather than reaching into the kennel every time they need another chop. So we would be spared the unholy racket. Added to which is the fact, unavoidable, that our own two doggies, Jacko and dear little Louie ended up in their pots. So we are thinking of going to the village headman and asking for some sort of intervention. After all, such cruelty just ain't Buddhist...
Right, had enough? Back to the rhapsodising....
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Up the Lazy River
Last weekend we enjoyed a family day out, Lao style, and I had a new and startling experience.
We have a little block of land---I bought it for Sommay from his family, basically as I cannot legally own it without a lot of bureaucratic mess. Essentially I did it to save them from having to sell it, under pressure to a greedy farang resort developer, who was trying to get it cheaply because he knew that Sommay's mother was dying and that the family needed money.
It's about 2.5 acres or just over a hectare of riverfront along the Nam Khan, the river that joins the Mekong to create the Luang Prabang peninsula. It's high above the river with a little apron of flat land along the edge, covered in teak, bamboo, and all sorts of lovely tropical greenery.
We set out in the morning and took a long time scuttling around town in a tuktuk picking up supplies--- food, ice, beer and money. By the time we got to Sommay's village, we were famished so we had to stop for noodles for breakfast--foe, as it's known. Then we carted everything down to a long flat narrow boat, by now joined by the boat guy and his helper and Auntie Ti and Sommay's older sister and we chugged off upriver in a sinuous but generally northward direction past our little piece of paradise and continued up for a bit of sightseeing.
The water is a delicious chocolate milk colour at this time of year and lined with thick forest for the most part, but every so often we saw people fishing, washing, loading up sand to cart down stream to waiting trucks, working on their boats and fish traps. The view to the north of misty blue mountains was classic postcard stuff, the air was soft and fresh and it all made one feel quite exhilarated and yet totally at peace. Even my Lao companions, for whom this is an everyday experience, were enchanted.
We kept on for nearly an hour, sometimes barely making headway against the current, even bouncing along on virtual white water, while the motor made odd groaning noises. Soon our bottoms were sufficiently paralyzed from the hard wooden seats and we turned around, making landfall back at the property.
After a hilarious time floundering up the thick dark chocolate mud of the bank (Can't leave that image alone, can I?) the mood turned somber as we discovered that someone had hacked down our large frangipani tree. This is called Champa in Lao and is the national tree of which everyone seems inordinately proud, as if they think it only exists here.
Auntie Ti was incensed and ranted passionately about some farang she thought was behind it, but it turned out that it was some locals who work for the farang, who is my Swiss mate Danny, married to a Lao woman, who owns an adjoining property.
To be fair, the poachers had planted half a dozen of the branches in the ground to renew our supply, as these trees grow very easily from cuttings with almost no water or attention.
Somebody has also been helping themselves to our bamboo, so there was little left of any size. But it's still a fabulous block, with a lovely view out over the river to the east and north ( I think---the river twists so..) and magnificent orchids in some of the trees. We plan to build a little bamboo pavillion there where we can have picnics and relax.
But first we need to get Auntie Ti's husband to build a fence and assume caretaker duties for a small salary. So my staff is growing...
Anyway, by now we were hungry again so we hopped back into the boat and floated a short way around the bend down to the family's veggie patch, past the property where we could see our frangipani branches, newly planted in their new home, Danny's garden.
We climbed up though the garden with its neat bamboo fence and settled in their little bamboo pavillion with its rusty corrugated iron roof, which somehow sheltered all of us , by now including Sommay's older brother Bounlay, his wife and child, Ti's son, and another brother, Xai, who'd been out fishing. All the food was spread out on a banana leaf, including the sticky rice, fish and chicken we brought from the markets, veggie soup and papaya salad and a couple fish from the river and some lovely little tree beries that were roasted in the fire. It was a feast and became a party when we opened the beer and I felt very much a part of the family. Another of those How Could I be so Lucky moments of total peace.
Until suddenly there was agitation and the men jumped up and started pointing to something moving in the garden and like a flash a rifle was produced and Bounlay raced down to the patch, took aim and bang--a huge rat was proudly lifted by its leathery tail.
Everyone seemed delighted with this and I thought briefly that it was joy at having rid the garden of veg-munching vermin, but no, this was a plump river rat and seen as a valuable addition to that night's dinner.
Was I invited? Of course, we'd already arranged to come back that evening to the village for fresh fish laap, a sort of fish puree with chillis and herbs, with lovely mushroom soup, fish soup and delicious stirfried veggies with spices and herbs. And the rat, fried with herbs and chili. (You know what's coming next, don't you? ) Yep, it tasted just like chicken. Bada boom. But not bad.
Again, I was smack in the bosom of this close family who see me as one of their own and say to Sommay that they wish so much that they could talk with me. As do I. We all looked through the photos of Sommay's mother's funeral, that I paid for by buying the land.
Then there were goodbye hugs and smiles and we sped home through the dark cool evening. It was a lovely day and evening, rat and all.
We have a little block of land---I bought it for Sommay from his family, basically as I cannot legally own it without a lot of bureaucratic mess. Essentially I did it to save them from having to sell it, under pressure to a greedy farang resort developer, who was trying to get it cheaply because he knew that Sommay's mother was dying and that the family needed money.
It's about 2.5 acres or just over a hectare of riverfront along the Nam Khan, the river that joins the Mekong to create the Luang Prabang peninsula. It's high above the river with a little apron of flat land along the edge, covered in teak, bamboo, and all sorts of lovely tropical greenery.
We set out in the morning and took a long time scuttling around town in a tuktuk picking up supplies--- food, ice, beer and money. By the time we got to Sommay's village, we were famished so we had to stop for noodles for breakfast--foe, as it's known. Then we carted everything down to a long flat narrow boat, by now joined by the boat guy and his helper and Auntie Ti and Sommay's older sister and we chugged off upriver in a sinuous but generally northward direction past our little piece of paradise and continued up for a bit of sightseeing.
The water is a delicious chocolate milk colour at this time of year and lined with thick forest for the most part, but every so often we saw people fishing, washing, loading up sand to cart down stream to waiting trucks, working on their boats and fish traps. The view to the north of misty blue mountains was classic postcard stuff, the air was soft and fresh and it all made one feel quite exhilarated and yet totally at peace. Even my Lao companions, for whom this is an everyday experience, were enchanted.
We kept on for nearly an hour, sometimes barely making headway against the current, even bouncing along on virtual white water, while the motor made odd groaning noises. Soon our bottoms were sufficiently paralyzed from the hard wooden seats and we turned around, making landfall back at the property.
After a hilarious time floundering up the thick dark chocolate mud of the bank (Can't leave that image alone, can I?) the mood turned somber as we discovered that someone had hacked down our large frangipani tree. This is called Champa in Lao and is the national tree of which everyone seems inordinately proud, as if they think it only exists here.
Auntie Ti was incensed and ranted passionately about some farang she thought was behind it, but it turned out that it was some locals who work for the farang, who is my Swiss mate Danny, married to a Lao woman, who owns an adjoining property.
To be fair, the poachers had planted half a dozen of the branches in the ground to renew our supply, as these trees grow very easily from cuttings with almost no water or attention.
Somebody has also been helping themselves to our bamboo, so there was little left of any size. But it's still a fabulous block, with a lovely view out over the river to the east and north ( I think---the river twists so..) and magnificent orchids in some of the trees. We plan to build a little bamboo pavillion there where we can have picnics and relax.
But first we need to get Auntie Ti's husband to build a fence and assume caretaker duties for a small salary. So my staff is growing...
Anyway, by now we were hungry again so we hopped back into the boat and floated a short way around the bend down to the family's veggie patch, past the property where we could see our frangipani branches, newly planted in their new home, Danny's garden.
We climbed up though the garden with its neat bamboo fence and settled in their little bamboo pavillion with its rusty corrugated iron roof, which somehow sheltered all of us , by now including Sommay's older brother Bounlay, his wife and child, Ti's son, and another brother, Xai, who'd been out fishing. All the food was spread out on a banana leaf, including the sticky rice, fish and chicken we brought from the markets, veggie soup and papaya salad and a couple fish from the river and some lovely little tree beries that were roasted in the fire. It was a feast and became a party when we opened the beer and I felt very much a part of the family. Another of those How Could I be so Lucky moments of total peace.
Until suddenly there was agitation and the men jumped up and started pointing to something moving in the garden and like a flash a rifle was produced and Bounlay raced down to the patch, took aim and bang--a huge rat was proudly lifted by its leathery tail.
Everyone seemed delighted with this and I thought briefly that it was joy at having rid the garden of veg-munching vermin, but no, this was a plump river rat and seen as a valuable addition to that night's dinner.
Was I invited? Of course, we'd already arranged to come back that evening to the village for fresh fish laap, a sort of fish puree with chillis and herbs, with lovely mushroom soup, fish soup and delicious stirfried veggies with spices and herbs. And the rat, fried with herbs and chili. (You know what's coming next, don't you? ) Yep, it tasted just like chicken. Bada boom. But not bad.
Again, I was smack in the bosom of this close family who see me as one of their own and say to Sommay that they wish so much that they could talk with me. As do I. We all looked through the photos of Sommay's mother's funeral, that I paid for by buying the land.
Then there were goodbye hugs and smiles and we sped home through the dark cool evening. It was a lovely day and evening, rat and all.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Big Muddy---Mekong Mama reporting in.....
It's been a while since my last post, but I've not been in Laos for a few months, so strictly speaking, wasn't letting you down. That's my story and I'm sticking with it...
Anyway now I'M BACK in my favourite little piece of Paradise after a useful and extremely pleasant interlude from May to July in Oz, then August in Canada and the US to see family and friends, followed by another two weeks in Oz for my birthday. I remember a lot of preparation and packing and partying, but....
Back in Luang Prabang, the magnificent Mekong is flowing fast and deep like a vast stream of chocolate milk and is almost unrecognisable as the the sturdy, rocky little river that I had come to know.
And it's doing it's chocolately thing right outside my window, well, across the road but hundreds of metres closer to the river wall and my little house.
I can see it especially well from my comfortable little re-vamped verandah, especially since the boys went down and hacked back a lot of the vegetation along the bank.
I can also see my growing garden of pots of bamboo and bougainvillea and portulacca and croton and cordyline arranged around the lovely new terracotta terrace the boys made with all the leftover floor tiles.
They were beside themselves with pride at all they have done and seemed utterly deligted to see me, so I think it's going to be great.
I was quivering with fatigue from a typical all-night flight scenario, with the added difficulty of dealing with a groovy-looking, but rather garrulous and sometimes outright grubby New Zealander who couldn't stop talking, breathing whiskey fumes all over me and leaning heavily on my right arm to "help" me with my crossword....(as if...).
He'd already been thrown off one flight and collared at gunpoint earlier in the day. This was because security guys refused to let him take his duty-free onboard and he solved the problem by simply drinking it. All of it. And then blamed the authorities for getting him drunk.
Anyway, I arrived, exhausted but elated and was immediately folded into the bosom of my "family" here and then whisked off to see the last of the traditional boat races when various village teams compete, paddling very long, lovely and narrow high-tail boats down the Nam Kahn while huge crowds line the riverbanks drinking beer and making a very loud and joyful noise with drums and loudspeakers.
I thought it was all over at first and saw only a few tired and emotional crews weaving their way past along with colourful fun boats full of people in costume who were also fairly full. Then it started. Two boats of about 50 rowers each, one lot clad in in green and the other in chartreuse t-shirts were paddling so furiously past us that they moved in a mist of muddy river water turned to a golden cloud in the afternoon sun. They went at a furious pace, leaving our team, sadly, in sixth place out of 13, a big disappointment after coming second last year. Sommay says he'll row next year and the result will be different.
I cannot tell you how nice it is to be back amongst all the sweet people that I have come to know over the past few years. I've dropped in to see a few of them, revisited old haunts, handed over school fees and lots of motherly advice to a couple of my lads, revived old family jokes, marvelled at the new restaurants and businesses that have gone bust, and enjoyed seeing the smiles of recognition on the faces of shopkeepers and people one passes in the street.
Best of all, I went to see my friend Vanh, who I was afraid had too much on her plate to be able to help me, and she said great to see you, let's go talk with my cousins right now. The upshot is that I am the newest employee of the Pasabandith College of English, preparing to teach MY course and the visa process is already under way. I seem to have impressed the guys who run it, brothers called Oupadith and Oupasith, would you believe, and who I will NOT be able to resist called the Oompaloompas. Sorry. They are not strange little people in Santa's helper costumes, but nice guys, one with good English who is also a teacher and the other a businessman with a travel agency in town.
So the adventure seems to be gaining momentum and now that I can sit here in my house and write without having to schlepp all the way to an internet cafe every time, I hope to be able to keep everyone up to date on what I am doing. Right now I'm busy being domestic, acquiring furniture and teapots and training my maid to do things my wayand trying to remember the Lao words for things.
The various recipients of the generosity of my birthday friends are overcome with gratitude and I will let them say so in one of these posts very soon. But now it's gin o'clock and the lads are back from a ceremony in which a female spirit who has been giving Sommay nightmares has been exorcised in a two hour ritual resembling a wedding, in which he has persuaded one of his many girlfriends to take part as a dummy bride. I must hear all about it. Yes, this is an interesting country.... Stay tuned.
Anyway now I'M BACK in my favourite little piece of Paradise after a useful and extremely pleasant interlude from May to July in Oz, then August in Canada and the US to see family and friends, followed by another two weeks in Oz for my birthday. I remember a lot of preparation and packing and partying, but....
Back in Luang Prabang, the magnificent Mekong is flowing fast and deep like a vast stream of chocolate milk and is almost unrecognisable as the the sturdy, rocky little river that I had come to know.
And it's doing it's chocolately thing right outside my window, well, across the road but hundreds of metres closer to the river wall and my little house.
I can see it especially well from my comfortable little re-vamped verandah, especially since the boys went down and hacked back a lot of the vegetation along the bank.
I can also see my growing garden of pots of bamboo and bougainvillea and portulacca and croton and cordyline arranged around the lovely new terracotta terrace the boys made with all the leftover floor tiles.
They were beside themselves with pride at all they have done and seemed utterly deligted to see me, so I think it's going to be great.
I was quivering with fatigue from a typical all-night flight scenario, with the added difficulty of dealing with a groovy-looking, but rather garrulous and sometimes outright grubby New Zealander who couldn't stop talking, breathing whiskey fumes all over me and leaning heavily on my right arm to "help" me with my crossword....(as if...).
He'd already been thrown off one flight and collared at gunpoint earlier in the day. This was because security guys refused to let him take his duty-free onboard and he solved the problem by simply drinking it. All of it. And then blamed the authorities for getting him drunk.
Anyway, I arrived, exhausted but elated and was immediately folded into the bosom of my "family" here and then whisked off to see the last of the traditional boat races when various village teams compete, paddling very long, lovely and narrow high-tail boats down the Nam Kahn while huge crowds line the riverbanks drinking beer and making a very loud and joyful noise with drums and loudspeakers.
I thought it was all over at first and saw only a few tired and emotional crews weaving their way past along with colourful fun boats full of people in costume who were also fairly full. Then it started. Two boats of about 50 rowers each, one lot clad in in green and the other in chartreuse t-shirts were paddling so furiously past us that they moved in a mist of muddy river water turned to a golden cloud in the afternoon sun. They went at a furious pace, leaving our team, sadly, in sixth place out of 13, a big disappointment after coming second last year. Sommay says he'll row next year and the result will be different.
I cannot tell you how nice it is to be back amongst all the sweet people that I have come to know over the past few years. I've dropped in to see a few of them, revisited old haunts, handed over school fees and lots of motherly advice to a couple of my lads, revived old family jokes, marvelled at the new restaurants and businesses that have gone bust, and enjoyed seeing the smiles of recognition on the faces of shopkeepers and people one passes in the street.
Best of all, I went to see my friend Vanh, who I was afraid had too much on her plate to be able to help me, and she said great to see you, let's go talk with my cousins right now. The upshot is that I am the newest employee of the Pasabandith College of English, preparing to teach MY course and the visa process is already under way. I seem to have impressed the guys who run it, brothers called Oupadith and Oupasith, would you believe, and who I will NOT be able to resist called the Oompaloompas. Sorry. They are not strange little people in Santa's helper costumes, but nice guys, one with good English who is also a teacher and the other a businessman with a travel agency in town.
So the adventure seems to be gaining momentum and now that I can sit here in my house and write without having to schlepp all the way to an internet cafe every time, I hope to be able to keep everyone up to date on what I am doing. Right now I'm busy being domestic, acquiring furniture and teapots and training my maid to do things my wayand trying to remember the Lao words for things.
The various recipients of the generosity of my birthday friends are overcome with gratitude and I will let them say so in one of these posts very soon. But now it's gin o'clock and the lads are back from a ceremony in which a female spirit who has been giving Sommay nightmares has been exorcised in a two hour ritual resembling a wedding, in which he has persuaded one of his many girlfriends to take part as a dummy bride. I must hear all about it. Yes, this is an interesting country.... Stay tuned.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Holiness and Hooliganism
Happy (Splush) New (Glug glug) Year is finally over and I have to admit I'm glad. One was charmed at first, but being blindsided by a bucket of icy water whilst riding pillion on a small motorbike attempting a steep curve on a mountain road, is just plain scary.
We were on our way in convoy to Kwang Si waterfall, and it was a lovely ride, under a cool overcast sky through the rapidly greening countryside, (except for the water chuckers in every village) and I thought it would be a great way to get away from all the hoo-hah, but apparently it's a very popular thing to go out there at New Years and splash about in the waterfall, cleanse one's soul and then get drunk, so there were thouands of people there before us! So, yeah, it was fun but spending the day in wet clothing, and never knowing when someone is going to race up and throw water, or daub one with flour, or coloured powder or sump oil gets dreary after a while.
However, one was beguiled by the sweet ceremony of pouring water on the Pha Bang, the small silvery standing Buddha that is the symbol of Lao Buddhism, (there are rumours that it's a copy, but who knows?). The statue is taken out of its usual place in the Royal Palace (Ooops! The National Museum, to you capitalist running dogs) and stands in a temple courtyard in a glass case lit by a ghostly white flourescent tube for three days to be ritually washed by the faithful, this being a water festival and a time of cleansing.
One climbs up a short set of stairs to the tail end of one of the 5 metre-long carved river dragon aquaducts, and pours holy water thick with flower petals into the square opening and the water travels down the naga''s back onto the Buddha. On a busy evening there is a constant sound of splashing and a constant stream of worshippers kneeling, praying, lighting incense and candles and laying flower bundles.
So beguiled was I, in fact, that I went twice. I had to be decked out in my long sin or lao style skirt with brocade hem (and ride sidesaddle on the motorbike like a good Lao lady) and pai, a scarf that one wears over the left shoulder. Mine is white and was a gift from the weaver of said cloth at the baci ceremony at which I was adopted by Sunlay, a village boy whose family has refused to pay for him to go to high school.
I can't remember if I've told this story already but here it is just in case...
All I did was help him contact an Aussie guy from Brisbane who had met him and offered to help, leaving his email address. I contacted the guy and he sent 200 bucks, via my account, which was great. Sunlay thought it was better than great. His little eyes went all shiny and he had trouble speaking.
He has already managed to scrape up another $300 from other kind foreigners through sheer determination and persistence, and now, at last, he knows he can continue his education, which is all he asks from life.
It wasn't easy, as he comes from a very poor and isolated village, poorer and more isolated than my adopted village and farther up the same muddy track. Sunlay has been going to primary school in a village called Lathane where he boards with a distant relative. In these villages there is no phone and no mobile service, and it's an eight-hour boat ride into town and eight hours back again every time. He has no idea how to use a computer and was deeply grateful when I took him to send a message to his benefactor in Brisbane. But he watched my every move and primly pointed out my typos on the screen as I tapped out the message.
Ok, that was a sidetrack.....but speaking of ceremonies, another bit of Pimai that I enjoyed was a huge do at Sommay's family house in the blacksmith village, Ban Had Thien.
Despite being terminally ill, and only just home from her latest stint in hospital, Sommay's tiny fragile mother orchestrated a massive gathering at her house, where a crowd of relatives and neighbors assembled on straw mats where a dozen or so monks from the temple offered lengthy chants to help the family celebrate the New Year and to honour the one son and two sons-in-law who were going into the monastery there for a week to honour the family and please Buddha. It's a thing one does to express thanks.
So these three guys shaved their heads, and dressed in full orange robes and the monks chanted beautifully for about an hour or more as the congregation prayed, chatted, sipped soft drinks, and stared at the large farang lady sitting with Sommay's mum in a place of honour.
She was frail but full of happiness at all the fuss as she and her sister and another son (she has raised 8 kids on her own for fifteen years) filled bags of gifts for the monks, (laundry powder, cigarettes, matches, an apple, money, sweets, rice crackers, incense, razors) and envelopes of money for the novices (boys who are getting an education at the temple and may go on to become monks).
It was a glorious day of clear skies and refreshing breezes, unusually cool for the time of year and quite exhilarating. After the monks had received their pressies and trotted back to the temple with the three newbies, there was ANOTHER ceremony, a baci to honour both of Sommay's mothers---his real one whose name is Me and me, whose name is Suzy. You get the idea.
Anyway, it was, as bacis are, very moving and I was overwhelmed with little white strings that are ritually tied around one's wrists at these things by everyone at the ceremony. My wrists were already festooned from a New Years baci dinner at my friend Mr Thongdy's house, the boatman or captainboat as he calls himself, but by the time THIS baci was over I was swaddled halfway to my elbows in fluffy white cotton strings, like heavy duty tennis sweatbands.
Then there was the regulation sing-song with traditional instruments---ancient ebony stringed things and the empty plastic bucket or drum---where the elderly ladies again take centre stage and carry on high. very village seems to have a few drummers, and every one I have seen is a solid, cheerful and usually very entertaining woman who knows all the songs.
This is all lubricated by oceans of BeerLao, which is drunk Lao-style. This means that one person does pouring duty and takes a glass around the room, (shuffling on their knees, as everybody sits on the floor) half fills it and offers it to each person in turn. One has to polish it off, pronto, and pass the glass back, and refusals are not accepted. It is considered very funny to fill the glass right up, or to add a bit of filthy tasting rice whisky to the beer, but luckily this was avoided.
After all this we went home and passed out for a few hours.
CAREER UPDATE
I am now about to be set up as the first Tourism and Hospitality teacher in Luang Prabang and there are hopes that this will expand from a few classes at Claus'school to a much larger operation. I have a friend called Vanh with not only a teacher's license, but also a license to run a travel business, as she and her husband each run a travel agency. She is a lovely person, quiet but intelligent and determined and we get on well. She is hugely enthusiastic about the dea and will be my director and I will pay her a small amount to go through the process of setting me up with permission and a visa, and then I will be able to live in my house and work here, which I would not have been able to do on a tourist visa.
Claus will let me use his classrooms for a share of his monthy rent and I will apply to Australian Business Volunteers for startup money and airfare. I have met an Aussie girl here who also works with ABV and we get together to drink cold white wine and network, which so far has been hugely to my benefit, she having put me on to Claus.
If this all works as it should, and there is no reason why it shouldn't, Ill be back here in September witha full-time job teaching English for Tourism and developing specific courses in separate disciplines lke tour guiding, waitressing, bartending etc. Vanh thinks we should also try to get a contract for me to teach the immigration and customs people and so on. It's all good.
But I am very much looking forward to coming home to Oz for a few months to see all my loved ones and eat smoked salmon and cheese, ah, I remember it well.....and getting away from this weather for a bit.
That's yer lot for the moment as I've been sitting on a small cane stool for hours here in this internet place (air conditioned! Mmmmm..) and I can't feel my legs any more.
Bob the builder and his boys have been hard at work in the 36 degree heat---that's inside the thick brick walls of my house!---and I want to go and inspect their progress. And MY boys have gone fishing with a special home-made spear gun so there may be a nice dinner waiting.
Warmest Wishes to you all.
We were on our way in convoy to Kwang Si waterfall, and it was a lovely ride, under a cool overcast sky through the rapidly greening countryside, (except for the water chuckers in every village) and I thought it would be a great way to get away from all the hoo-hah, but apparently it's a very popular thing to go out there at New Years and splash about in the waterfall, cleanse one's soul and then get drunk, so there were thouands of people there before us! So, yeah, it was fun but spending the day in wet clothing, and never knowing when someone is going to race up and throw water, or daub one with flour, or coloured powder or sump oil gets dreary after a while.
However, one was beguiled by the sweet ceremony of pouring water on the Pha Bang, the small silvery standing Buddha that is the symbol of Lao Buddhism, (there are rumours that it's a copy, but who knows?). The statue is taken out of its usual place in the Royal Palace (Ooops! The National Museum, to you capitalist running dogs) and stands in a temple courtyard in a glass case lit by a ghostly white flourescent tube for three days to be ritually washed by the faithful, this being a water festival and a time of cleansing.
One climbs up a short set of stairs to the tail end of one of the 5 metre-long carved river dragon aquaducts, and pours holy water thick with flower petals into the square opening and the water travels down the naga''s back onto the Buddha. On a busy evening there is a constant sound of splashing and a constant stream of worshippers kneeling, praying, lighting incense and candles and laying flower bundles.
So beguiled was I, in fact, that I went twice. I had to be decked out in my long sin or lao style skirt with brocade hem (and ride sidesaddle on the motorbike like a good Lao lady) and pai, a scarf that one wears over the left shoulder. Mine is white and was a gift from the weaver of said cloth at the baci ceremony at which I was adopted by Sunlay, a village boy whose family has refused to pay for him to go to high school.
I can't remember if I've told this story already but here it is just in case...
All I did was help him contact an Aussie guy from Brisbane who had met him and offered to help, leaving his email address. I contacted the guy and he sent 200 bucks, via my account, which was great. Sunlay thought it was better than great. His little eyes went all shiny and he had trouble speaking.
He has already managed to scrape up another $300 from other kind foreigners through sheer determination and persistence, and now, at last, he knows he can continue his education, which is all he asks from life.
It wasn't easy, as he comes from a very poor and isolated village, poorer and more isolated than my adopted village and farther up the same muddy track. Sunlay has been going to primary school in a village called Lathane where he boards with a distant relative. In these villages there is no phone and no mobile service, and it's an eight-hour boat ride into town and eight hours back again every time. He has no idea how to use a computer and was deeply grateful when I took him to send a message to his benefactor in Brisbane. But he watched my every move and primly pointed out my typos on the screen as I tapped out the message.
Ok, that was a sidetrack.....but speaking of ceremonies, another bit of Pimai that I enjoyed was a huge do at Sommay's family house in the blacksmith village, Ban Had Thien.
Despite being terminally ill, and only just home from her latest stint in hospital, Sommay's tiny fragile mother orchestrated a massive gathering at her house, where a crowd of relatives and neighbors assembled on straw mats where a dozen or so monks from the temple offered lengthy chants to help the family celebrate the New Year and to honour the one son and two sons-in-law who were going into the monastery there for a week to honour the family and please Buddha. It's a thing one does to express thanks.
So these three guys shaved their heads, and dressed in full orange robes and the monks chanted beautifully for about an hour or more as the congregation prayed, chatted, sipped soft drinks, and stared at the large farang lady sitting with Sommay's mum in a place of honour.
She was frail but full of happiness at all the fuss as she and her sister and another son (she has raised 8 kids on her own for fifteen years) filled bags of gifts for the monks, (laundry powder, cigarettes, matches, an apple, money, sweets, rice crackers, incense, razors) and envelopes of money for the novices (boys who are getting an education at the temple and may go on to become monks).
It was a glorious day of clear skies and refreshing breezes, unusually cool for the time of year and quite exhilarating. After the monks had received their pressies and trotted back to the temple with the three newbies, there was ANOTHER ceremony, a baci to honour both of Sommay's mothers---his real one whose name is Me and me, whose name is Suzy. You get the idea.
Anyway, it was, as bacis are, very moving and I was overwhelmed with little white strings that are ritually tied around one's wrists at these things by everyone at the ceremony. My wrists were already festooned from a New Years baci dinner at my friend Mr Thongdy's house, the boatman or captainboat as he calls himself, but by the time THIS baci was over I was swaddled halfway to my elbows in fluffy white cotton strings, like heavy duty tennis sweatbands.
Then there was the regulation sing-song with traditional instruments---ancient ebony stringed things and the empty plastic bucket or drum---where the elderly ladies again take centre stage and carry on high. very village seems to have a few drummers, and every one I have seen is a solid, cheerful and usually very entertaining woman who knows all the songs.
This is all lubricated by oceans of BeerLao, which is drunk Lao-style. This means that one person does pouring duty and takes a glass around the room, (shuffling on their knees, as everybody sits on the floor) half fills it and offers it to each person in turn. One has to polish it off, pronto, and pass the glass back, and refusals are not accepted. It is considered very funny to fill the glass right up, or to add a bit of filthy tasting rice whisky to the beer, but luckily this was avoided.
After all this we went home and passed out for a few hours.
CAREER UPDATE
I am now about to be set up as the first Tourism and Hospitality teacher in Luang Prabang and there are hopes that this will expand from a few classes at Claus'school to a much larger operation. I have a friend called Vanh with not only a teacher's license, but also a license to run a travel business, as she and her husband each run a travel agency. She is a lovely person, quiet but intelligent and determined and we get on well. She is hugely enthusiastic about the dea and will be my director and I will pay her a small amount to go through the process of setting me up with permission and a visa, and then I will be able to live in my house and work here, which I would not have been able to do on a tourist visa.
Claus will let me use his classrooms for a share of his monthy rent and I will apply to Australian Business Volunteers for startup money and airfare. I have met an Aussie girl here who also works with ABV and we get together to drink cold white wine and network, which so far has been hugely to my benefit, she having put me on to Claus.
If this all works as it should, and there is no reason why it shouldn't, Ill be back here in September witha full-time job teaching English for Tourism and developing specific courses in separate disciplines lke tour guiding, waitressing, bartending etc. Vanh thinks we should also try to get a contract for me to teach the immigration and customs people and so on. It's all good.
But I am very much looking forward to coming home to Oz for a few months to see all my loved ones and eat smoked salmon and cheese, ah, I remember it well.....and getting away from this weather for a bit.
That's yer lot for the moment as I've been sitting on a small cane stool for hours here in this internet place (air conditioned! Mmmmm..) and I can't feel my legs any more.
Bob the builder and his boys have been hard at work in the 36 degree heat---that's inside the thick brick walls of my house!---and I want to go and inspect their progress. And MY boys have gone fishing with a special home-made spear gun so there may be a nice dinner waiting.
Warmest Wishes to you all.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Latest Laotian Apologies
Brickdust, Brumbrums, and Brickbats
SO SORRY to take so long to write anything and at the same time SO gratified by the number of urgent requests I have received for more posts. (Thanks Mum!) I am horrified to realise that it's been a month, but the usual litany of excuses applies.
Most of them have to do with the woeful computer facilities up here where you can tap away for fifteen minutes on something really punchy and then the computer blithely informs you that it hasn't been listening to a word you've said for 12 minutes, so one has to either put one's foot through the screen or start again, which same doesn't usually work.
So, yeah, a lot of postponing has been going on....and then there's the HOUSE.
Well, the builders have started and the work has gone painfully slowly because they've been painstakingly putting tiles on the bathroom walls, kitchen walls, kitchen bench, bathroom, kitchen and dining room floors, mixing every bit of cement by hand---doing everythng by hand without even a proper level---they use a bit of tubing with water in it. Every tile is cut with a little hand cutter thingie and every bit of material has to be bought and brought home by me and Sommay, us on his motorbike and the stuff travelling by tuk-tuk. ( The little darling is a mean bargainer and always gets us a better price, especially in the Chinese market)
You may have noticed I said that they're tiling the kitchen bench. THAT was a surprise. Came in to find this strange brick concoction rising in the darkest corner of the kitchen, made darker by the years of open fire cooking that has been done there over the years. Wall is Black with thick soot. Everything here tends to be done on the floor so there was no bench, no sink, no fridge, no ceiling, no nuffink. So it all has to be bought and}orbuilt and usually with rendered brick covered in tiles.
Anyway, this was how I learned about Lao kitchen benches and my builder, whose name I think is Somphet and who I call Bob, found outALL about asking the client what she wants before erecting a permanent monument to the all too common male ailment of knowing nothing about kitchens and workspace comprising more than two square feet.
"So is this Bob's kitchen?" I ranted "No, it's Suzy's kitchen, isn't it. So why don't we ask Suzy what she wants? Maybe Bob likes tiny little cement benches with only two cupboard doors all smeared with grouting and cement, but SUZY SURE DOESN'T, now does she? So just ASK Suzy, why don't we. Here I am, larger than life, with a fulltime paid translator standing by at all times, so..."
You get the picture. And I have a much extended bench, built for giants. Bathroom basin is also Brobdignagian.
Then the workmen Bob brought in from some faraway province to do the tiling---and they're not bad at it for guys who live in bamboo huts, ---have been living in the house, much to the horror of my boys who live there, too. There being only one room at present they all have to share.
Unfortunately, these country guys are a little rough around the edges and shared their loud voices, stories about prostitutes, heavy drinking, general mess and then affably shared the visible evidence of their syphilis which was all a bit tooo much for my Sommay, he being a straightarrow not long out of the monastery.
So more diplomacy was required and applied before all was pally again and finally fond farewells were said as the country boys headed off to the bush for the holidays, leaving a brand new kitchen ceiling leaking every time it rains and a thick layer of red brick dust over everything from the (hand) sanding job on the floor. But we have a functioning farang style toilet and a hot shower!
Today I bought a Chinese Hoover and showed Sommay how it worked and he fell in love with it immediately, being a demon cleaner-upper.
Yesterday he and Joy cleaned the whole place, eradicating all traces of the naughty boys from up north, and then rang me up and said coyly, Are you coming to visit us today? We're making fish soup for lunch. Of course I was coming over (I'm still in a Guest House until my quarters are ready) and Oh, you should have seen their little shining faces as they showed me all the work they'd done and then served up the soup. Sommay had gone out and bought new bolts for all the windows and installed them, barking orders at Joy, who sweetly complies, with never a word of demur.
And today we fixed up a temporary room for me upstairs in the house so I can sleep peacefully away from the loud parties with wailing karaoke that goes on until late in my new guesthouse's neighbourhood. I look forward to waking up with a view of the Mekong and the sounds of birds and chickens and ducks, rather than the brummmmbrum of the neighbour's tuk tuk, the slamming of doors and hollering from house to house that fills the air in the otherwise charming little lane where I stay.
It's not strictly legal for me to do this as I am still on a tourist visa, but plans are afoot to change that....
Which brings me to....
My Beautiful New Career
I've been going on about teaching, helping, writing, researching, volunteering, travelling---you've heard it all---- in reponse to questions about what I am doing up here, so now I can tell you that aside from hoovering red dust off every surface of my future living space, I have been busy talking to a number of people about something more specific.
I need a job to have a business visa, and there are a number of ways to get one. One would be to work for one of the Lao-run English schools here, which may or may not be willing to pay for the visa, will certainly pay me fairly badly and pretty much totally limit my choice of teaching materials to their own.
Or I can apply to various NGOs for a job but these things take forever, require specific degrees, and may not be in Luang Prabang, where my heart is, not to mention the house for which I have just paid five years rent. So what do you do in this situation? I go straight to Keo's bar, the Pack Luck (no I have no idea what that means) and chat and hang out with various expats there.
There I met Aussie Marissa who is up here teaching marketing techniqes to upmarket boutiques and who put me on to Claus who has an English School. The fact that he is German and his English is not perfect (not to mention his strong German accent) makes no difference---his school is very popular and successful.
So we talked and in the end he offered me a job, as long as I pay for the visa, (No, you don't want to know how much) and then he'll give me an advanced class and the students will pay me directly. Great little old building buried in a tropical garden.
Then he had a think about my ideas for teaching hospitality and tourism English and trainng kids for such jobs and offered me the chance to start my own series of courses.
So I am well-chuffed over this and already devising lectures. Meanwhile, my landlord, Thomas the Thai, who is also my neighbour and a bit of a mate, is talking about hiring me as a consultant for some of his businesses here and maybe getting me a visa that way, and other people are talking about me teaching English to the doctors at the hospital---pronunciation mainly.
So, as Sommay has learned to say, It's all happening! I WILL keep you posted...
And that's not all...
Happy New Year!
Bit late, you say? Not a bit of it. Up here it's now, at the hottest time of year and is combined with a water festival. And it takes place over five days....It's all about washing the various Buddhas, cleaning one's house, wishing each other luck and involves ceremonies and parades and water. Lots of it. Mostly thrown on unsuspecting passersby by hysterically happy teenagers with buckets by the road, one's friends as they arrive at one's house, you name it. It used to involve decorated elephants, but they haven't been seen for a few years, so I haven't got my hopes up.
And, of course, drinking, which they do here with extraordinary fervour. They share a glass and each person has to chug a half a glass of beer, or a shot of Laolao (distilled from rice and disgusting) and keep on doing so until they fall over. Doesn't usually take long, but there are always new people joining and singing starts fairly early in the process along with drumming.If one is participating, it's a lot of fun; if not, it's pretty trying.
So tonight we're having a last meal at Nishas Indian resto as it is Francine's last night in Laos, and then who knows what might happen..Keo has invited me for a drink at his place and he's actually got cold Freixenet champagne in his wine fridge, so the celebrations could go on....I may be some time, but I promise to write sooner...There's lots more to tell.
NowI've got to find a way home that dodges the water-chuckers.....
SO SORRY to take so long to write anything and at the same time SO gratified by the number of urgent requests I have received for more posts. (Thanks Mum!) I am horrified to realise that it's been a month, but the usual litany of excuses applies.
Most of them have to do with the woeful computer facilities up here where you can tap away for fifteen minutes on something really punchy and then the computer blithely informs you that it hasn't been listening to a word you've said for 12 minutes, so one has to either put one's foot through the screen or start again, which same doesn't usually work.
So, yeah, a lot of postponing has been going on....and then there's the HOUSE.
Well, the builders have started and the work has gone painfully slowly because they've been painstakingly putting tiles on the bathroom walls, kitchen walls, kitchen bench, bathroom, kitchen and dining room floors, mixing every bit of cement by hand---doing everythng by hand without even a proper level---they use a bit of tubing with water in it. Every tile is cut with a little hand cutter thingie and every bit of material has to be bought and brought home by me and Sommay, us on his motorbike and the stuff travelling by tuk-tuk. ( The little darling is a mean bargainer and always gets us a better price, especially in the Chinese market)
You may have noticed I said that they're tiling the kitchen bench. THAT was a surprise. Came in to find this strange brick concoction rising in the darkest corner of the kitchen, made darker by the years of open fire cooking that has been done there over the years. Wall is Black with thick soot. Everything here tends to be done on the floor so there was no bench, no sink, no fridge, no ceiling, no nuffink. So it all has to be bought and}orbuilt and usually with rendered brick covered in tiles.
Anyway, this was how I learned about Lao kitchen benches and my builder, whose name I think is Somphet and who I call Bob, found outALL about asking the client what she wants before erecting a permanent monument to the all too common male ailment of knowing nothing about kitchens and workspace comprising more than two square feet.
"So is this Bob's kitchen?" I ranted "No, it's Suzy's kitchen, isn't it. So why don't we ask Suzy what she wants? Maybe Bob likes tiny little cement benches with only two cupboard doors all smeared with grouting and cement, but SUZY SURE DOESN'T, now does she? So just ASK Suzy, why don't we. Here I am, larger than life, with a fulltime paid translator standing by at all times, so..."
You get the picture. And I have a much extended bench, built for giants. Bathroom basin is also Brobdignagian.
Then the workmen Bob brought in from some faraway province to do the tiling---and they're not bad at it for guys who live in bamboo huts, ---have been living in the house, much to the horror of my boys who live there, too. There being only one room at present they all have to share.
Unfortunately, these country guys are a little rough around the edges and shared their loud voices, stories about prostitutes, heavy drinking, general mess and then affably shared the visible evidence of their syphilis which was all a bit tooo much for my Sommay, he being a straightarrow not long out of the monastery.
So more diplomacy was required and applied before all was pally again and finally fond farewells were said as the country boys headed off to the bush for the holidays, leaving a brand new kitchen ceiling leaking every time it rains and a thick layer of red brick dust over everything from the (hand) sanding job on the floor. But we have a functioning farang style toilet and a hot shower!
Today I bought a Chinese Hoover and showed Sommay how it worked and he fell in love with it immediately, being a demon cleaner-upper.
Yesterday he and Joy cleaned the whole place, eradicating all traces of the naughty boys from up north, and then rang me up and said coyly, Are you coming to visit us today? We're making fish soup for lunch. Of course I was coming over (I'm still in a Guest House until my quarters are ready) and Oh, you should have seen their little shining faces as they showed me all the work they'd done and then served up the soup. Sommay had gone out and bought new bolts for all the windows and installed them, barking orders at Joy, who sweetly complies, with never a word of demur.
And today we fixed up a temporary room for me upstairs in the house so I can sleep peacefully away from the loud parties with wailing karaoke that goes on until late in my new guesthouse's neighbourhood. I look forward to waking up with a view of the Mekong and the sounds of birds and chickens and ducks, rather than the brummmmbrum of the neighbour's tuk tuk, the slamming of doors and hollering from house to house that fills the air in the otherwise charming little lane where I stay.
It's not strictly legal for me to do this as I am still on a tourist visa, but plans are afoot to change that....
Which brings me to....
My Beautiful New Career
I've been going on about teaching, helping, writing, researching, volunteering, travelling---you've heard it all---- in reponse to questions about what I am doing up here, so now I can tell you that aside from hoovering red dust off every surface of my future living space, I have been busy talking to a number of people about something more specific.
I need a job to have a business visa, and there are a number of ways to get one. One would be to work for one of the Lao-run English schools here, which may or may not be willing to pay for the visa, will certainly pay me fairly badly and pretty much totally limit my choice of teaching materials to their own.
Or I can apply to various NGOs for a job but these things take forever, require specific degrees, and may not be in Luang Prabang, where my heart is, not to mention the house for which I have just paid five years rent. So what do you do in this situation? I go straight to Keo's bar, the Pack Luck (no I have no idea what that means) and chat and hang out with various expats there.
There I met Aussie Marissa who is up here teaching marketing techniqes to upmarket boutiques and who put me on to Claus who has an English School. The fact that he is German and his English is not perfect (not to mention his strong German accent) makes no difference---his school is very popular and successful.
So we talked and in the end he offered me a job, as long as I pay for the visa, (No, you don't want to know how much) and then he'll give me an advanced class and the students will pay me directly. Great little old building buried in a tropical garden.
Then he had a think about my ideas for teaching hospitality and tourism English and trainng kids for such jobs and offered me the chance to start my own series of courses.
So I am well-chuffed over this and already devising lectures. Meanwhile, my landlord, Thomas the Thai, who is also my neighbour and a bit of a mate, is talking about hiring me as a consultant for some of his businesses here and maybe getting me a visa that way, and other people are talking about me teaching English to the doctors at the hospital---pronunciation mainly.
So, as Sommay has learned to say, It's all happening! I WILL keep you posted...
And that's not all...
Happy New Year!
Bit late, you say? Not a bit of it. Up here it's now, at the hottest time of year and is combined with a water festival. And it takes place over five days....It's all about washing the various Buddhas, cleaning one's house, wishing each other luck and involves ceremonies and parades and water. Lots of it. Mostly thrown on unsuspecting passersby by hysterically happy teenagers with buckets by the road, one's friends as they arrive at one's house, you name it. It used to involve decorated elephants, but they haven't been seen for a few years, so I haven't got my hopes up.
And, of course, drinking, which they do here with extraordinary fervour. They share a glass and each person has to chug a half a glass of beer, or a shot of Laolao (distilled from rice and disgusting) and keep on doing so until they fall over. Doesn't usually take long, but there are always new people joining and singing starts fairly early in the process along with drumming.If one is participating, it's a lot of fun; if not, it's pretty trying.
So tonight we're having a last meal at Nishas Indian resto as it is Francine's last night in Laos, and then who knows what might happen..Keo has invited me for a drink at his place and he's actually got cold Freixenet champagne in his wine fridge, so the celebrations could go on....I may be some time, but I promise to write sooner...There's lots more to tell.
NowI've got to find a way home that dodges the water-chuckers.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)