I am well behind the eight-ball this month as life gets busier and more demanding so the following will be a general post of many tidbits...
How is, you ask...
The Job Front...Was distressingly slow but now have pinned down my bosses and we are meeting on Friday to sort out the nitty gritty of my visa and start dates etc. . Meanwhile, I am chockers with private students---not strictly legal with my visa---which is giving me valuable insights into the challenges I will face when regular classes start.
One thing I have learned is that I love teaching and another is that Lao students are very rewarding to teach, right up until I realised they will do and say anything to please me, even if they are learning nothing. I have learned to surprise them with questions that are not on the lesson sheet and I have also developed an ability to read their faces and see when they don't actually understand, but aren't admitting it. In the end, as long as they develop some confidence in their abilities and don't say fuck when they mean fork, I will have achieved something.
And as I have learned from Molls and Marion---you get days when you feel as if you are talking to a brick wall, and others when the brick wall answers you and pronounces ''çontinental breakfast' faultlessly. Ah!
I avoid the legal ramifications by not accepting money; instead I am paid in kind---a glorious painting I have long desired from an artist whose students I will teach, lovely temple paintings from my Thai friend A who has a shop, (No, that's his name) and so on. Last night I had several glasses of wine at my friendly wine bar for free since I taught the staff there a few lessons. And so on.
My Visa ....at present is maintained by leaving the country once a month and this time I went to Chiang mai in Thailand and took my son Sommay, who is thrilled to bits to have become an international traveller. Chiang Mai, you can have, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, nice mountains, wonderful temples, great markets, nice people, but dirty and crowded and full of traffic and pollution, not least of which is made up of dissolute fat farang travellers who have lost their way, their razors, and their self-respect, as far as I can tell and do the place very little good except for the call girls and drug dealers.
We did some shopping for various necessities for the house that are much cheaper there and came back a day early, mainly because we had a very exciting pieces of news...the boys were both given places at university!
The Boys.....This was welcome news because they've both been hanging out since August when they took the exams and then waiting to hear as various lists went up and their names were not on them yet. I thought this was odd, knowing how bright Sommay is, but then I discovered
the grim truth, which is that it's not only the bright ones who get in but the ones who are able to pay large bribes to teachers and administrators. There are only 600 places for 2500 applicants and Sommay was loath to tell me that we'd have to pay; instead he spent a lot of time visiting his teacher, doing odd jobs for him, painting a fence, and hoping. In the end we still had to pay, but only after the fact, not in anticipation, which sometimes does not get rewarded or returned.
The teachers, to be fair, are very badly paid, and tuition fees are quite low by comparison to the 'gifts'' one gives, but often the university teachers are merely last year's graduates and still rather wet behind the ears themselves.
Then we had a flurry of haircuts and new shoes and shirts as they need to be neatly groomed to go to uni here, unlike the instant slobdom that our kids adopt.
And Joy needed a motorbike, so that was another loan/gift. But lately he's been a paragon of dutiful employee standards getting up at dawn to climb down to the river bank for bags of soil for my pots and much more.
Overall, they are fine and happy and a delight to live with, as ever.
My Social Life...continues to improve, with invitations to all the right parties and gallery openings. The last one was a magnificent photographic exhibition at the posh hotel, where the air-kissing was frenzied---- both cheeks, as we are part-French here----followed by a wonderful dinner for a select 40 or so people at the magnificent riverside home of the artist, my friend Mimi, catered by her friend and mine, the redoubtable Vonnie. She is the daughter of a general and is a hotelier here. She speaks Chinese, Lao, French and pure San Diego American and is a real treat.
Before that was the White Party at the Pack Luck Wine Bar where we all wore white and celebrated the birthday of big Laurent, who works for the Heritage commission and drives a huge Lee-Enfield motorbike. He lives with the very bright and witty Wei Wei, who is from China and she and I share a love of plants.
And before that was the glittering do at Satri Lao House, the home of Ivan and Lamphone, who are the duke and duchess of Luang Prabang. He has the Apsara (listed in Hip Hotels of the World) and employs me to tutor his staff and she has a posh shop and loves to party. Most attendees at her soirees end up in the pool sooner or later, so one has learned to wear swimmers under one's clothes or at least something that won't be ruined by repeated dousings.
And I finally staged a small event of my own on my little verandah, a mini homage to our legendary Alexandra St. Dos serving , yep, smoked salmon and cream cheese with capers, nuts and crudites all in the glow of a huge number of tea lights. Huge success! I had Vonnie and Mim and the new guys, Chris and Anthony whose shop has just opened and Nith, the artist who is actually a royal and lives partly here and partly in New York and Paris. He's a lovely little man and is also employing me.
My Good Works....Reports from the village I have adopted have been few as they are flat out with the rice harvest and are waiting for the track to dry out after the rains, so we will go up there early inthe new year and see how things are going. My scholarship plans have received a set-back with the death of the dear man who was going to help set it up for me. He was visiting a village upcountry and fell ill, but was too far from medical help to be saved. He was a lovely guy, very gracious and dignified.
I have been busy using my connections to find jobs for various kids, which is very rewarding, and am embarking on a project to trace Sommay's eldest sister who disappeared two years ago, basically taken by a Thai woman as a domestic servant and never heard from since. She had suffered a degree of intellectual impairment after a bout of japanese Encephalitis B so she is a bit helpless. Her husband and children are left feeling totally bewildered and Sommay's mother wept about her missing daughter until the day she died. We think we can trace her if we do some work, and I really feel I must, for the sake of the family.
Meanwhile I am putting together a list of stuff you can provide for those in need here with a smal donation and willpost that soon, rather like the Care Australia Give a Goat for Christmas idea.
And my landlord has been most uncooperative about taking my concerns for the doggies to the village head, but I have been talking it up and my friend Vonnie has agreed to go with me, since she has considerable clout and lives in the same neighbourhood.
My health is fine, I can hear with BOTH ears now, I exist on local food and am having clothes taken in and now that Joy has a motorbike I have taken back the bicycle and am hoping for trimmer calves before too long.
The Garden....is, of course, my real joy and now that we have cleared the rubble out back and the boys have built nice concrete beds, I have a burgeoning crop of veggies that would make even Melinda green---the soil here is fantastic and as long as I control the mealy bugs and the weeds, it's an easy place to garden. My tiny bougainvilleas are now well up over the six foot fence and I've found a village over the river that makes pots and have ten arriving tomorrow---They are literally dirt cheap that way, as long as you don't mind waiting for delivery.
OK, now to post this before the internet signal drops out againand I lose the whole shebang again, then it's cocktail hour here on the misty banks of the Mekong. Sabaidee.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Birthday Benefactors Bulletin
Time to update all those sweet people who eschewed dreary tasteless coffee mugs bearing jokes about menopause and sagging bosoms as presents at my recent Big Day to give me very generous donations for my one-person-with-lots-of-kind-friends campaign to help the deserving poor in Laos.
This, as I have said, is necessarily a somewhat ad hoc effort at the moment, as I can only deal with the cases I come in contact with, and cannot advertise or work with any agency on this.
But on the principle that ANYTHING is better than nothing in such a desperately poor place, and seeing that I can monitor what happens with what I hand out, I find that this works for now.
So, this is how your gifts did their bit....
Essentially, I like to concentrate on donations for educational purposes, given that people here both need and want education, desperately, at all levels, and the government doesn''t help beyond primary school. (sorry,my apostrophe doesn't work)
And I take it upon myself to assess the character and potential of my recipients, and tend to like to get to know them a bit before I hand anything over. I also usually ask for a detailed list of what they need the money for which is a useful exercise in itself.
OK. the bulk of the money was to pay off the timber and shipping thereof to Naxane village for the folks there to build 100 school desks for the kids in the new bamboo school.
Then there are small amounts that have been used to help young people pay their schoolfees, usually about $65 each.
One case is particularly wonderful, and that is the indomitable Sunlay, who I have mentioned below in earlier dispatches.
He has fought against all the odds and made down here to Luang Prabang from his tiny village, up the muddy trail, (milk chocolate) from Naxane. He phoned me shortly after I arrived back here and about a week later, I met up with him. He took me, wobbling on his borrowed motorbike, to his place, where he has a single room---no windows---in a concrete-block bottom half of a small house in a scrappy, but peaceful village past the markets. He gets free rent in return for keeping the place clean.
At the time he was doing the caretaking of the house, one job in the morning at a hotel, another at a restaurant from 7 to 10 at night AND teaching English classes in his own little schoolroom during the afternoons.
I was gobsmacked to see the neat, simple benches, the white board with the day''s homework written up, and walls covered in conjugated verbs. He has maybe half a dozen students from the surrounding houses, mainly those who can't afford to go to the big private colleges.
That is what I call enterprise. Peter would say he's got Character. Sunlay has essentially disowned his family because he says, "I want an education or I will die.", and he has done all this off his own bat, with only what he can earn and what people give him.
I, of course, was worried about his own education. But Mother, he said, I had to go to hospital for 5 days and so I do not have the money for the fees. (I think it was malaria)
So I gave him 130 bucks of your money for his fees, books and materials and now he is back at evening school, the same one where I will be teaching once I get my visa, called Pasabandith College. He regularly phones me for clarification of grammatical points and meanings of words. (Please, Mother. What is ''çondominium'?)
And then there's a sweet---(I know, they're all sweet to me!!!) ---schoolteacher and father of four who was moved to a different school and was having to walk an hour each way every day, dragging the youngest child as well, just to do his job, rain or shine. So I gave him a half-loan, half gift of $300 to buy a second hand motorbike and he cannot stop beaming with joy.
My friend Som was given his school fees and dormitory rent---he lives in one in a row of concrete block rooms that they use for dormitories for students from out of town. His rent is $200 per year and he sleep on a woven bamboo mat with a lino underlay. No mattress, no pillow, and showers outside in cold water.
So that's how it has gone. I pay for my own boys'' fees, food etc. as well as their wages. They are still waiting to hear if they will be admitted to university but they are both studying English for Tourism at the Teacher Training College as usual every night and spend most of their time doing homework, it seems.
But the need continues. Last night I thought I'd grab a tuk tuk to my usual watering hole and was quoted $1.50 which is highway robbery. They came down to $1, but even that was outrageous , so I strolled off saying that I'd rather walk.
Within a minute, one of the drivers puttered came up behind me and smiled and said, OK, sister, 50 cents, and I accepted, hopping into the front with him, where we had the usual conversation about how I live here and I am teaching and he told me how he has to keep his kids at home because he can't afford to send them to high school with what he earns in the borrowed tuk-tuk. Kids are aged 13 and 16, I think. So, yeah, I gave him my card and he gave me his and I said I'd see what I could do. He will bring the kids around for a chat and Sommay will help me interview them.
There are about 25,000 more stories like that in this dear little place, without even going out into the countryside, so I'll keep doling it out where I see a need and genuine potential.
So that's yer Annual Report, folks...Hope you are all feeling a warm glow from the beaming faces of these very grateful people. I wish I had a photo of Sunlay down on his knees, prostrating himself in a deep, forehead to floor bow of thanks, eyes shining with tears, when I gave him the money. I get all the fun....
This, as I have said, is necessarily a somewhat ad hoc effort at the moment, as I can only deal with the cases I come in contact with, and cannot advertise or work with any agency on this.
But on the principle that ANYTHING is better than nothing in such a desperately poor place, and seeing that I can monitor what happens with what I hand out, I find that this works for now.
So, this is how your gifts did their bit....
Essentially, I like to concentrate on donations for educational purposes, given that people here both need and want education, desperately, at all levels, and the government doesn''t help beyond primary school. (sorry,my apostrophe doesn't work)
And I take it upon myself to assess the character and potential of my recipients, and tend to like to get to know them a bit before I hand anything over. I also usually ask for a detailed list of what they need the money for which is a useful exercise in itself.
OK. the bulk of the money was to pay off the timber and shipping thereof to Naxane village for the folks there to build 100 school desks for the kids in the new bamboo school.
Then there are small amounts that have been used to help young people pay their schoolfees, usually about $65 each.
One case is particularly wonderful, and that is the indomitable Sunlay, who I have mentioned below in earlier dispatches.
He has fought against all the odds and made down here to Luang Prabang from his tiny village, up the muddy trail, (milk chocolate) from Naxane. He phoned me shortly after I arrived back here and about a week later, I met up with him. He took me, wobbling on his borrowed motorbike, to his place, where he has a single room---no windows---in a concrete-block bottom half of a small house in a scrappy, but peaceful village past the markets. He gets free rent in return for keeping the place clean.
At the time he was doing the caretaking of the house, one job in the morning at a hotel, another at a restaurant from 7 to 10 at night AND teaching English classes in his own little schoolroom during the afternoons.
I was gobsmacked to see the neat, simple benches, the white board with the day''s homework written up, and walls covered in conjugated verbs. He has maybe half a dozen students from the surrounding houses, mainly those who can't afford to go to the big private colleges.
That is what I call enterprise. Peter would say he's got Character. Sunlay has essentially disowned his family because he says, "I want an education or I will die.", and he has done all this off his own bat, with only what he can earn and what people give him.
I, of course, was worried about his own education. But Mother, he said, I had to go to hospital for 5 days and so I do not have the money for the fees. (I think it was malaria)
So I gave him 130 bucks of your money for his fees, books and materials and now he is back at evening school, the same one where I will be teaching once I get my visa, called Pasabandith College. He regularly phones me for clarification of grammatical points and meanings of words. (Please, Mother. What is ''çondominium'?)
And then there's a sweet---(I know, they're all sweet to me!!!) ---schoolteacher and father of four who was moved to a different school and was having to walk an hour each way every day, dragging the youngest child as well, just to do his job, rain or shine. So I gave him a half-loan, half gift of $300 to buy a second hand motorbike and he cannot stop beaming with joy.
My friend Som was given his school fees and dormitory rent---he lives in one in a row of concrete block rooms that they use for dormitories for students from out of town. His rent is $200 per year and he sleep on a woven bamboo mat with a lino underlay. No mattress, no pillow, and showers outside in cold water.
So that's how it has gone. I pay for my own boys'' fees, food etc. as well as their wages. They are still waiting to hear if they will be admitted to university but they are both studying English for Tourism at the Teacher Training College as usual every night and spend most of their time doing homework, it seems.
But the need continues. Last night I thought I'd grab a tuk tuk to my usual watering hole and was quoted $1.50 which is highway robbery. They came down to $1, but even that was outrageous , so I strolled off saying that I'd rather walk.
Within a minute, one of the drivers puttered came up behind me and smiled and said, OK, sister, 50 cents, and I accepted, hopping into the front with him, where we had the usual conversation about how I live here and I am teaching and he told me how he has to keep his kids at home because he can't afford to send them to high school with what he earns in the borrowed tuk-tuk. Kids are aged 13 and 16, I think. So, yeah, I gave him my card and he gave me his and I said I'd see what I could do. He will bring the kids around for a chat and Sommay will help me interview them.
There are about 25,000 more stories like that in this dear little place, without even going out into the countryside, so I'll keep doling it out where I see a need and genuine potential.
So that's yer Annual Report, folks...Hope you are all feeling a warm glow from the beaming faces of these very grateful people. I wish I had a photo of Sunlay down on his knees, prostrating himself in a deep, forehead to floor bow of thanks, eyes shining with tears, when I gave him the money. I get all the fun....
Friday, October 12, 2007
Fun Trip in a Tuk-Tuk in the Funtok
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.
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.
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.
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