T Lao

Last days in Laos

2008-03-25T13:25:00.002+07:00

I spent my last full day in Laos on the bus. My overnight bus broke down and so it was delayed for 12 hours. I should have guessed this would happen! Actually I did guess for this and luckily I did plan for it.

I managed to pack my things up to go home. I sent stuff home with Thai Airways cargo. To Australia it costs around $3.50US per kilo if you have at least 45 kgs. It's good because they come to pick it up in Vientiane. The bad thing is they don't tell you have to pay another $75 upon pickup! Everything did get home safely though.

I didn't manage to have a proper goodbye party or say goodbye to all my friends! Hopefully I'll be back to Laos and it's good I can keep in contact by email.

Nam Ha Valley

2008-03-25T13:22:00.001+07:00

There are many treks you can do in Luang Namtha and I decided to do a two day walk through a valley in the national park. I think paths were the access routes to the main roads for the people living in the national park. We set off from a village where some Lanten people lived. These people still dress in traditional clothing, making their own cloth and dying them with indigo. The women wear a long tunic with long strands of cotton falling from the collar. They wear knee length pants and white strips of cloth on their lower legs. They originated from southern China 900 years ago and their written language is old Chinese script. It was a good walk through the forest, though quite muddy and slippery in some areas. Plenty of plants and pretty fungi to see. We say a huge millipede about 20cm long.

We stayed overnight with a Khamu Village. Like a pretty regular village, it had lots of chickens and pigs wandering around and a few water buffalo too. This village was on a river which we used for bathing. water and drinking water. It’s not often I drink boiled river water! They cooked us a delicious dinner of water buffalo larp, cabbage and tomato chunky sauce. The village was in the process of moving so that a school could be accommodated in the area for two villages to share. This ethnic group has their own language in the group of Mon- Khmer languages as these people originated from Cambodia. The people killed us a chicken for lunch and cooked it with ginger for us- delicious! These people collect food from the forest such as banana flowers, rattan and bamboo to eat and sell or barter at the market. I managed to sample all of these foods.

Luang Namtha and bird flu

2008-03-25T13:20:00.002+07:00

Luang Namtha is the most north- western province in Laos. It shares its border with China and Myanmar. It is mountainous and is home to many ethnic groups. There is an awesome road that runs from Houesay through Luang Namtha to the Chinese border that only opened in the past couple of months. I think it was built by the Chinese and/ or Thailand so the two could trade. There’s not many people using it at the moment but I’m sure the next time I’m here it will be much busier.

I just hired a bicycle and rode it around town today. I knew there was bird flu in this province. So what did I do, ate eggs for breakfast, silly me, but they say a sick bird won’t lay eggs. The lady at the café said the market wasn’t allowed to sell eggs today but I did see cooked eggs for sale at the evening market. When cycling to one village we were stopped on our bikes. They sprayed our bikes with some kind of disinfectant, but it seemed a somewhat half- hearted attempt. Then we saw people dressed in those one- piece, head- to- toe suits when they’re handling something biohazardous. If I’d known there was bird flu at that village I wouldn’t have gone! Many rural Lao villages have chickens running around so the lack of squawking and chickens running out from everywhere was distinct.

I must describe some of the awesome food I’ve had here. The Boat Landing Guesthouse (where one of the owners disappeared last year) has some great northern Lao cuisine. Last night we had some food of the Akha ethnic group. We had a gorgeous chicken ginger soup, green beans with sesame. We also had a jeo, a Lao style dipping sauce much like a salsa, made of a forest ‘saw tooth’ plant and many other spices. Tonight we had Khao Soi, fresh cold rice noodles with pork cooked with fermented bean paste like the mince you get in mapoh tofu. We had freshly cooked rice paper rolls with preserved vegetables inside. We also had an interesting steamed rice cake with preserved vegetables in a banana leaf which you eat with sweet and sour sauce. Delicious!

The Gibbon Experience

2008-03-25T13:20:00.001+07:00

I went on a three day adventure in the forest staying in a tree house 50 metres from the ground and traversing the forest via walking and ziplining across the forest. The ziplines are amazing- they are up to 1km in length and up to 200 metres above the ground when you travel across the valley. The ziplines are like flying foxes only you are strapped in. We estimated that you travelled up to 40km per hour. When taking off sometimes you stepped off into mid air 50 metres or more off the ground. The hardest part was when you didn’t make it all the way across to the platform and you have to pull yourself across slowly because when you look down you might be 100 metres or more off the ground.

I liked walking around the forest, there was lots of different plants and fungi to be seen. We saw a green whip snake, quite a few birds and a giant squirrel. There were heaps of rats around the tree house at night. We even managed to see a black- crested gibbon, the tour’s namesake during our morning walk. They play in the morning and they pretty much swing quickly through the forest, crashing through . There was heaps of bamboo which made it feel different from home and we scrambled over and under piles of fallen bamboo. At night we could hear a really loud bark, probably from a monkey. We did hear a lot of crashing through the forest at night which could have been caused by deer or bears.

The tree houses were awesome. They were made of wood, although one was built around a metal cage. The roofs were made of the leaves that the Lao traditional houses are made of. The water is from a spring. There is a shower, toilet and kitchen. The water just drops 50m to the ground when you use it. It’s an open plan without windows so you need to use the mosquito nets to protect yourself from night visitors. I stayed in a large split level house that could sleep 6 people. I also stayed in the romantic one for just 2 people.

The Gibbon Experience is an ‘ecotourism’ project. I am impressed with how they have done the project. They did involve the community from the start. One of the guides said he helped build the first tree house and had elephants carry the wood through the forest. I think they enjoy working there- one had worked there for 4 years and all seem really enthusiastic. They were so nice to speak to us in simple Lao to make me feel like I kind of knew the language! I think that’s the most important thing. Most of the people working there are from a couple of local villages of the Hmong ethnic group.

There were a few minor glitches which could be easily improved, and I hope they do. Some tree houses can run out of water. They really have to do something about this! My friends warned me because they didn’t have water after their 3 hour trek so were quite concerned and mine ran out of water too. They also have people trek to the tree houses and back by themselves which takes up to a couple of hours without maps. In the comments book some people mentioned they got lost. They should also be more clear about how long the trek to the tree house is. I went to the closest tree houses which involved an hour trek, half of which was uphill. Other tree houses are a relatively difficult three hour walk away. One friend woke up at 5am to trek for 7 hours when the road was bad and wet. The guides don’t take first aid kits with them. They do have them in the tree houses but something’s more likely to happen when you’re walking so take one if you’re going walking. They should give some emergency procedures and tell you where the fire extinguisher is and tell people to take water when trekking. They can forget your dinner so check with them they’ll deliver it to you. They have forgotten to deliver meals, according to some comments in the book. Like in Lao generally, people might not act unless asked to, so do check for meals. The tree houses are more like camp site than guest house. That is, it is in the condition that the last person left it. I don’t think they wash sheets and towels that consistently. If they told people this, it might make their expectations more realistic and maybe they could encourage people to leave the tree houses in good condition. I just hope they take note of these things as people have written in the comments book because I’d hate anything bad to happen and have their reputation ruined!

Houeisay

2008-03-25T13:19:00.001+07:00

I flew to Houeisay to the north west of Vientiane for the sole purpose of getting to the gibbon experience. I got there a couple of days early because if it’s foggy the plane can’t land and I didn’t want to risk missing the gibbon experience. I flew on a Chinese plane into an airport that comprised two rooms. This is the simplest airport I've ever seen. I picked up my baggage from the cart and noticed a few wooden stalls with thatched rooves selling food. Houesay has a border crossing to Thailand and is a couple of hours drive from the large Thai city of Chiang Rai. It’s interesting to note the Thai influence here- they advertise in baht more than in Vientiane and there is a lot of Thai food around.

My farewell party

2008-03-25T10:18:00.002+07:00

I hate saying goodbye so was dreading my goodbye party a little. My sister gave me some good advice and said to think of it as more a ‘see you later’ rather than a goodbye, which did help. I knew I would miss the people I had worked with. The afternoon party was good. A representative from our counterpart ministry made a bit of a speech. Some things he mentioned was that when I appeared at some seminars we organised to together people thought I was deaf because I appeared Lao but didn’t really speak! He said to consider working with people with disabilities in the future. They also gave me a certificate of appreciation signed my the minister. I can just show this when I arrive in Laos and won’t need a visa, this guy joked.

Some messages I got include ‘don’t forget me’ and ‘don’t forget to send me a wedding invitation card’. That would be awesome if they could come to my wedding if I someday get married- maybe I’ll have to have a reception in Laos!

Being home

2008-03-23T07:34:00.002+07:00

Wow, I kept this blog up for a year! I think I'm going to start another one about life in Sydney. It is good to be home. It was good to see my family and grandma. The prices haven't shocked me too much- only the fruit and vegetable prices in the supermarket which I think always shocked my anyway. It feels odd waiting in a line and I can't remember the roads around Sydney very well. Good to see my friends too.

I had a fabulous time living in Vientiane Laos. I was really, truly, happy there. I liked the fact that money doesn't matter me there, because I guess I had so much more than the general population. I was ashamed that I was even thinking about it when I returned home! I did learn a lot about foreign aid. I saw a lot of stuff that can be upsetting, but still feel things can be improved one step at a time. I liked the Australian Youth Ambassador for Development program. It does well to prepare you for your time abroad and gives you a realistic picture of what goes on before you go away. I would like to work in Laos again, but not for a while. If I came back too soon and things hadn't improved I think I'd be upset and take it personally! I would totally take a family there, if/when I ever get one. I'd like to take short- term contracts overseas, say 3-6 months, once I get more experience.

Now for a little travel before continuing my career in health and hopefully work overseas again.

4000 islands

2008-03-16T14:48:00.003+07:00

I took an epic kayak trip to the 4000 islands where the Mekong river splits into many streams leaving many islands. There are a few that are really big that people live on.

The trip on the minivan there was interesting. There were a group of foreigners that were irate that they had been waiting 2 hours this minivan to leave. I think this is the first time in my stay in Laos where I felt like saying to someone 'you shouldn't have come to Laos!'. Most upsetting that there was a group of eight of them, each rudely giving a different command to the Lao guy they wanted to help them. It looked quite intimidating all these huge foreigners standing over this much smaller Lao guy. Seriously, if you can't stand waiting or need your coffee to come out of an espresso machine either you shouldn't come to Laos or you should join a packaged tour! I guess I'm lucky I had some cross cultural training before I left so I can deal with these kinds of situations. Laos just isn't quite there with this kind of stuff yet, that's why it's cheap!

I paddled for 6 hours and didn't leave the river- I even ate lunch on the kayak. We paddled 25 kms that day. It's quite scenic there on the water where there are few people and nice plants. Don Khon island where we stayed has the only rail in Laos. It hasn't been used for decades though. The Mekong River was once used for transport between Vietnam and the Yunnan province of China. The boats couldn't get through this section of the Mekong because the channels it splits into are too narrow.

Whilst paddling on the river the next day I could see Cambodia just 50metres away. We stopped to see the Irrawady dolphins, which are some rare freshwater dolphins. I did manage to see one even though I wasn't bothered if I didn't see any.

Bolaven Plateau

2008-03-16T14:23:00.004+07:00

I made a trip to Champassak province and my first stop was the Bolaven Plateau.

I visited the waterfalls on the Bolaven Plateau. There were some steep climbs up and down. What's amazing about Laos is that when tourists are wearing their hiking boots to do a hard walk the Lao guide is negotiating rocky, slippery and/ or steep terrain in thongs! Not quite as good as the barefoot bushman but still very impressive.

We also saw some tea and coffee that grows in the fertile soils of the Bolaven plateau but I didn't think it was that interesting. Coffee to me is just another crop which I think is just interesting for foreigners because it's a luxury item. I saw areas where coffee was grown and I'm sure it would have looked much more beautiful when it was natural forest. I think I saw an area where coffee had been grown some time ago where I saw some scrawny coffee plants and it was really quite unattractive. Coffee seems to be a cash crop as I saw many houses growing it and having it dry out the front of their house. I just hope Oxfam did their cost- benefit analysis before they started their fair- trade coffee program. The economic theory suggests that giving a higher than market price for coffee says that their would be oversupply and more than optimal land used for the production. Too much forest could be cut down!

Interesting planes and buses with pigs on the roof

2008-02-22T10:19:00.003+07:00

I flew to Sam Neua but couldn't get a flight home due to bad weather. Instead of a one hour flight, it was a 20 hour bus ride home.

I discovered an airline I didn't know about called Lao Air because I found out it flies to Sam Neua where I wanted to go. I need to create a page for it in Wikipedia because it's not there. When I booked I didn't even get a proper air ticket. They just gave me a receipt which didn't even list the flight times, just the check- in time on the flight on the way there.

I did do a bit of a research about the plane. It was a Cessna Grand Caravan with 14 seats. This model is from 2004 and the biggest user is FedEx which made me feel confident. We were happy that the plane could take off and land because it can't when it's foggy. It has been very foggy in Sam Neua recently due to the cold temperatures from winds originating in China.

We showed up at Sam Neua Airport for the flight home to find it closed. We called and found out it was cancelled due to bad weather. When we booked they said if that happened they would try the next day, but when we called they really had no intention of doing that because they need to use the plane to fly other routes. We didn't want to wait around until the weather improved anyway.

Some people bought pigs in Sam Neua, put them in sacks on top of the bus for 9 hours and got off just before we arrived in Phonsavan. The pigs squealed every time we went around a tight corner. The bigger pigs had their snouts out of the bag. The people on the bus spoke a language other than Lao. There was one poor woman spewing out the window and another with a very nasty cough. The driver had to stop to fix the brakes. The journey was very long because the road is mountainous so the driver can't go too fast. The overnight journey from Phonsavan to Vientiane was much quicker because the bus was better quality and it didn't constantly stop for people to get their pigs or sacks of fish food on and off the roof.

Snake in the shower

2008-02-22T09:36:00.001+07:00

I'm having a shower and I see what looks like a stick in the drain. Upon closer inspection I saw a snake. My housemate chased it back down with a plug and we plugged it up. Scary stuff. I'm now in the process of identifying the snake. My house mate thinks it's a poisonous one. My counterpart tells me that its unlikely to be poisonous as ones living in wet humid conditions generally are not.

Northern Laos

2008-02-22T09:31:00.001+07:00

This picture depicts the Pathet Lao, the Lao communists defeating the Americans who supported the Royalist government. Notice the bomb with 'USA' written on it. This is in Viengxay, Huaphan Province where the Pathet Lao hid in caves for 10 years from the 1960s while it was being bombed. It is near the Vietnam border in the North East of Laos.

The USA was concerned that if Laos became communist, communism would take over the world. That's why they bombed the communists.

I visited the 400 caves where 10,000 hid for 10 years. There were a few years of bombing. They hid until the cease fire agreement was signed. The caves were quite interesting. There were enlarged natural caves, and caves they made. There are seven open to tourists. There was a cave that was a theatre. They built some emergency rooms in case there was chemical warefare that had a Russian air filter to pump in clean air. I doubted that it would have worked. We saw the bedroom of the former President and Prime Minister Kaysone Phomvihane.

What I will miss about Laos

2008-02-14T16:04:00.001+07:00

I'm going home in a month and I was whining the other day because of all the little things I'll miss here. Today my mindset has changed because I know I really have to go home because I've done what I have to do here and it's time to move on.

Things I will miss

The Lao food- so delicious and healthy
The kind and friendly people who know that there's never a need to be rude
Laughing and fun in the office- so rare where I've worked!
Window shopping at the markets for Lao textiles
Eating enough fruit and vegetables- they aren't afraid to eat them raw and have many delicious ways of cooking veggies
Not having hayfever here! It's so bad in Sydney but cleared up here perhaps due to humid air, cleaner air or less processed food
Getting exercise easily by riding my bike around town, doing cheap and convenient netball and aerobics
The people at my work, of course, whom all have had amazing experiences and some are particularly good people
The weather- I like it hot!

Things I won't miss

The smell and smoke in my room from neighbours burning rubbish, plastic included
Being harder to access services like cash, health services
Seeing so many accidents on the roads
Seeing that life's tough for people here, but I least know I know and can hopefully do more about it
Not being able to complain about the government openly

Things to incorporate into Sydney life

Eating on the floor when guests come around- no need to worry about having enough chairs
Eating more raw foods like they do here saving cooking time including beans, mint, coriander, cabbage
Trying to use my bicycle for transport more
Not participating in road rage- no such thing in Laos!
Trying to get out to explore NSW on the weekends a bit more, like I try to do here

I will miss you Laos, but I will be back.

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News about Lao

2008-02-14T13:39:00.001+07:00

There has been heaps of international news about Laos this week. Here is the main news:

Laos denies that a 'Chinatown' to be home to 50, 000 Chinese families will be built, even though I've heard heaps of rumours about it. Read here
Bird flu in Luang Nam Tha Province, read here
Africans approaching Filipinos in Vientiane to smuggle drugs, read here
Human rights concerns relating to the Hmong people in Laos. They are being shot and killed in the forests, read here
Counterfeit malaria drugs made in Southern China and being sold in Laos among other places. They found pollen in the drugs so they could tell which region of China it came from. Read here and here

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Bombs and ancient jars

2008-02-13T16:33:00.001+07:00

Driving to Xieng Khuang
I visited one of the three most heavily bombed provinces in the most heavily bombed nation on earth- Xieng Khuang province in Laos. I wanted to see the Plain of Jars and the impacts of the war, whatever you want to call it, the Vietnam/ American/ Indochina war.

The drive into the mountains there was interesting. These are the people that live on less than $1 per day. Actually even our driver who lives in the centre of Vientiane earns just less than $50 USD a month. I have never taken a road trip and seen any smaller communities lived. Most of the houses we saw between Vang Vieng and Xieng Khuang were traditional houses made of wood or mats of fibre. I saw communities of just a few houses to a couple of hundred houses.

I saw children carrying huge baskets of wood on their backs. There were small children no older than ten years old carry small babies in slings across their back. There were groups of children coming home from school. There were people walking along the road by themselves.

The Plain of Jars
We saw over 400 ancient stone jars over a couple of sites. Who made the jars, how and why remains a bit of a mystery. The biggest one was bigger than I. It was a very pleasant walk seeing the jars. At one of the sites we had the jars all to ourselves. This site is in the middle of farmland It's like the calm feeling of being in a Japanese rock garden. Where the jars were there were large bomb craters. It appears that the bombs penetrated the ground at least a metre before exploding. They had to remove hundreds of bombs from the area before they could open the jars to tourism and the area you can walk on is still quite restricted.

Impact of the war
People use bomb casings for things like decoration, fence posts, to plant plants. I think I ate a bowl of noodle soup with a spoon beaten out of a bomb casing which I've heard is common. I'd never seen a rocket launcher or huge bullets designed to take down a plane before. This was all in the hotel restaurant. This area was bombed heavily but not all the bombs exploded upon hitting the ground. So there are heaps of live bombs out there. This contributes to poverty because people can't use that land to farm.

An alternative way to make a living is to find bombs using a metal detector and attempt to defuse them. They can get 0.10c per kilogram of metal. When you consider that many of the bombs are pretty big and that they would otherwise earn $1 a day, this is a pretty good option. They know it's dangerous but it's an economic decision because they perceive that the expected benefit exceeds the risk x cost. They can sell the explosives also or use them to fish. What a crazy way to make a living. There are organisations that train people to clear areas of UXO. I think these organisations detonate the bombs rather than attempting to defuse them. We saw a UXO clearance team on a hill using metal detectors. Should people be trained to defuse bombs properly because they are doing it anyway? I just don't think a ban in trading the metal is the most effective thing to do, but I don't know what to do.

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Articles about deafblind woman, rising health costs in America

2008-02-07T11:35:00.001+07:00

Deafblind woman attacked
BBC has a fantastic website by people it disabilities, for people with disabilities called 'Ouch'. Reading it feels like an insight into another world. They have some bloggers with some great stories to tell including one amazing deafblind woman who's doing a PhD. Here she tells a story ' My story: deafblind street attack' which is quite scary.

High health care costs in the US
I used to work in the Australian health sector and it seemed to bag the US for spending twice as much money but when we look at them they're not looking healthier than us. This article in the NY Times argues that the high health costs aren't such a bad thing. Incomes are rising so people can afford to spend money. The can also afford higher technology health care. It also offers some ways that health care costs can be reduced. The High Cost of Health Care.

Economics and disability

2008-02-07T11:19:00.000+07:00

My major studies were in economics and while I've never worked in the field, but always use economics it to make decisions in everyday work and life. Here are some articles I found interesting that are a look through the lens of economics into the field I work in, disability.

This article is titled 'The Decision to Abort When Faced with a Down Syndrome Diagnosis'. These guy wrote this article co- wrote quite a popular book called 'Freakonomics' and sadly his son was sick and was faced with the possibility of becoming deaf but instead died.

Another article is about the unintended consequences of anti- discrimination laws in the US. They actually cause less employment of people with disabilities. It makes it so hard to fire them that they don't want to employ them in the first place. Logical when you think about it. FREAK-TV: Is the Law of Unintended Consequences the Strongest Law Around?

UXO casualties in 2007

2008-02-07T10:27:00.000+07:00

There is stacks of unexploded ordnance (UXO) which are bombs that didn't explode when America dropped them during the Indochina war. Lao is the most heavily bombed nation in the world, having more bombs dropped on it than the total bombs used in WW2. Therefore accidents happen.

Last quarter 2007
The statistics from the National Regulatory Authority, the entity responsible for coordinating UXO issues in Lao show that in the last quarter of 2007, there were five deaths and eight injuries. This is how some of the accidents happened:

Played with the grenade HE Frag F1
They made a fire near the house and the 23mm of artillery underground exploded
He found the mortar fuse then hit it and it exploded
They played with the UXO with a stick causing it to explode
He played with the UXO by throwing it against a tree causing it to explode
He cut the vegetation and hit the 33mm of artillery causing it to explode

Six of the casualties were children (three male and three female), six were adults (all male). Males have a higher rate of casualties because they are work outside. Statistics are collected from 9 of Laos' 17 provinces, I'm guessing from the most heavily bombed ones. I would expect that these casualties are underreported because not everyone, particularly in remote areas, would not know to report them.

2007 statistics

These statistics for the 9 provinces surveyed

There were 30 deaths
There were 69 injuries

19 deaths of male children
Nil deaths of female children

11 deaths of male adults
Nil deaths of female adults

27 injuries male children
7 injuries female children

30 injuries male adults
5 injuries female adults

Chicken fighting

2008-02-06T14:15:00.001+07:00

If I ever want to participate in chicken fighting, I can, because my Lao counterpart has given me all I need to know.

Selecting a good chicken is important. You need to check the back of it's neck, the wings and the neck to make sure it's strong.
You should feed it a special diet of egg mixed with paddy rice and then dried. Feeding it vegetables is important too.
It needs to exercise. My counterpart made a chicken running machine comprising a cylinder with a handle. He also puts the chicken in the water so that it flaps about for exercise. He places the chicken down a large tube and it exercises by trying to get out.
If it's not winning, trade it in!

He mentioned that some people seal the chicken's wounds during a fight by putting a hot iron in it, but he thinks that's going to far. He also boasted that his best chickens can take out another with just one kick.

The shooting range

2008-02-05T11:58:00.000+07:00

I went to the shooting range in Vientiane. I was a bit scared, but a few friends have been, so I thought 'why not'. It’s quite open, and when I walked in I saw someone using an air rifle and another shooting a really loud gun. I had a go of using the rifle. The woman loads the bullets for you one at a time. They cost 15000 kip for five. Pity I didn't really understand the woman's instructions of how to use the rifle and ended up completely missing the target. They put the target, which is a piece of thin cardboard on a string and draw it down the range. The particular gun I used was from the 'USSR' and the other I saw was from 'West Germany'. The boys sat there with their rifles and five bullets and waited for the woman to load the bullets. She never did, so they just had a go themselves.

The other cheap bullets are the handgun ones which cost 17000 kip for give. This is less accurate than the rifle but really easy to use. I'm not sure what other guns you can use but their bullets are around 20000 to 30000 kip which is probably a bit out of my price range. It's quite a casual setup with a small dog wandering around between the guy with the air rifle and the target. There is a small bar there too but I really hope the don't serve alcohol.

Fear of foreigners in Laos

2008-02-05T11:56:00.000+07:00

The journalist in

Laos

wrote an article titled 'Fear of foreigners in Laos' upon one year of a Lao ecolodge in the northern province of Luang Namtha. He talks about the Lao government disliking foreign influences in Lao.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JB02Ae01.html

I just wonder where he gets this information from because after a year I’ve found it hard to get information around here. Generally, people just rely on rumours. He highlights the point that the Lao National University, Lao’s only university opened in 1996 which is very recent. It does not yet have postgraduate courses. My friend says that students are expected to learn long passages of Marx’s texts. Lao doesn’t produce textbooks so they learn from Lao or Thai textbooks.

Another Quiet American

2008-02-05T11:55:00.000+07:00

This is a book by Brett Dakin. It’s a short account of his time in Vientiane volunteering at the Lao National Tourism Authority about a decade ago. He has found out about the history of businesses and buildings around Vientiane which is still relevant. Many of his experiences are similar to mine with respect to cultural differences the challenges faced and the interactions with the Lao people.

Australia day party

2008-02-05T11:51:00.000+07:00

The Australian embassy held a party for

Australia

day at the ambassador’s residence. Ambassador's, Australians working in Lao, government officials and NGO representatives attended. These events are important to get the support from the high- level government officials such as the Lao Deputy Prime Minister who was there. The ambassador made a great speech highlighting democracy and a fair legal system as contributing factors to

Australia

’s success. I think they were hoping the Lao folk would hear.

Overseas opportunities

2008-01-25T14:38:00.000+07:00

There are donors that have been really generous with providing education opportunities for people in my office. Here are just some of the opportunities in the past year:

A couple of staff have gone to Bangkok and attended training with the Asia Pacific Centre for Disability
Others went to Bangkok for various UN agency workshops
Some have visited Japan for some training
I myself went to Phnom Penh

Further in the past, others have gone to India, Vietnam and China.

These training sessions are generally available to program staff only. Unfortunately the support staff which are essential to the running of the organization such as the accountant or the public relations officer don't get as much of a chance to develop their skills and travel at all.

There is still the challenge of transferring the knowledge back to those in the office and applying it their work. I suppose application is always the challenge of training! There is also a problem with the daily allowances these events pay. The allowance is usually quite reasonable. Around Lao there can be issues with the first person who opens the application form to apply for the event. It is also hard to democratically select someone in the office to go to these professional development events. Some friends have mentioned that they're not sure why some people in the office are selected to represent their organisation overseas. We were handed some tips about working in Laos by the UN Development Program that said sending someone overseas might mean that while they're away well decisions can then be made in the office!

Lao braille

2008-01-25T14:37:00.000+07:00

My friend is working on a project to suppport blind children in being educated. He has the first and only braille printer in Lao and one of his first tasks was to learn how to fix the machine. His mission is to teach blind children how to use the computer. His first task is to translate a computer textbook into Lao braille. The trouble is that he doesn't know braille so he is trying to get a Lao person to translate as he reads out the Lao text. If someone could come up with a computer program that translates Lao to Lao braille that would be very helpful! Each Lao letter should translate specifically to one braille letter.

Currently blind children take notes in braille by punching it into paper. I met a blind guy uni student from Japan- an amazing guy he was. His English was perfect and he was a naturally good public speaker. He has a note taking device that can connect to the computer. He can type notes which can be read as one line of braille. He says up to a couple of books can be saved on it. I hope that this will one day be available for Lao!

Killing fields and prison

2008-01-25T14:35:00.000+07:00

Choeung Ek Killing fields
I managed to resist crying while at the killing fields which meant I was able to hold it off for the rest of the day. The killing fields was one of hundreds around the country during the Pol Pot regime. The killing fields where people where killed and buried. 30, 000 people were killed in these killing fields alone- men, women, children, killing families at a time. You can see bones poking from the ground where rain has weathered the ground. After the country was liberated from the Khmer Rouge the families and friends of those killed came and trashed the buildings at the killing fields so none of the original prison buildings were left. There is a memorial stupa with 17 levels of skulls excavated from the area. There are skulls that clearly indicate the person was killed by a blunt object. Our tour guide rattled off a whole bunch of methods they used to kill people and pretty much all of them were violent. Strangely enough there is a shooting range just 5 kilometres away where you can try shooting an AK47- not quite my thing.

Tuel Sleng Prison
We didn't make it there the first day because Mia Farrow was holding some kind of protest to bring attention to the events in Darfur. This prison was one of where many where Pol Pot's regime were held people before they died. Tuel Sleng Prison used to be a high school and is located near central Phnom Penh. It's strange because it does look like a regular school from the outside and seems in good condition. Inside though, you can see how the classrooms were divided into concrete or wooden cells 2x1 metre. The Khmer Rouge did systematically document all the people that entered the prison with a photo, and apparently a biography too. There are thousands of portraits on display of those that entered the prison. The photos shocked me because they looked like such healthy people, and probably were, upon entry to the prison. Some even managed a smile. It also creeped me out that a large proportion had their hands tied behind their back- the prisons where I come from aren't allowed to do this. There were also photos of people laying dead in pools of blood and mothers with their children. There were torture instruments for display used to make people give confessions. Very scary stuff- I hope we can learn something from what happened. Only 7 prisoners survived of the 17, 000 imprisoned there.

Seeing the king

2008-01-25T14:17:00.000+07:00

During the education workshop I saw a dance troupe perform. The members of the troupe were people with disabilities, mostly deaf people. They had performed during the closing ceremony at the last Olympics and have performed to an impressive number of world leaders. They did do some good singing and dancing. The king of Cambodia attended. The way they select the king is unusual. The last king had resigned. This king was selected by a council and the next king of Cambodia. This is the first royalty I have ever seen! He once did work with UNESCO.

Inclusive education

2008-01-25T14:08:00.000+07:00

I had the opportunity to attend a seminar 'Education for All Flagship on the Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities: Towards Inclusion Regional Workshop in Asia' sponsored by UNESCO. There a few flagships designed so that resources and people form a network, this one being about people with disabilities. It was interesting to see what is going on in the region. It seemed that there were more special education programs available in Cambodia than in Laos. Someone raised concerns that aid money was not getting to Cambodia because the government won't work without bribes and went to Africa instead. Actually, it is the same with the Sweden and Lao. They are a pulling aid out of many countries including Lao and want to focus on Africa. It was mentioned that during the Pol Pot regime 70-80 % teachers died. Starting at year zero with zero teachers, students and schools, there are now 100,000 teachers, 3.5 million students and 900 schools.

People are still battling attitudes in this region. Some Thai guy found a kid that was 11 years old with a disability in a chicken cage. Another found a kid with cerebral palsy at home alone. Neither had ever gone to school, but in the short time this guy saw that these children could do things by themselves given the opportunity.

Some key points

Inclusive education is about ensuring the right to education and providing the resources needed by the individual to be educated
Everyone has limitations and some learn faster, some slower. Inclusive education is about acknowledging diversity and including them all.
People with disabilities may need education from a young age to prepare them for school. For example, deaf children should be taught sign language from a young age so that they have language skills like hearing children when they start school.
Home based and/ or informal education is important and should be supported
Sometimes you need to push on with implementing inclusive education because you will never have all the resources you need.
The world is with a diverse range of abilities. If children with disabilities are in mainstream education children will learn to appreciate diversity and include people with disabilities in their work and activities as they get older.
Sometimes it is not suitable for people with disabilities to be in mainstream education because it may be difficult for the school to get adequate resources to meet their educational needs
Children learn from each other, not just from the teachers so it is important to consider them as a resource in education.
Children have the right to free, compulsory education that is available, adaptable and accessible.

Museum, royal palace and Wat Phnom, Phnom Penh

2008-01-25T14:06:00.000+07:00

The national museum is in a beautiful wooden structure and worth visiting. Cambodia has had much Indian influence, for example the Wats of the Angkor and Hindu. So there were many an image of Shiva and Ganesh and other Hindu gods in the muesum. I have noticed that in each of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia's national museums they have shown maps displaying their largest empire at any point in time which is sometime in the distant past. The Khmer empire covered most of Laos up to Burma and most of north- eastern Thailand when it was its most powerful.

The Royal Palace is another place worth visiting. There is a pagoda with a whole floor of silver tiles. There is also a French building right in the middle of the palace grounds which looks a bit odd. Wat Phnom is pretty good because there are a lot of monkeys around which are amusing to observe. You can buy them lotus seed heads and bananas for them to eat- at least it's pretty healthy.

Phnom Penh

2008-01-25T14:01:00.000+07:00

Phnom Penh is a good place to visit. The people are friendly. It's another place which makes me swear I'll be a kinder person when I get home! Initially it seemed like a bigger version of Vientiane, and I could image Vientiane looking like Phnom Penh in five to ten years. The motorcycle, car to bike ratio seems about the same. Some women wear skirts that are exactly the same as the Lao sinh. The traditional dance is quite similar between the countries also. They celebrate the same new years. They have just one big mall in Phnom Penh and one separate department store. They have usual Thai chain restaurants such as Dairy Queen, Swensens, Pizza Company and MK Suki. The poverty here seems more apparent than in Vientiane- there were many more people begging. I was there to attend a workshop about implementing inclusive education for people with disabilities in the Asia Pacific region.

I was staying in quite a nice hotel and I noticed about three western couples with an Asian baby. I'm guessing the westerners were French and the babies were Cambodian. A bit of a wild guess but these couples around their late 30s- 40s could have been picking up these children for adoption. In Cambodia did read that a couple of countries, UK and USA I think it was that put an emergency ban on adoption from Cambodia due to child trafficking concerns.

Lao wedding 3

2008-01-15T09:10:00.001+07:00

I went to a Lao wedding reception at the same place I had the other two. It was a friend's brother's wedding. The bride wore hot pink Lao dress. The couple had a huge banner at the top of the stage featuring a heart- shaped photo if them.

This wedding was more intimate than the others I've been to- I'm guessing it had about 300 people. There was a lot of dancing including some older women dancing to the rap music the band was playing.

My language teacher tells me that it is necessary to pick a lucky day for the bride and groom to be married. His wife has gone to Australia to attend a wedding. The lucky day isn't apparent far in advance so his wife will stay in Australia for three months in anticipation of the wedding. She may miss the wedding if the lucky day doesn't happen within that three month period! Apparently the one getting married is the youngest son in the family. The other son's weren't as careful about picking a lucky day so it's important that this one is married on a lucky day.

In the minority

2008-01-15T09:01:00.001+07:00

I have a friend who is woman with a disability, Hmong and Catholic. She is the first Lao Catholic I have met. There have been a few bad stories about what has happened to some christians here due to their religious beliefs and hope they're not true!

Anway, my friend had a baby whom I visited yesterday which is very exciting. Her daughter is called 'Noi' for now, which means small, and about the most common nickname I have come across. My language teacher tells me that a child only really needs a name when they start school, so often the child can go without a formal name until then.

She plans to go back to work in couple of months. Her and her husband will share looking after the baby because they both work part- time and can choose when to work. It sounds like a good arrangement!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2008-01-07T13:18:00.000+07:00

Malaysia

is unique. I thought it would be like any other city in Asia, but it different. The thing I noticed most was that it had much Islam influence- the food, the architecture, the clothing people wear. I liked Kuala Lumpur- not too crazily busy but seemed busier than it should be for a city of 1.6 million people.

I visited the National Mosque, built in the shape of an umbrella. It was the first mosque I’ve ever visited. One of the volunteers there went off on a bit of a tangent about Australia being uncivilized and the Chinese with 5000 years of history will civilize us. What could I say? Also, common knowledge around Asia is that Australia’s prime minister speaks Chinese and has a Chinese son- in- law. Interesting. He also seemed to assume that all Chinese people in Australia liked Kevin Rudd- just not quite!

The Islamic Arts Museum was also worth visiting. It featured a lot of calligraphy and some textiles which I liked. They also have models of famous buildings built in Islamic style including the Taj Mahal. It was a beautiful museum. The shop had some creationist books which were unfortunately very badly graphically designed not to mention the content which used strong terms such as ‘completely impossible that…’I also spotted some Lao silk scarves for around $100 AUD which I could buy for $10 here in Laos.

Penang, Malaysia

2008-01-07T13:15:00.000+07:00

Penang, Malaysia

The bus from Kuala Lumpur to Penang island took a couple of hours longer than expected. We had a bus driver who randomly yelled at people, for example, when someone chucked all their watermelon seed shells on the floor. I thought the main town on Penang island was pretty dirty. Lots of nice open gutters you can fall in and rats running around! The food was okay, generally oily and it is hard to avoid fried chicken!

The best thing about Penang was going to the Snake Temple with an attached snake farm. The temple has vipers living there but these days they are behind glass and sleepy from the incense. The farm though, was excellent. I got to play with a 6m long python which the guys working there treated as pets giving them regular kisses on the head.

The tropical fruit farm and the spice farm were pretty good. The museum was quite good too- it had lots of information about Penang culture and the different ethnic groups. Kek Lok Si temple is a huge temple complex on a hill and looked very modern and new. It had some good views.

I did manage to get the main beach. This beach is the busiest. I couldn’t quite relax because there were children hooning up the beach with quad bikes. Getting into the water would be no different because there were many people on jet skis.

Upon telling the staff member at the hostel in Kuala Lumpur that I’d arrived from Penang he said ‘that’s my home town and I hate it!’. I could definitely see why.

Thai massage

2007-12-27T22:23:00.001+07:00

I've had a few Thai massages over my few trips to Thailand. I really do like them. I usually pay between 180 to 250 baht. Each massage shop seems to have their own massage routine so every massage is unique. Usually the older the masseuse, the stronger the massage will be because they are more confident and don't mind inflicting pain on you so much. The only place I find it hurts is on my legs. I've not had a male masseuse in Thailand yet, thought I've had a couple in Laos. Here are the most interesting moves I've come across:

Being bent over backwards over the masseuse's knees with my the top of my head on their stomach
Having an elbow dug into my bum and thighs- this is one of the moves that hurts me
Masseuse's foot pressing on my inner thigh whilst they are pulling my leg
Masseuse puts palm together like you do when you're praying and pushing upward into my tailbone
Sitting down being bent over frontwards with the masseuse holding my wrists and stretching my arms outwards so that her torso in full contact with mine

I would not recommend getting a Thai massage if you are particular about your personal space!

Singapore

2007-12-27T22:12:00.000+07:00

I was in Singapore for three days including Christmas and my birthday. A's family were so kind to look after me really well! We went to Jurong bird park because I really like birds. They did have a great variety and managed to teach a bird to sing 'we wish you a merry christmas' which was rather impressive really!

I ate chilli crab, yum which is one of the must- dos in Singapore! They are from Sri Lanka. For my birthday I was taken to high tea (my first) at the gorgeous Fullerton hotel. I had Japanese food for dinner. Singapore is an interesting place. The people aren't really free and the government controls the media. The food there's great, but I can't see so much to do there except for eating and shopping! People like to be members of recreational clubs, like an upmarket RSL club where you can hang out with restaurants, gyms and pools.

Third trip to Chatuchak

2007-12-27T22:05:00.001+07:00

I made my third trip to Chatuchak markets in Bangkok to try to do some Christmas shopping. In this market with 15,000 stalls, this was my least successful trip yet because I was stuck in a section where I didn't want to be and couldn't find my way out.

This time though, I managed to come across the pet section. I saw a pair of Macaws for sale, though I'm annoyed at myself for not finding how much they cost. There were plenty of squirrels sitting on top of a cage looking pretty tired and inactive. I saw small rodents with tails, and was informed that they were gerbils. There were also stingrays in a bag of water. You can buy beehives there. They attach a small hive to a tripod frame, so I'm assuming you buy it and the bees extend their hive to cover the frame. There were bees flying everywhere, but I'm pretty sure they were stingless bees. There were a lot of clown fish also- I swear Finding Nemo damaged fish clown fish populations around the world! I also saw some turtles for sale.

Beaches in Thailand

2007-12-27T21:35:00.000+07:00

I made a last minute decision to join my friend in visiting some islands in Southern Thailand. It was good to swim in the ocean again! The majority of people in the region are Muslim which is different from other regions in Thailand.

Krabi
I thought this was a lovely town- pretty quiet not very touristy at all! We caught a boat to Railay beach, less than an hour away. The beach was as beautiful as I expected. It had limestone hills on each end of the beach and was a quiet bay. There was only a couple of resorts at this beach, so it isn't too developed. You can even have a massage on the beach!

Koh Lanta
We caught a minibus and a couple of ferries to this island. It was a really nice place to relax. It was mostly families from Scandinavia and Germany judging by the languages on the menus. It somehow managed to look quite elegant even thought it is a really touristy area. The beach we stayed on was just perfect and is just one of many beaches on the island.

Koh Phi Phi
I heard that this place was like paradise, and I pretty much agree. From this island we went for a speed boat tour around Koh Phi Phi and neighbouring island Phi Phi Leh. We stopped to snorkel a couple of times. Unfortunately I could see a lot of damage to the coral but did see plenty of beautiful fish. I'm not sure why they don't put buoys there- they seem to sink the anchor wherever. There were schools of hundreds of fish which was awesome. We went for a swim in a lagoon in the open ocean. We also stopped at a couple of beaches which had gorgeous white sands.

We hired a private long boat back out to Phi Phi Lei the next day and snorkelled somewhere a little less damaged, but probably could still be better protected. They really need to tell people not to touch the marine animals! Someone asked me whether they could touch things so I told them there were cone shells, stone fish and lion fish so they'd better not touch anything. The highlights were the gorgonians (sea fans) the groups urchins, the worms and the schools of hundreds of little silver fish. Also the box shaped bright yellow fish!

Phuket
We stayed in Phuket town, which was pretty quiet and unexpectedly not touristy. We did catch a taxi to Patong beach where it is very touristy. There was quite a lot of nightlife there- restaurants, bars, clubs and markets. We saw some lady boys dressed up very well. They sure put in an effort with their makeup and costume. Some costumes had some traditional Thai elements- I thought they had good style. Maybe they were about to start a show. We nearly accidentally went into a gay bar until the door swung open and we saw some guy with bleached blond hair wearing only white briefs dancing on a table.

The next day me and the two guys got a facial. We were attracted by how cheap it was. They seem to have these 'Tokyo' facials everywhere around Thailand. They give you good clean, a face mask, steam and massage over 45 minutes. They remove blackheads too- luckily I only had a couple because the guys found it really painful!

Disability day

2007-12-27T20:58:00.000+07:00

Our organisation somehow managed to organise an event for a few hundred members within a week. It took us a while to get government approval so that's why we didn't have long to orgnanise it. Members in Vientiane with a range of disabilities came to the cultural hall to enjoy a concert. It was good to see some traditional dancing, some singing and some visually impaired members who did breakdancing as part of a group. Some members are in self- help groups organised by the type of disability so they can support each other. There are some groups of children also. I saw a few people who probably could have done with a better mobility aid such as a wheelchair eg one guy who had use of one leg used a bamboo pole to get around and other walked with one foot on the crutch.

It was good to finally meet some members. The day ended with a lot of beer drinking with work friends because they had been trained to make films which were launched to the public on the day and they received certificates.

Wedding 2

2007-12-10T09:08:00.000+07:00

I was invited to a wedding of a lady’s daughter at work. I only met the daughter once last week when they dropped into the office to get something. Now I can see how this wedding grew to 500- 600 guests. I went to the exact same place as the other wedding I went to, only this time I was 2 tables away closer to the food. ‘You have to be quick’, I was advised, so I promptly got up to get some food when called. There was consumption of Johnny Walker Red and more line dancing. Another fun night!

The woman came in this morning and announced that a total of 1,500 people in total came to the wedding. 17 cases of whiskey were consumed- half Johnny Black, half Johnny red. She was pleased some high level government officials came and that the gifts covered the cost of the wedding.

Notes about foreign aid

2007-12-10T09:04:00.000+07:00

I was reading a book called ‘The soulful science- what economists really do and why it matters’ by Diane Coyle (2007). There is a chapter about ‘How to make poverty history’. It questions the nature of the evidence available on the causes of poverty and whether the discipline of economics currently agrees upon how to detect poverty and what policy it recommends. I think it has made some reasonable, logical points about poverty. Here are some interesting things about poverty that stand out to me:

People in poor countries have reasonably low expectations about future prospects so they are unwilling to invest in setting up businesses (p. 68). They are also unwilling to invest in child’s education as they don’t believe they will recoup the cost of schooling and income loss. Education might be a new thing for the family, so why would they try something new instead of sticking to working if you can’t see the immediate rewards (p.68)?

The banking system is inadequate so poor people can’t invest in education.

There are issues with the system of title to property so it can’t be used for collateral

It takes a long time to set up a business. I remember reading some statistics about this. They say in Australia it takes 2 days but in some countries it takes years, and bribes.

The presence of important natural resources such as oil and diamonds is a curse. The profits and royalties go to elite, corrupt officials only in an undemocratic country. I never thought about this but I suppose this makes sense.

Some guy called Lord Bauer said aid was ‘transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries’ (p. 78). I was sitting there delivering an aid program and at that moment I experienced concern because in front of me at that moment it seemed true. This guy also said ‘if external subsidies were indispensable for economic advance, mankind would still be living in the Stone Age’ (p. 78). I think this might be what is happening with so called ‘fair trade’. Some people mess around with prices and subsidies without analysing the full consequences.

Another guy called Branko Milonovic raised the point that more than a third of Brazilians are richer than poorest 5% of people in France. Therefore there is a 10% chance that aid is transferred from a poorer to a richer person (p.68).

There are incentives for corrupt officials to keep the country poor because the poorer the country is, the more aid they will receive and the more opportunity they have to take money. I can see that it this certainly isn’t an incentive to move things along quickly. Similarly, in here they have a system of per diem payments that all NGOs pay if they want people to attend their meetings and seminars. I personally think this results in more than optimal meetings and seminars. Often someone not necessarily the most suitable person try to go to a meeting try to go to as many of these types of meetings as possible.

Agricultural subsidies in Europe and North America don’t give poor countries reasonable access to their agricultural markets (p. 90). These figures are scary- EU gives agricultural subsidies of over 300 billion euros per year which is the GDP of sub- Saharan Africa (p. 91). They say that’s enough to fly all of Europe’s cows around the world first class (p. 91). This makes me pretty angry- it just results in bad expensive food for them!

More about subsidies- I was reading an article in the Economist I liked because it was about cheese, which I love. In Switzerland they subsidise dairy farming a lot because it looks pretty everyone because it is the Swiss thing to do. This means that way too many people produce milk. The cheese is expensive because the milk they use to make it expensive. No one wants to buy the cheese because it is so expensive in Switzerland. Out of pride or something, they don’t want to lower the price of this cheese in Switzerland. Therefore they dump the cheese on the Italian market at a bargain price. Swiss people then go over the border to Italy to buy the Swiss cheese. I find this stuff crazy.

Work update

2007-12-10T09:01:00.000+07:00

Work is going okay. On the micro level it’s going quite well. I have the time and motivation to coach a couple of guys to do some project management. Also we finished a project quite successfully which I was quite pleased with. We also held a seminar and got some agreement from some government people for some actions relating to collecting statistics and some guy from one of the UN agencies in Bangkok came to speak and initiated some good discussion.

On the macro level, our management system is a bit weak at the moment. Some people have left the organisation that probably needs to be replaced. We have been successful in getting some new volunteers and a small bit of funding in the past few weeks. But we really need much more funding to go on. In Australia a non- profit organisation could probably apply for government grants or do fundraising from the public. This is not so in Laos. There are few Lao non- profit organisations and this is likely to be one of the reasons. The government and public do not have the resources to support non- profit organisations. Foreign aid is really the only source funding, which is a challenge. I’m guess it’s good challenge for me- it wouldn’t be so fun for me if we got more reliable funding like the international NGOs and UN agencies do.

Sometimes I think this aid work is an odd thing. I only ever thought of coming here as working for an organisation that happens to be in a least developed country, not that I would be doing aid work. People have asked me to stay, but I can’t really imagine doing development work as a career. I love doing it as a volunteer where I am paid not so much and have the luxury of working one- on- one with people helping develop their skills. I hope to do this again in my lifetime but with bigger and better skills. I couldn’t do development work an environment where most of the time the work needs to be done and it means that it would be quicker for me to do it than to develop the skills for someone else to do. I’ve heard that the Netherlands are quite set in the way they deliver aid. They say they are not allowed to implement anything- they are only allowed to give advice. I think this is an interesting thought.

I also couldn’t imagine being paid over 10 times a local person to be doing the same job, or negotiate the best salary possible in my own interests. They have a system here where if a local person and an expatriate were going for the same job the expatriate go the job they would be paid about 5 to 10 times more. I suppose the low wage encourages the employer to hire the local person. But I would be uncomfortable with that gap with others working in an office. Some argue that the expatriate might have financial commitments in their own country and in the future, but I’m not sure I feel comfortable with this argument.

Another funny thing about aid is the amount of work that is repeated. In the field I work in, there is far less cooperation than I would have expected. There are so many agencies working here. There are different versions of the same agency working here eg Lao Red Cross, Danish Red Cross, Australian Red Cross, Swiss Red Cross, Netherlands Red Cross and French Red Cross down the same alleyway in Vientiane. There is Save the Children Norway and Save the Children Australia. I’m pretty sure there are two Oxfams here also. Surely this can’t be the most efficient model? From how I see it is that because there is no money in this business, people are all trying to gain recognition, they want to believe they have made the most difference, trying to be heroes. I suppose the more recognition they get the more funding they could get. I suppose in developed countries these services would be provided or supported by the government where funding is more reliable and hence while there is overlap, there is probably not so much.

Bangkok 2- day 3- lead up to King’s birthday celebrations

2007-12-10T09:00:00.001+07:00

I had a bit of a look at Siam Square- an area with lots of shops just on street level and some arcades. The king’s 80^th birthday was just a couple of days away. Outside the mall you stop at a booth can write him a birthday message. Along the footpath overpass thousands of birthday messages are strung up. There was also small stage where there were a few people sitting in a row singing a song, all dressed in yellow because it’s Monday. I was guessing they were singing a song about the king. It appeared members of the public could just grab a microphone and get up on the stage to sing. A sign indicated they could get free make- up before getting on to the stage. I walked past the stage and 20 minutes later I walked by again and the same guy was still singing there.

Bangkok 2- day 2 more shopping

2007-12-10T08:59:00.000+07:00

I made my second ever trip to Chatuchak markets. I do love this place. I bought 3 dresses (<$10 each) and a pair of shorts (<$6). Again I only covered a tiny part of this huge market. This time I found the gemstones section where they have strands of many different semi- precious stones. I never did find the live animal section.

We then hit Chinatown. It was the busiest place I’ve been to for quite a while and had some noodles with duck for lunch. Then to Platinum another massive mall with tiny shops that sell clothes. The don’t have change rooms so sometimes you can’t try on the clothes, or otherwise use a large skirt to help you do so. I ended up with 3 large sized shorts. I probably could have bought much more stuff but luckily tiredness stopped me.

Bangkok 2- day 1 museum and shopping

2007-12-10T08:57:00.000+07:00

Last Friday morning I decided to leave later that night go to Bangkok for the long weekend. The long weekend was for Lao National Day, when the People’s Revolutionary Party came into power around 30 years ago. Communist hammer and sickle flags and Lao flags were flying all around town.

We caught the bus to Bangkok. We left Vientiane town at 5pm, waited around the Friendship Bridge for a few hours, had some food and didn’t leave Nongkhai until 9pm. We arrived at Khao San Road at 6am. The first thing we did was have congee by the roadside. I like Thai/ Lao style congee- it always has coriander. Then we went to the National Museum. There were lots of ornamental things- ivory carvings, things inlayed with mother- of- pearl, musical instruments, puppets.

Later in the afternoon we hit the shops starting with lunch at the MBK food court. Then through Siam Paragon which is an absolutely massive shopping mall with an aquarium and shops that have Ferraris and the like on display. Then to Siam Central, another huge shopping mall. Each mall has a shrine out front where people can make offerings- very convenient! There was a sale on so I wandered around the shops until 11pm, and then sat down at the department store food court to have a pizza. The massive malls are so mind numbing- it effectively cleared my head! We went for a walk outside and it was full of people eating on the street side out at midnight.

Free and cheap things to do around Sydney

2007-12-06T15:37:00.000+07:00

I was asked to suggest some free/ cheap stuff to do around Sydney for Lao students about to study there. Here's my response.

My top 5 favourite free things to do in Sydney

1. Walking across the harbour bridge

Start at the south end, at the Rocks or at the north end, near Milson’s Point station. It is free to go in to Luna Park and walk around which is at the north end of the bridge as something else to do.

2. Walking along the botanical gardens foreshore

The best views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, in my opinion.

3. Bondi to Coogee walk

Walk south from Bondi beach to Coogee beach, or even further to Maroubra beach if you would like an extra long walk. Great ocean views along the way, a bowling club, a cemetery and you can go snorkeling at Clovelly or Gordon’s Bay if you wish.

4. King Street Newtown

Walk the length of this street from the city end. Lots of uni students and young people live here so the people are more colourful than average. There is good cheap Thai food, nice cafes and pubs, window shopping also. My favourite ice- cream in Sydney is there too- Gelatomassimo.

5. The Blue Mountains

It does cost a bit of money to get there on the train, but once you’re there it’s free. If you have a weekly train/ transport ticket ask for an ‘extension’ on your ticket to get you there, that is, the distance beyond the coverage of your transport pass.

The outdoors

Maps of free walks around Sydney accessible by ferry

http://www.sydneyferries.info/harbour-attractions/harbour-walks.htm

Take some self- guided tour around Sydney

Australian Conservation Volunteers

http://www.conservationvolunteers.com.au/

This is a cheap way to see ‘the real’ Australia! You get taken to some beautiful spots a week at a time to do some conservation work. For a student is only $15 a day for travel, food and accommodation. You will meet people from overseas. They have some free volunteering opportunities also.

Paddington markets

www.paddingtonmarkets.com.au/

Young designers try to start their businesses here

National Parks and Wildlife Service

http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/ - click on the ‘NPWS guided walks’ icon down the bottom

Cheap, guided walks around Sydney by volunteers run by the government and are very helpful with getting you to the walk and back home. I recommend starting with the Sydney Harbour National Park walks. Lots of information about this website here including about the Blue Mountains.

National Parks Association

http://www.npansw.org.au/web/ - click on ‘latest bushwalk program’ icon down the bottom

Cheap, guided walks around Sydney by people that get together to enjoy the outdoors. I haven’t done a walk with this group but a friend went and said she met many sweet older people that were really excited that a younger person came to join them!

The indoors

The Art Gallery of NSW

www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/

It’s free. On Wednesday it closes late at 9pm and has free talks, concerts and films on.

Customs House Library, Circular Quay

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Library/Branches/CustomsHouseLibrary.asp

The interior decoration of this library is awesome. You can relax and read the newspapers and magazines and books for free. If you’re in the city for the day and want to sit down and relax, this is good place to do it.

Museum of Contemporary Art

http://www.mca.com.au/

There is always something unusual there and it’s free!

Sydney University

www.usyd.edu.au

The grounds are nice to walk around in. There are a few free museums inside including a history museum, art, and biological science.

Volunteer

Go volunteer

http://www.govolunteer.com.au/

Volunteering guarantees that you meet a range of Aussies and usually like-minded people also. I would recommend volunteering at a big event- they are lots of fun!

Getting around

Getting around Sydney

www.131500.com.au

This website will help you get anywhere in NSW by public transport

Trains

http://www.cityrail.nsw.gov.au/

The train website

More information

The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper

www.smh.com.au

Buy the Saturday edition of this newspaper. In the Spectrum section on Saturday this newspaper will have a column of free events that are on in Sydney during the week including festivals and events that are on.

City of Sydney Council

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/AboutSydney/VisitorGuidesInformation/Default.asp

Visitor information including more maps here.

Lao wedding

2007-12-04T16:24:00.000+07:00

A few weeks back I attended a friend's wedding. Lao weddings are generally a huge party and this one was no different. I missed the ceremony but attended the dinner reception at a large function centre 4kms from the city.

Outside the function centre I could see all the women wearing their best silk sinhs and a tailored silk top. We were greeted by the bride and groom at the entrance. The groom was wearing a suit and the bride wore Lao dress. Later the bride did get changed into a white western style wedding gown. We dropped the invitation envelope with money we had put in it as a gift, in a box upon arrival. I drank a tiny goblet of Johnny Walker red where several hundred people probably had drank out of already.

No kidding, there were between 500- 600 people there. I was told a wedding costs between $5000 and $6000 USD. Every table had a bottle of Johnny Walker red and bottles of mixers. We had buffet Chinese- style food which had the usual Lao salads and ragout and baguette.

Lao people, especially the women seem to like line dancing. There were over a hundred people on the dance floor doing the same line dance. It thought it was a really fun party- more casual than the average Western wedding.

Vang Vieng caving- Tham Hoi

2007-11-16T08:49:00.000+07:00

We wanted to see some caves in the morning before going home in the afternoon. It turned out to be another caving adventure. A guide beckoned us to follow him, and not really knowing what was going on, we did. We followed them through a maze around the squares of rice paddies. The scenery was really beautiful. We followed them into a cave and found ourselves going deeper and deeper into the cave. The cave was quite nice. I think it might be full of water in the wet season so it was quite muddy rather than being pure white. It didn’t help that our guide smoked in there.

Right inside the cave there was an underground lake. It was fun to go for a short swim, even though it was a bit cold. Our huge old technology lamps were actually waterproof- we could go swimming for them. There were parts of the cave that were really beautiful. One had thin layers of caramel coloured crystal lattice. Pity the guides thought it was okay to pick off a couple of stalactites to give to us! We think it was Tham Hoi cave but are not sure. It is one of the caves in the loop of caves 13kms out of town. We booked a tuk tuk from the guesthouse to get there.

Vang Vieng tubing

2007-11-16T08:37:00.000+07:00

We caught an early local bus to Vang Vieng. The bus was quite usual- smashed windscreen, small cracks in the floor so the dust gets through and a live chicken on board. The Lao people are so small there are three people per bench instead of the usual two and the conductor makes sure each bench has three people and that women get priority when sitting down. I sat between two friendly girls. In

Australia

this kind of lack of space might cause frustration but in

Laos

it causes friends.

The most popular activity in Vang Vieng is the river tubing, so that what we spent the afternoon doing. Tubing along the river is beautiful. Along the way there are bars constructed from bamboo that usually have a rope swing that you can use if you buy a drink. There were lots of travellers and lots of loud western music! To get you into the bar someone throws a bamboo pole attached to a rope at you and you grab it and they pull you in. I think someone drowns every so often which is alcohol related. The rope swings are some of the best I’ve ever seen. They usually involve climbing up a bamboo platform and swinging off something that either resembles a trapeze or a flying fox. I didn’t go on any rope swings but did stop for a game of badminton.

We stayed at Viengsavanh guesthouse, and at $4 a night it is the cheapest accommodation I’ve stayed in my whole life. It was simple but good.

Lunch cruise

2007-11-07T08:37:00.002+07:00

A bunch of us caught bus number 23 thirty kilometres out of town. There are a few restaurants with a few boats each where you can have lunch. We ate some food while we were waiting for a boat. The boat we did get fit a small table and wouldn’t fit more than about 15 people there. It was like a big raft powered with a small propeller. The roof was made of straw. It was very pleasant. They take you upstream and let the boat float downstream again. They made a really hot papaya salad and an equally hot red curry!

Shit pig

2007-11-07T08:37:00.001+07:00

There was an expat that was going outside to use the toilet somewhere in Southern Laos. The locals insisted that he take a stick. This was because pigs will try to eat your waste as you’re doing it and you need to fight them off. My Korean friend said that there’s a special place in Korea where the same thing happens. You need to go to the toilet with a stick. At the same place he got to enjoy ‘shit pig’- apparently it’s a delicacy in that town in Korea.

Boat racing and end of Buddhist Lent

2007-11-07T08:35:00.000+07:00

The end of Buddhist lent and the big boat racing festival is during the same week in Vientiane. The end of Buddhist lent also marks the beginning of the wedding season.

The boat weekend is a big party in Vientiane. The main streets are lined with food stalls, random stalls selling things like soap, fly spray or clothes, and fun gambling games. There are mountains of grilled chicken, coconut sticky rice in tubes of bamboo, steamed buns and popcorn. They had some of the best jumping castles I’d ever seen! The most popular gambling game seemed to be a game where you throw a dart into a grid of balloons and if you hit the marked balloon, you win a prize. The music was really loud and I had never seen so many people in Vientiane.

I watched some boat racing from the starting line. Two boats race at one time. Each boat has 40- 50 people in them. They are what we would call ‘dragon’ boats in Australia, but are about twice the size of the ones I’ve seen in Australia. I noticed that one of the people in group of starting line officials had two very large guns- AK47s. I wondered why he needed such huge guns- what security issue could he possibly have? I see many guns like that but it’s usually someone in a khaki uniform that carries them, usually police, military or security guards. This guy was in plain clothes. I was very surprised when I realised he used these guns as the starting guns and alternated them between each race.

There were lots of fireworks available for sale for 10-50c. It was scary to see so many people letting them off. You light the tube of fireworks and they fire one at a time. An adult was seen chasing a child with fireworks. My friend said her neighbours gave their 6 year old child some fireworks. When the first one fired out she got scared and started spraying them everywhere. My friend ran for cover.

Lao Lao

2007-10-29T16:35:00.000+07:00

Lao Lao is the Lao name for Lao whiskey made from rice. I am in Vientiane province for a seminar I helped organise. We joined one of the participants in visiting his friends nearby for some lao lao. Not surprisingly, it tasted awful. The first one was infused in wood and was probably the nastiest alcohol I’ve ever tasted. I was hoping that it tasted much more alcoholic than it actually was, like some cheap sake’s I’ve tasted before. The second variety had some bits floating in it. Upon closer inspection of the bottle I noticed that it was full of insects. I’m almost certain that they were cicadas. A few days ago my friend told me he recently had deep fried cicadas for breakfast so that gave me some peace of mind. I’m sure the wood and cicadas in the lao lao had medicinal properties, so what’s a bit of short- term loss for long- term gain?

My friend had bought a bottle of Lao whiskey infused with wood for 60c. The funniest thing about it was that it was in a Johnny Walker Red bottle and they had kept the original box. The other funny thing was that there was a lipstick mark on the bottle when my friend bought it. Some people had a few sips of this lao lao but luckily he managed to offload it to the driver that took us home from our kayak trip.

My counterpart says it’s common for people to have a sip of lao lao infused with medicine everyday. His mother has some everyday. He says there’s an animal that can be infused in lao lao that will cure his asthma. Unfortunately this animal is rare and you might only see it once in three years.

Vang Vieng kayak

2007-10-29T16:33:00.000+07:00

17 of us went on a kayaking trip between Vang Vieng and Vientiane with the Green Discovery tour group. I though it would be a peaceful paddle along the river and didn’t really think we’d needed all the safety techniques explained to us. Of the 9 plastic kayaks and 3 inflatable kayaks that went on this trip, only two didn’t capsize in the rapids by lunchtime. I was in one of these two boats. There were 4 serious rapids and some people capsized because they ended up crashing into others. One guy was momentarily stuck in a whirlpool which can be really dangerous. He said it sucks you in and then pushes you up. This happened to him about three times before he managed to get out.

My kayak did capsize before the day was done. I did accidentally capsize my kayak with my boyfriend in it because I’d jumped out for a swim and flipped it over as I tried to climb back in. After I capsized someone else’s kayak the guides flipped mine over as revenge. The scenery was awesome and the kayaking was exciting- a great day!

Vang Vieng bike ride and caving

2007-10-29T16:31:00.000+07:00

A group of us hired a bus and got to Vang Vieng from Vientiane in about 4 hours. When we made a stop I saw some grilled rats on a skewer for the first time. I wonder how safe they are to eat. We stayed in some bungalows by the river. After dinner we went to have a drink. Unfortunately the bar had to close because it was near midnight when the cops do their rounds. The way they sell drugs is really blatant. The bar has a menu where you can buy drugs from. Some things you can buy include opium tea or coffee, a marijuana shake or pizza or mushroom tea. Alternatively you can buy drugs by the bags. A joint costs around $2 US and a marijuana pizza around $8 US. From memory an opium tea costs around $3 but rumour has it that it is actually codeine. There have recently been lots of schemes to get rid of opium poppy farming, including in the golden triangle region of growing in Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. People are trying to get the farmers another way of making a living.

We hired some mountain bikes and set off on a 7km journey to Poukham Cave. Vang Vieng is an absolutely beautiful place. It is surrounded by mountains of limestone. On the bike ride we saw lots of rice paddies. We saw young children that looked younger than 10 with fishing rods and slightly older children with a round mask and a spear gun for spear fishing. We saw families bathing in the river and washing their clothes.

Outside the cave we stopped to swim at a ‘blue lagoon’ which was actually a small stream with blue water which was unexpectedly cold- around 20 degrees. I could see beautiful fish in the water with colour so bright I thought it looked more like a tropical marine fish. We first intended to look at the cave but somewhere along the way we decided to go caving. It was quite a steep climb up- we were really climbing. There was a Buddha at the cave entrance but the cave was black from people touching it and smoking. We went further into the cave until we were in pitch blackness. It was amazing inside- large caverns of untouched limestone that sparkled. Some was toffee coloured and looked like toffee that had flowed downwards from the ceiling.

We met four monks that were acting as tour guides for a Japanese girl. I was talking to one of them and apparently he had been studying in Vientiane and started working for the Ministry for Education. The Ministry decided to send him to a monk school in Vang Vieng and that’s how he ended up there. In hindsight, I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to monks because I’m a girl, but they did talk to me first and were taking a girl for a tour. It was funny when the monks hid and then jumped out to scare the Japanese girl!

I used to think of monks committing long periods of time to studying as a monk but these days, especially in Vientiane, I think it’s more temporary. I’ve known people to do it for a day, others a week or two. Friends have seen them out buying mobile phones or at the internet café playing video games.

7 months

2007-10-19T15:31:00.000+07:00

I’m still really enjoying living in Vientiane and can’t believe I’m well over the half- way point of being here. There’s still a lot I’d like to see in the Vientiane. The weather is really pleasant now. It has dropped to 25 degrees at night and days are probably 31- 33 degrees. I’m lucky to have so much free time because I live so close to work, my maid does my laundry and I eat out. This probably won’t happen again! During the week I do aerobics about once a week, have a language lesson and have started to go to netball training once a week too. My Lao still isn’t very good, but I can understand conversations a little better now. My speaking is still quite bad- but that’s ok!

My work is going well- I can see the end of the project I’m helping manage. I’m amazed with what can be done with $50 000 AUD in Laos- have five 3-day seminars including food and accommodation, employ 2 people for 6 months, make 1000 t-shirts, a short film and lots of brochures and posters.

This weekend I’m going to Vang Vieng which I’m looking forward to. It is meant to be a beautiful town surrounded by limestone landscape on a river. The downside, I’ve heard, is that restaurants play Friends and the Simpsons all day and the backpackers aren’t particularly well behaved. This is not helped by the availability of ‘happy’ pizzas and shakes containing marijuana and/ opium.

I’m going to Singapore and Malaysia at the end of the year which should be fun. I’ll go home in March for a week and head straight back to Asia to travel. I have to go home otherwise I’ll lose some privileges from the volunteer program.

Adina Spa

2007-10-14T12:04:00.000+07:00

I had heard this was the most luxurious beauty/ relaxation place in town and went after being given a voucher from there. It did live up to its reputation. It is in a lovely house with a courtyard in the middle. It has been professionally decorated, with silks everywhere and the staff very well dressed.

I had a traditional Lao massage. Instead of the usual soap, they wash your feet with a couple of slices of kaffir lime. They give you somewhere to hang your clothes and you have a private room whatever service you order. The massage itself was very good. It cost 53, 000 kip (5.30 USD), including the 25% off special that is on at the moment. This is twice the price of the massage I usually get.

I saw a middle aged Aussie guy order a massage of 4 hours! I can see why. It felt like a 5 star hotel, not a least developed country. I think I'm happy with my usual massage for half the price, but I might come back again when someone comes to stay from abroad.

Some treatments are very expensive- one 75 minute of the facial costs 2000 Baht which is over $60 AUD. I can't think of any service that priced within that range in Vientiane. Other services include body scrubs and wraps, waxing, sauna and spa.

Location- Kaysone Phomivane Road, the middle road that extends from Patuxay. It is probably about a kilometre from Patuxay, and if drive from Patuxay it is on the left.

Kaysone Phomvihane Memorial Museum

2007-10-14T11:56:00.000+07:00

I visited this museum about Kaysone Phomvihane, Communist revolutionary leader and former President of Laos. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have visited in Laos so far. Strikingly it contained very little information about Lao history and I couldn't really establish what this guy did What it did contain:

Many photos of Kaysone posing with groups of people
Many photos of Vietnam- I'm unsure why
Some personal possessions of Comrade Kaysone Phomvihane including glasses, a clock
Random displays about products Laos makes including beer Lao and Pepsi soft drink, pharmaceuticals from Pharmacy factory 2, samples of Lao washing powder
A large statue of Kaysone Phomvihane outside the museum

More information here: http://www.culturalprofiles.net/laos/Units/163.html

Entry- 5000 kip
Location- Kaysone Phomvihane Road Km 6. It is the middle road that extends from Patuxay

A week at work

2007-10-14T11:44:00.000+07:00

I attended a seminar that I helped organise a couple of hours from Vientiane in Thalat. This time we stayed at a government- run resort. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, just a few cockroaches and no TV. Some of my Lao collegues did notice the differences between the privately run business and this government one and could see why which was good to see.

The group attending the seminar was great. They all knew one another which helped. They sang folk songs on the bus- one about the beautiful 4000 islands in the south. The leader sang through the microphone meant for the tour guide on the bus. They tried to encourage me to sing, but I refused. During the seminar they sang a song about getting together and fighting the war against America.

Talking to my collegues, Marx and Lenin's works are still taught. There is one subject per semester on their ideas at university. They are required to recite lengthy passages of their texts word- for- word.

60km bike ride and dragon boat festival

2007-10-05T08:25:00.000+07:00

My housemates had been for some long bike rides recently and were going to cycle to a dragon boat festival some 30kms away. I decided to join them. It was one day after I returned from India and it made me appreciate Laos again. The path along the Mekong river was beautiful. There were nice houses, and fisheries in the river. All the children all yelled out ‘hello’ because we look like foreigners- my housemates in particular. There were rice paddies and gorgeous shiny new temples along the way.

We reached the dragon boat festival over an hour later. It was a huge party- not what I expected at all! There was a stage with huge speakers with a band and people out on the dance floor. Many people were already drunk at 2pm. We were invited to sit down with some Lao people, but I refused drinks. There was Lao party food out- popcorn, sticky rice with banana, ice blocks and roast meat. There was a bit of dragon boating going on. It looks really impressive as there are around 50 people in each boat. The boat goes really fast.

The ride home was also good, but I got quite tired and hungry for about the last 5kms. We saw a person draining the blood out of freshly killed duck’s neck while two of his mates looked on. People like eating raw duck’s blood in larp. Not such a good idea in these times of bird flu! Some people on motorbikes road beside my housemates for several kilometres just to talk to them and invited us to a dinner- the people here are so friendly.

Vientiane province

2007-10-05T08:23:00.000+07:00

I am back in Vientiane province for another seminar my organisation is running on educating government officials about human rights. I helped organise it, so I thought I’d come to implement it and do some work with the project team so they’re not too bored while they’re here. Before I came to the first of these sessions, I was concerned it would be a bit challenging to be with 20 government officials and 6 people from work for 3 whole days due to the language barrier. Also, I thought the government officials would be mostly older men. I forgot the age profile is different here Laos so some people were actually young so it’s good to see some young people learning about human rights.

We had dinner with some people with disabilities who are members of our organisation. They served us barbequed fish freshly caught from the river, a chicken soup with a pretty good chilli, ginger, and coriander sauce. They have a mushroom farm and one of them makes furniture for work. Before he had his furniture business, he had to catch fish until midnight to make a living. An NGO donated some rice to our organisation which we distributed to our members. It was funny that this food aid ended up in my stomach! I could tell the quality was low, but it wasn’t bad- just a bit more crumbly and less fragrant than usual.

More of Pune

2007-09-24T08:35:00.000+07:00

What I did for the rest of my time in Pune…

Watching dance

The local dance group came to do some classical and folk dance for the group at Sangam. The teacher was an excellent dancer. She wore over a kilo of bells on each foot. Some of her dances involved slapping her foot on the floor so it made a loud noise- she said it took her 10 years to be able to make the noise!

Bollywood film and learning to Bollywood dance

We saw a Bollywood film, Bollywood being Hindi language films made in Mumbai. It was called Chake De India about an Indian women’s jockey team. We learnt a bit of Bollywood dance afterwards. It was a lot of fun. I thought it was much like aerobics- good that if you don’t keep up you can just attempt the next bit.

Laughter club

I’d heard of this laughter club being popular around the world. It started in India and an elderly couple ran the session. People get together and do laughing and breathing exercises together to help with stress relief and as a way of making friends. This session was really good. You just do silly exercises then pretend to laugh until it turns into real laughter. Eg pretending to blowing up a balloon and when it bursts you laugh, pointing at everyone and laughing, chanting hi hi ha ha ha ha, laughing when you get on the phone… really fun!

Maharastrian feast

We had a special closing dinner which we all dressed up for. I got my sari back and one of the staff members put it on for me which was good because it’s not very easy to do on a first attempt. It was about two bed lengths long. We learnt how to do rangoli, which is a type of art which involves making patterns on the ground with coloured sand for good luck. We made a rangoli artwork for our setting at the feast. Maharastra is the state that Pune and Mumbai are in, and we had food from that region. We ate with our hands from plate made of leaves.

Ghandi National Memorial
Ghandi was imprisoned in Pune in a prison. They then shifted him off to an old palace where his wife and secretary died. I visited this palace where his ashes are now stored. They had a bit of interesting information about the life of the man but the displays wasn't in very good condition! The palace is quite beautiful though. It's all white and has a big, well- maintained garden.

Feasts and festivals part 1

2007-09-14T21:24:00.000+07:00

Shopping
I have been shopping in Pune and have bought some blue and amber sari material, some bangles, bindis and some material to make a Pubjab suit. I'm having the Punjab suit made. It comprises baggy pants, a long tunic and a scarf. My sari with blouse is also being made. We'll dress up with all our new clothes and accessories during the closing dinner which will be a Maharastrian feast. Mahrastra is the state I'm in. Idols of Ganesh, some elephant looking god are out for sale as the festival is on soon.

International night
We had an international night where people talked about the places they came from. The Bedfordshire bunch did a real deadpan version of Cinderella. I can't be sure I got the humour! The Devon bunch dressed up as country bumpkins and sang a funny song. They have been telling me all about Devonshire cream teas which come from their town, and about clotted cream. I did some fun Irish dancing and taught the others to do Lao dance.

Doorstep school
I visited a school which is part of an organisation that aims to educate children that would otherwise not be educated. They work alot with the children of contruction workers. Construction workers move around every 3-4 months so their children often don't get the chance to go to school. The might move to an area where they don't speak the language making it even harder for the children to go to school. They work with Mobile Creches also which look after the tiny kids so the bigger kids can go to school.

Dinner with a family
I went to house of family of a local 6-year-old cub Scout for dinner with a couple of others from England. Everone attending the event visited the families of Scouts in area with special housing for employees of the pharmaceutical company. The family took us to a temple which was a replica of one that is in Kashmir. They recreated a 10-metre long cave which had 20cm of water of water in it. Once we waded through the water there was a beautiful shrine at the end. They were so kind to cook us a lovely dinner and show us pictures of special ceremony the boy had.

Manaski Centres ( I think I spelt it wrong)
In India they have a caste system from the Hindu religion. It is technically illegal, but is still practiced and is a human rights issues. The Untouchables, or Dalits are out of this caste system and are only entitled to the really bad jobs in society. We saw a video about the discrimination the Dalits face. Some aren't allowed to use wells and rely on others to fetch their water. Others have to take off their shoes in areas of other villages. Some Dalit children had to clean the toilets and make tea when other children didn't have to. Generally the face discrimination and occasionally violence. There are 250 million Dalits.

This organisation gives Dalits the option of converting to Buddhism to help them overcome the psychological barrier that is one of the factors stopping them from achieving what they can. They have a variety of programs to help the Dalits out.

Arriving in Pune

2007-09-10T13:52:00.000+07:00

I caught a 12 hour train from Goa to Pune. Pune is a few hours drive from Mumbai. The train ride wasn't too bad. There are three tiers of beds so unfortunately you can't really sit up and I was on top so I couldn't look out of the window. I could smell toilet odour for some of journey but couldn't tell whether it was coming from inside or outside the train. When the train stops some people come a board to sell fried foods. Otherwise the train staff come around to sell tea and snacks. I ate some chapatis and chicken drumstick on the train and it was actually quite nice and am happy to have lived to tell the tale.

In Pune I am staying a centre run by Girl Guides/ Girl Scouts to run events for participants around the world. I thought I'd be one of the oldest in this event but I'm one of the younger ones. Most are over 40 and most are from Devon and Bedfordshire in the UK. There are a few people from Canada. The event started this morning is called 'Feasts and festivals' which should be good.

Goa

2007-09-10T13:31:00.000+07:00

I spent a fun few days in Goa which was an hour plane ride on the coast south of Mumbai. It is not the most beautiful place I have seen, but I had fun hanging out with a psychiatrist from Dubbo and a couple from Parma in Italy who were happy to answer all my questions about ham and cheese.

Goa was once a Portugese colony so it looks rather European and has many churches. I stayed in the capital, Panaji. I mostly just wandered around the town and enjoyed the food they had to offer. I had some delicious Goan style fish with chilli and tomato, lots of Indian style pancakes and breads and plenty of masala tea they call chai. The tea is virtually all made up of milk which is just excellent.

I found a small pub listed in my trusty Lonely Planet. The owner stated in the book died from alcohol problems. It was the most disorganised thing I'd ever seen. No menu. I saw them run out to get food, which I guess isn't too uncommon. The most unusual thing there was the distinct lack of toilet. To go, they close the kitchen door so they can't see you and you use the gutter! Right next to where they leave the dirty dishes.

I visited my first market in a town in India in a town called Mapusa. It was not so different from the markets in Laos. Most of the produce is on the floor and there are many tailors. I also visited the beach because that's something that has got to be done in Goa. It was ok, it wasn't that clean.

Australian volunteer health check

2007-09-05T14:09:00.000+07:00

Five people have visited the hospital in Thailand of the 17 volunteers I came to Laos with.

One had a broken arm x-rayed and plastered after a motorbike collision with an intoxicated cop
One person was under observation in case their infected throat got worse
One case of appendicitis
One ankle was x-rayed and plastered as the ligaments in a dodgy snapped whilst walking
One fell through some rocks in Thailand and needed wounds dressed

From other Australian volunteers while I've been here:

I've heard of one case of dengue
I've heard of one case of leptospirosis which is a parasitic disease

Aside from that- I think most people have got food poisoning. Some not more frequent than the locals including me. A fair few people have had general colds including me.

Mumbai

2007-09-05T13:37:00.000+07:00

I'm in India! I had always wanted to come here and when I realised it was much cheaper going from Laos than from Australia I decided to go.

I stayed with my friends' relatives in Mumbai for a couple of days. They looked after me really well, cooking me some delicious Indian foods. They seem to schedule their meals so they're served on the dot! Their family have nap time too which I appreciate. I'm glad they could give me some information about India otherwise I would have tried to bargain for taxis and auto- rickshaws before I get in. Auto- rickshaws are exactly like the tuk-tuks in Thailand and Laos but in much better condition.

Mumbai isn't actually as crowded as I expected. Maybe I'm didn't visit the most crowded areas. The city is absolutely huge so maybe it's not as dense as some of the busy areas in cities with smaller areas. I think it's fine to travel as a woman alone. Many people eat alone in restaurants so it's not so weird being alone. The people are generally friendly and helpful. Most people I've met speak perfect English. It's easy to get around- taxis are cheap and you can pre pay for them. You pay your hotel and give a slip to the driver once you've arrived at your destination so the driver can collect their fare from the hotel. The traffic is not really scary at all, I never felt like I was going to die in a taxi.

I haven't found it as overwhelming as I expected- it was probably easier coming from Laos than from Australia. I think I've just been in the tourist areas so I haven't come across much poverty. Though I've seen some of the housing where I'm sure the living conditions are crowded and uncomfortable and it smells from the outside. They look like some of the housing in Laos, but much more dense.

The weather here is nearly exactly the same as it is in Vientiane at the moment. The temperature is about the same, as is the frequency of rain. Mumbai is virtually the same latitude as Vientiane. I'm glad I havesome inner bo bpen nyang (no worries) from Lao to help me get around India okay. I get approached by many salespeople on the streets but they really bother me- I'm actually happy to see enterprising behaviour! I already learnt in Laos to do without toilet paper so I have that challenge covered too!

I have just been wandering around town. I visited some very old caves with stone carvings on Elephanta Island. The food here is as good as I imagine. I've been here 3 days and haven't been sick yet. Though Lao food is virtually fat free so even if there's a bit of butter or other fat in food I feel really full quickly.

I'm off to Goa!

Art exhibition opening

2007-08-21T08:20:00.000+07:00

A friend at work was opening an art exhibition at Monument Books for a couple of Vietnamese artists. They were identical twins that dressed similarly- both with long hair tied back, both with piercings and tattoos. They hold exhibitions together, have a joint resume and collaborate on some art works. I’ve never met twins do such similar work. They told me it’s good like that because one can look after the work and the other can look after the ladies, haha. I did enjoy looking at their works. http://www.thanhhaiarts.com/

My work friend is met one of the twins while curating a contemporary art exhibition to tour Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. The problem is that she hasn’t come across any contemporary artists in Laos. So this exhibition should be something new for Laos.

Ban Pako

2007-08-21T08:19:00.002+07:00

A few friends decided they wanted to go away for their birthdays, so we went to Ban Pako. It is an eco-lodge 50km from Vientiane where people go to relax by the river. We left on Friday night and got most of the way there until our drivers refused to go further. We stopped at a village and negotiated a boat trip for the rest of the way there. A boat in the dark, rain did not sound like a good idea. But luckily the rain stopped and the boats didn’t go to fast. One boat was a catamaran which was made of 2 long wooden boats with wooden slats on top of them.

During the bus ride I saw a couple of monkeys in the back of a truck. One was balancing on the edge of the tray, but the other was safe inside the tray. We also saw some young frog hunters! After the rain people get out their torches and collect frogs to be sold for food at the markets.

We had arranged a buffet dinner at Ban Pako which was really good. There was no electricity that night, because there was not enough sun on the solar panels that day. So the 15 of us had a candlelit dinner. The rest of the weekend I mainly lounged around on the bamboo hammocks reading books. I went to the herbal sauna. Whilst in the sauna, a friend had a small scorpion scramble across his foot. There is a spring to sit in after the sauna which is gorgeous.

Unfortunately, Ban Pako had sold out of medicinal Lao whiskey for sale. Luckily the guy managing the sauna pulled out a sapling for a friend of mine, roots and all. The staff at Ban Pako kindly helped my friend cut up the whole sapling and infuse it in his $5 bottle of vodka. I wasn’t game to try it.

English class

2007-08-21T08:19:00.001+07:00

I went with someone at work to check out his English class where he teaches to a group of about 20 children. The weekend class was at a school. The set up was quite basic, the walls were a bit dirty brown, and there was no fan or air conditioning. I think the Japanese government helped fund it. They didn’t have chairs the right height for the tables so the children sat on 2 wooden benches stacked on top of each other- safety first! So it was at least 32 degrees the day which was actually not too bad, helped by some small kid buying me some water. The students were between 5 and 11 years old, and one of the teachers from the school was there. The guy at work who was the teacher did not really structure the lesson or do any preparations, but I guess just showing up is better than nothing. Most of the children live in the army barracks nearby. Some people join the army so their family can move to Vientiane where there are more opportunities, according to my friend.

Eating stink bugs

2007-08-21T08:17:00.000+07:00

My housemate bought a bag of live stinkbugs to be cooked and mashed with herbs into a dip but unfortunately I wasn’t there to try it. I was only there to see her put them in the freezer to die.

A week later we saw some deep fried stink bugs at the markets and bought a bag for a dinner we were having for some new volunteers. They have more flavour than grasshoppers. They have a distinct flavour like the smell of a scented leaf.

Tips for buying cooked insects

Try before you buy!
If it smells the tiniest bit strange, don’t buy it. It shouldn’t really smell like anything, just the oil it has been fried in or water boiled in.

At the markets I saw fried locusts also. I think I draw the line there. I saw shopkeepers pull the abdomens off the live insects. I saw some bee or wasp or similar insect’s nests for sale. Apparently the larvae inside can be eaten. I wonder how they are extracted.

When I was trying some grasshoppers, my friend said that the ones with eggs inside taste better. I agree, but now that I think about it, it doesn’t seem very pleasant!

Field trip to Loei

2007-08-21T08:14:00.000+07:00

I went on a 3-day field trip with a few people from work to visit some community radio stations. My organisation makes a radio program, so that’s why we were interested in radio. We went to radio stations around Loei, which is in North Eastern Thailand which took about 3.5 hours to get to. My first impression was that it is very similar to Laos. The lunch is exactly what you would have for lunch in Lao- tom yum soup, grilled fish, papaya salad and sticky rice. I actually had papaya salad for breakfast too! The language is virtually the same. The buildings are similar to Laos- I’ve heard NE Thailand is generally poorer than the rest of Thailand. A friend said his organisation did a survey of young people of what their aspirations were. Wanting to marry a foreigner was the most common response.

I didn’t really know why I was on the field trip, but I thought it was interesting enough. It was frustrating not knowing the language though. One of the radio stations let me go on radio and say hi. How brave of them! In Lao you’re not allowed to broadcast directly to air unless you’re considered a professional. The half-hour radio program the people at work produce need to be reviewed by the government before it is broadcast. This was the same radio station that offered me locally brewed alcohol. Brown liquors are the worst and this was probably one of the worst alcohols I’ve ever tasted.

On the way home we stopped at Tesco supermarket and some other stores because things are cheaper in Thailand and my colleagues would not otherwise have the chance to go to Thailand. Some bought like radio and a mobile phone, but another bought different things like a packet of vacuum packed Asian meatballs. As with all field trips to distant provinces and other countries, kilos of fruit were purchased and someone bought a huge bag of smelly cockles too.

Party at my place

2007-08-21T08:13:00.000+07:00

My housemates decided it was time our household had a party. We bought lots of Lao/ Vietnamese food and had around 40- 50 people over. Some guy brought over some grilled, sliced tongue with lime leaves. One Australian volunteer exclaimed that it was the best meat she had ever tasted, until she found out it was tongue. I thought it was a bit too chewy. It was served with a bitter runny sauce made from something inside a cow’s intestine. Exactly what, I don’t know.

One guy brought a large ceramic jar of rice wine all the way from Luang Namtha province in the far north. It sat on his lap on the plane trip home. The jar is full of rice and husks which float to the top. We had to join two straws together so that the straw reached the bottom and didn’t get clogged by the solids. It was watered down before drinking, which I think is meant to be done. It actually didn’t taste too bad- maybe sake is thing that is closest in flavour I have tasted. The Lao girls topped the jar up with Beer Lao as they were drinking it.

Despite a couple of short blackouts and stormy weather, I think people enjoyed the party.

Food fair

2007-08-21T08:12:00.000+07:00

There was a world largest baci, the good luck ceremony people do in Laos. They had a massive phak khuan as part of the baci. This is a cone- shaped flower arrangement which looked like a giant Christmas tree.

They had a food fair after the ceremony. Much like the food fairs they have in Australia, many restaurants set up a stall. It was a really good food fair- the food was free and some were of excellent quality. They didn’t just cook ordinary food, one restaurant brought a huge tank with live prawns in it. They were barbequing them. Another stall was pouring scotch and sodas and another served cocktails only.

The funniest thing was that there was a massive terracotta jar of rice spirit with two straws for people to try. The jar would have been at least half a metre tall. In perfect English, the sign read something along the lines of ‘please try this alcohol from Huaphan province, it is free’. Scarily enough, I did see a few people testing the alcohol.

Food aid

2007-08-14T13:18:00.001+07:00

An NGO recently donated some rice to our organisation to give our members. It is a little less than ideal, but our members appreciate it anyway. The quality? Not very good- breaks apart when you cook it. It is ordinary white rice rather than the sticky rice Lao people eat. It had been stored for two years. It is from Hong Kong, but I don't know where it was grown. I just wonder how the rice came about. Some country subsidising their rice production leading to over supply? Just a good season? Farmers did not do well to predict demand? Who decided to give it away?

A quote

2007-08-14T13:12:00.000+07:00

"It is a stifling, stultifying world in which to live.
It is a world in which every word and every thought is censored....
Free speech is unthinkable. All other kinds of freedom are permitted.
You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator;
but you are not free to think for yourself.
Your opinion on every subject of any conceivable importance
is dictated for you by the pukka sahibs’ code."

This is from George Orwell's novel Burmese Days which I have started reading. It is about the British imperialist days in Burma based on his experiences as a policeman there. It could nearly describe here. Free complete works of Orwell available here http://www.george-orwell.org/

Lao disabled women’s development centre

2007-08-01T13:07:00.001+07:00

I visited this centre to buy some small gifts for some visits to

Thailand

. Here the people make handicrafts and clothes. I found this centre somewhat confronting. Not because the workers had disabilities. Mostly because I never been to the source in the developing countries where my clothes are made and looked like quite tedious work.

In one room the women were sitting on the floor around a low bench finishing off some shirts. Others were making cards, not using any of that expensive scrap booking equipment you get at home, but just using your basic scissors. Some others were weaving scarves. It looked so painstaking. A scarf which is probably 3 days worth of work sells for $10. I saw people doing cross stitch. Sometimes I do it at home and it is really is slow. I somehow thought that the pros would do it quicker, but no, they do it as slow as me.

There was a group learning English. The teacher was Lao and while his English was not perfect, he was really putting in an effort to teach the people there.

I recommend visiting- if you drive away from Vientiane along Tha Dea towards the Friendship Bridge, drive about 100m past the turnoff to the Friendship Bridge. The Centre is located in a house on the right. It is open Monday to Saturdays 9am- 4pm. I have heard that if you want to visit outside these hours, you can, because the women live on campus so just give them a call before you get there. Online here http://www.laodwdc.blogspot.com/

I do wonder- production of what type of goods and services is best for this 'least developed' country? Developing their handicraft industries? Some are ok, but ‘Who buys this stuff- useless!’ comes to mind especially for some of the coconut and candle crafts NGOs have funded that I have seen. Developing their textiles industries like Laos’ neighbours? I can think people would object to Laos turning into a bunch of sweat shops but I can see some benefits. It is probably better than some of the options available. Mining? There is a big mine called Sepon mine run by Australian company Oxiana. Mining is generally perceived as bad, it damages the environment etc, but Oxiana manages to provide good training for staff such as English. They also bring in a huge amount of Laos’ GDP, some crazy 10- 20% (I will have to confirm these figures). This could probably go a long way if spent wisely. What is best?

Lao language

2007-07-26T12:23:00.000+07:00

Someone in my office had 99 white roses delivered to her today. Her English is good by the florist's isn't so good- the card read 'please merry me'. It's amazing you can get roses in Laos, I have not seen them. Maybe they are from Thailand.

The people at work were discussing words for friends. One of the words is 'very socialist' someone was saying. I'm guessing this word mai translates to comrade.

There is a Lao word for a friend of the opposite sex which isn't your boyfriend/girlfriend- kikh. This can mean- just a friend or a mistress. There are some other useful Lao has that English doesn't have.

fen- the word for boyfriend/ girlfriend which is good because it's not gender specific
lao- a word for he or she which is also good because it's not gender specific
puak jao- a plural of 'you'. I think yous or youse is a word but unfortunately most people don't. I use it anyway.
hottie- someone on the side! Not the same meaning as in 'strain- I did try to explain

Lao National Museum

2007-07-23T13:33:00.000+07:00

I thought this museum was quite good. The prehistory section contains artifacts such as pots, drums and tools. They also talk about what happened between the 14^th and 18^th centuries. Laos was known as Lan Xang, meaning a million elephants. It was much bigger than the present day Laos covering much of today’s northern and north-eastern Thailand region.

The modern history section talks mostly of the Laos battling against the ‘US imperialists’ back in the 1970s. There are heaps of guns are on display in this section- ‘This machine gun shot down this helicopter…’, ‘these are the guns the Americans used…’

The most odd thing about the museum was the display from the Lao Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They had a bunch of drugs they claimed they had confiscated. There were some crumbled tablets they said they said was amphetamines. There was a bag of leafy green material they labeled as marijuana. They had a couple of wrapped up bricks they said was heroin and opium. Surely it wouldn’t be real- but in this country I cannot be sure. Another funny thing was a cabinet of gold and silver buddhas with a sign that read ‘From the 14^th to 18^th century found in 1998 at the University of Laos’

I learnt that today in Laos, there is not much left of the past. Say in Vientiane, all the temples were destroyed by the Siamese a few centuries ago and there is only one old one left that the Siamese used as their headquarters.

Definitely not as polished as other museums I have been to, but they do have some interesting facts and photographs. Some displays look like something that I did in year 4, but that’s ok. It is also interesting to see the way they present their history- not as much propaganda as I thought it would be.

This is located on Samsenthai Rd opposite the Cultural Hall and entry is 10,000 kip. It will take about an hour to see everything.

Visitors

2007-07-23T13:32:00.000+07:00

A’s parents came to visit during the weekend. We hired a minivan and driver to take me to Udon Thani to pick them up. On Saturday we just had lunch, watched Australia play Japan in the soccer at a pub, and had dinner at Kua Lao restaurant. This is a Lao restaurant with an evening cultural show. It is the best Lao restaurant I have been to so far. The food is superb and the restaurant itself is in a lovely old French- style house.

On Sunday we went to the Morning Markets and did some shopping. I love those markets, so I had a lot of fun. We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. It was good because A’s dad was able to explain the Beijing food. When I saw it I thought hey, what is this shredded, fried potato doing on the menu but A’s dad said that they have it in Beijing.

A’s family came to visit our house in the afternoon. They are the first people from home to see our house! We had dinner at Xayoh restaurant. They do a Sunday roast there which some of A’s family ordered and seemed to enjoy.

Learning English and security

2007-07-19T12:42:00.000+07:00

We received my guard's report card from the English school. The poor thing, he got Ds and Es for everything except attendance and homework. It looked pretty similar to my Chinese school report card. He seemed keen to start another term- hopefully he really does want to do it and doesn't just feel he has to.

Since the Hmong people in the US threatened to overthrow the government, the government they have made a step towards improving security. They are re registering all the foreigners in Laos which involves submitting a photo, address, passport and visa details.

Bangkok

2007-07-19T12:25:00.000+07:00

I spent just over 4 days in Bangkok to see the Socceroos play in the Asia Cup and generally hang out with a few of my friends from Australia. It was a fun place to hang out and really good to see my friends. I’ve never seen my friends shop so much, and I did quite a bit too. A went particularly crazy and probably tripled his existing modest wardrobe. I stayed a block from Khao San road, the short but busy road where most backpackers stay. It was easy to catch taxis around town, and 20km trip where we spent nearly an hour cost around $5 AUD.

I found it less of a culture shock than I imagined because it seems just like much bigger, crazier, tidier Lao. Also, I managed to pretend to know some Thai from the limited knowledge of Lao because its nearly the same language. I just substituted some key words and hoped for the best for the rest. Also I heard Cantonese for the first time for months and my brain couldn’t process it properly. All I could say was ‘ko tod’, ‘sorry’ in Lao, when some Cantonese speaking girl grabbed the underwear I was holding because she wanted to find the same thing while I was in the store.

The soccer

I saw Australia play two games of the Asia Cup. The Australia vs Iraq game was on a very hot day. The stadium was pretty much empty. There were mostly Aussie fans, a few Iraqi fans and not many Thai people there at all. It was not a good game- Australia lost 2-1. Even with my limited knowledge of football, I could see that they didn’t play very well. We were sitting a few rows from where the players come out onto the field so it was really good to see the players up really close. My friends took this opportunity to yell some non- complimentary comments to the players after the game and I’m certain they heard.

The Australia vs Thailand game was on a rainy evening. We weren’t sure whether the locals care about their national football team at all, but before the game we could tell that the turnout was going to be good. The game was on a Monday which they probably would have thought would be a lucky day as Monday is the day the King was born and most people wear a lemon yellow shirt in recognition. Their king seems to have achieved some superhuman status there and you have to make sure you don’t say anything bad about him. When we talked about him we used the name ‘Cyril’ instead just in case. So the audience was a sea of yellow- Thai’s wearing their Monday shirt and the Aussies wearing golden yellow. The stadium was just over a third full when the game started, but quite soon it was pretty much full.

The Socceroos looked a much better team than during the Iraqi game. It was like they were a different team. My friends had calculated that Australia needed to beat Thailand with a difference of 3 goals to get through to the quarters. It was great they managed to achieve this. What an exciting game!

Shopping

I didn’t bring over many clothes to Vientiane so some are getting seriously worn and/ or covered in mud stains from bike riding or charcoal from new years. This was a good opportunity to replace some clothes. I only visited just a few markets and shopping centres of the many around.

Chatuchuk markets

There is a massive 9,000 stall weekend market called Chatuchuk market that has everything. I spent two hours there and probably didn’t even see half of it. I’m glad I missed the live monkey section my friends came across. Not the cheapest for clothes, but the prices aren’t bad and they do have some really nice clothes. Like Paddington markets in Sydney, they had some young people starting up a fashion label particularly in T-shirts which usually refuse to bargain with you.

Pratanum markets, Platinum and Central World Plaza

I recommend doing the three in that order as they are along the same road. Start with the cheapest and go up otherwise you’ll probably find the same cheap clothes at higher prices in the department store. Pratanum markets has lots of wholesale outlets where the clothes are really cheap and good, probably before being labelled, shipped off and sold in Australia for up to 10x the price. You can’t try some of the clothes on though, and for some reason some clothes are ‘free size’ and tend to be on the very small side.

Platinum is one step up from Pratanum these markets. They are cheap clothing stalls arranged in a compact air- conditioned mall. Easier to navigate than Pratanum markets but prices are probably slightly higher. Here you might not be able to try the clothes on.

Central World Plaza This is new and has lots of shops and a couple of Japanese department stores. It is seriously nice, probably nicer than Bondi Junction back at home but things are affordable. You can try on the clothes there.

The drinking

I’d heard people talk about doing ‘buckets’ in Thailand but never actually knew what it was. You can buy drinks in a small bucket, which is an ice- bucket. You can get pretty much any cocktail or mixer in them, but usually ‘buckets’ refer to a mixture of Thai whiskey, Red Bull and coke. When we tried to order individual glasses the waitress insisted we share buckets as the cheaper option. Classy!

I did experience a small range of drinking establishments. One was set up at a derelict Shell service station. Another was tables and chairs set up with drinks served out of a van. I also experienced another couple of backpacker hangouts.

The foodcourts

We really got into the food courts in Bangkok- they are wonderful. It seems most shopping malls will have at least a couple of food courts. The nice ones are a chain and managed by a particular company. They give you a credit card with about $30AUD on it to use when you’re in the food court. You pay it off when you’ve finished. There is a huge range of food- Japanese, pizza, Malaysian, Indian, dessert, drinks… all of very high quality. The highlights were the wonton noodle soup for less than $3AUD and the perfect slice of pizza above the quality of most Australian pizzas for around $1 Australian. They use proper crockery and cutlery is laid down on the table before you sit down. One food court had service where they seated you. I think Australian food courts and eateries in general really need to pick up their game- how come a Bangkok food court can do an awesome pizza but a regular Sydney café can’t?

Sengdara fitness

2007-07-12T10:15:00.000+07:00

I went to the gym for the first time in a decade! The last time was high school aerobics, I think. I remembered why I don't really like them too. The hour- long gym class is only 50c which is a cheap enough price for me to return after a decade. I went to 'spinning' class which is riding on an exercise bike for one hour on really uncomfortable seats, listening to loud music while a Dutch guy yells out random stuff. It was so boring, I will not be back. It was my own fault really- what did I expect? I might try some other classes though.

Sengdara Fitness does look like a nice gym though ie it has a pool, massage, sauna and a restaurant. They have a guard to look after the bikes too. I think it's another foreigner hangout.

Do you believe in ghosts?

2007-07-11T15:18:00.002+07:00

When my workmates asked me this, I told them that I wasn’t sure. They said that after someone dies their spirit will still be around the house for three days. All this talk of ghosts in Laos has almost made me start to believe!

A guy at work went to Japan for a training program. He was typing on the computer when he saw things moving in the room. He thought oh, it’s just a ghost, and went back to typing. When it happened the second time he started quickly packing all his things. The Japanese guy he was telling laughed because you’re supposed to get out as soon as possible during an earthquake and not be packing things. When he looked outside everything was normal and everyone was still walking around. Some other participants on the training program from other Asian countries would not sleep by themselves in a room that night.

Alternative afternoon tea- chilli hot green papaya salad. Some guy at work said he ate it to wake himself up. I tried a bit and he had it made very hot. Seems a few people eat it in the afternoon. People sweat while they eat it but they keep pushing on.

My housemate went to a North Korean restaurant for dinner last night with her South Korean friends. Before she went, we had concluded that it would be South Koreans with recipes from the north. We were wrong. This was a genuine North Korean restaurant run by the North Korean government. She said the food has simpler flavours than South Korean food and had the opportunity to try North Korean style dog. The most interesting thing about her experience was that the waiters and waitresses went and got changed and put on an hour long show involving singing.

Incident at the lights

2007-07-11T15:18:00.001+07:00

I stopped at the lights on my bicycle on the way to dinner tonight. I saw a woman get off her motorbike and angrily snatch a bag of shopping from a foreigner guy on a motorbike stopped next to her. I think she took the keys out of his motorbike too. She slapped him on the face, though not too hard because he was wearing a half- face motorbike helmet. He hit her back. I can only assume he had taken the shopping from the basket of her motorbike. He did have a beer in his hand. This happened next to one of the police booths around town. She called the police to come over. You go girl!

Lao textiles

2007-07-11T15:17:00.000+07:00

My housemate and I spent the Saturday riding our bicycles around town visiting the textile shops and galleries around town. We are now experts! We were looking at woven fabrics that can be used as scarves, wall hangings or over furniture. There are patterns in the fabric. I can’t really describe the designs- geometric? The most expensive ones are dyed using natural dyes, made of pure silk, have the back and front looking equally neat and take up to three months to make. The most expensive weaving we saw was around 3x1m and was $3900 US. This was in a gallery was on the road that comes off That Dam on the Mekong side. It was scary how much time and care it would have taken someone to complete these weavings. I do love the Lao textiles- I’m going to have to go easy on the shopping otherwise I’ll come home with a huge amount. It’s interesting to talk to the shopkeepers about the textiles. They can tell you where they come from in Lao, and what plants are used to make the dyes.

If you would like to see what Lao textiles look like, click on the link below:

http://www.marlamallett.com/lao.htm

Last night I went the party of an Australian that works in Laos. I think most Aussies working in Vientiane were there. There I noticed that virtually everyone I associate with is older than me. There are only three Aussies here that are younger than me, one of those being my boyfriend A. There’s not such a great variety of Aussies here, everyone is highly educated and are most likely an NGO or government employee now and before. Probably much like Canberra. The few Aussies here makes it feel like a really small town. Any function that’s on you’ll always know quite a few people there. I guess I have to make more Lao friends! I do have a few but it’s hard to make heaps due to the language barrier and the huge wealth imbalance. The party was good. It was fun to hear Kylie songs and dance to 80s music. I didn’t get home until 3:30am which is definitely the latest is been since I’ve been here.

Looking forward to meeting some friends from home in Bangkok to watch Australia play in the Asia Cup!

Lao disabled women's development centre

2007-07-05T12:11:00.000+07:00

I came across the website of the Lao disabled women's development centre today. They sell a range of bags and other accessories at reasonable prices. Some of there stuff looks gorgeous!

http://laodwdc.blogspot.com/

Apparently it's located on Tha Deu near the Friendship Bridge. I might catch a bus there sometime or stop there on the way home from Thailand.

Evidence

2007-06-29T13:19:00.000+07:00

Evidence that the United Lao Council for Peace Freedom and Reconstruction , members of whom were recently arrested in the US, is available on the internet.

The 25- page document outlines the following

The Hmong peoples' role in the Vietnam war
What happened to Laos after 1975 after the Lao People's Revolutionary Party took over the country
The ongoing conflict between the Hmong and the current Lao government
Human rights violations by the government
The new national policy of Laos, assuming they were successful in overthrowing the government
New domestic and foreign policies

Available here: http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=local&id=5396406

It does sound like they were serious. I wonder what research they to come up with those policies. I wonder how close they were to overthrowing the government!

Hospital story

2007-06-28T15:01:00.000+07:00

A woman at work told me a story about her son being involved in a motorbike accident last year. He was knocked unconscious. She took him to a doctor but he was drunk. She took him to the hospital which kept him there for 6 days and didn’t do much to help him recover. Eventually she saw a doctor who she recognized from her province and begged him to do something. The sterilizing machine was broken so the hospital was using instruments that were not as clean as they should have been. Eventually he received surgery and has been in and out of hospital for the past year and a half.

Lao stew

2007-06-28T15:00:00.001+07:00

My housemate went to some night markets and bought $3 worth of food sufficient to feed 3 of us last night. He bought the most interesting dish ever. It was green, resembling creamed spinach. When I tasted it, it was very bitter and rather unpleasant. There were small pieces of hard buffalo skin in it. For fear of eating some kind of bile that volunteers have tried, I stopped. When my Lao language teacher came we asked him what it was. In the three Lao words he said, my housemate recognized the middle word meaning ‘s**t’ (my workmates are polite and proper so I don’t know such words). Keeng Khii Lek- the other words translating to soup and iron. We feared the worst but actually our teacher explained that the bitterness came from the wood of a tree. If I saw food at home with the word s**t in it, I would stay well away, but scarily does not seem that unusual here. My housemate said there’s a pastry thing that translates to ‘cat s**t’. There are few dishes we’ve eaten here that just has chunks of wood in it for flavouring and usually it doesn’t taste that good. Later I offered it to my cat and even the useless whingeing thing refused to eat it.

Another weekend

2007-06-28T14:58:00.000+07:00

This week my first visitors to Lao from home came to visit. It was really good to see some people from home. I’m also glad they didn’t get food poisoning from the eateries I took them to. Pity the weather was so hot and humid for them, I think yesterday, their last day, was 37 degrees. Over a couple of days we chatted over a fair few beer Laos and some cocktails too. We went to That Luang, a large gold stupa, one of Lao symbols that appears on the bank notes and on the Lonely Planet I have. We didn’t go for very long because it was so hot. We also went bowling which was quite fun. A few lanes down my mate noticed a guy that was bowling and was holding the ball in the palm of his hand instead of putting his fingers in the holes. His technique seemed to work- I saw him bowl a couple of strikes.

Yesterday I had lunch with people at A’s work. We went for a buffet called Don Chane- part of the chain of Don Chan restaurants. It was cool to meet the people he works with. A’s boss owns the Microfinance Centre he works for. It trains financial institutions about microfinance and generally running their business. He also owns a lending institution and a magazine. Owning media in Laos is risky- it can get you chucked in prison so he has to manage it very carefully. He was much younger than I imagined- he has at least a few years before turning 40. I think this guy has the skills to promote real ability to lift people out of poverty and contribute to development in Laos. Therefore people from overseas take notice and he is often attending conferences and training sessions overseas.

It is wonderful living with an entomologist- we have a large millipede in the freezer. I suppose she will take it to work for training, but she is gone for a week so we’ll have to put up with it until then. Actually it is not an insect- it is a myriapod, I am proud I remembered! I like coming to Laos and discovering that ordinary things are different to home. The snails are longer and thinner and have flatter shells. There are extremely large snails with cone shaped shells. The millipedes here are tan in colour and look like mini- cigar to me. I think I have only ever seen black ones.

I went to an interesting market today. I’m feeling I know more about where food my comes from. The market had several pig heads. It had a couple of cow heads too. A woman was digging into a cow head with a knife- possibly trying to extract the brain? People were using small knives to cut the hair off pigs ears and legs for sale. I noticed some blackish coloured tripe sitting in a tub of water when usually it is pale in colour. I wonder why? Also, I saw a woman pouring brown liquid into sausage casing. It didn’t look quite red enough to be the colour of blood so I’m not sure what it was. Come to think of it, it may have been blood that had oxidized and she was making black pudding.

Office happenings

2007-06-28T14:56:00.000+07:00

‘Can you please help me interview some people, please make up some questions’.

‘When?’

‘In 5 minutes’

The interviews went okay. They were in a mixture of English and Lao which made it a bit more interesting. They are less structured than what I’m used to, as Laos is in general- maybe I can do some ‘capacity building’ in that area. It surprised me that the thought the married woman couldn’t really do the job because if she had to do 2 weeks of work per year in the provinces the people wouldn’t take her seriously because she’s a woman. They commented her husband might not let her go even though her resume indicates she has recently done field work. This attitude came from the youngest woman in the organization and who I considered to have most perspective on things as she has studied overseas. Maybe they criticized her because she was the only woman interviewed? I’ve read Australian research that women are really silly like that, they’ll compete with each other rather than support each other.

Our organization received some funds. I’m not sure why, but they asked me whether I would agree to let them give the staff a pay increase. With all the years I’ve had studying economics, human resources and management and now working in development my head could not come up with a way to decide what to do. Maybe if I’d had some more time I might have been able to figure something out. Someone else sorted it out and it was decided that everyone’s wage was to be increased for the duration of the project with the theory that they would be required to be more productive.

How things are done

2007-06-27T08:32:00.000+07:00

There are two ways rules can be made in Laos. They have laws that are passed by parliament. I understand that they make a list of laws to be passed by parliament for the year and slowly work their way through the list. It seems that more of the rules are made by Prime Minister's decrees. These are approved by senior bureaucrats. So this means the rules are not made by the parliament, the people who are supposed to represent the public. I think there are few laws compared to decrees. Laws have higher status than decrees. If there was a law for something at home, there might an equivalent decree for it here rather than a law. If you can be punished for not following a decree.

I'm not sure how their common law works. People that arrested and accused of doing something will generally receive a guilty verdict, I hear. What does this mean for their common law?

It is strange that there are some really big things that go on here that everyone finds out from international news, but the government will not comment upon. Therefore people rely on rumours for information, but you never know what the source is and how accurate the information is.

I wonder how the Lao government will operate in the future. Similar to home, an older generation that is not mine, is in power, and has a certain way of doing things. At home we might say it's the baby boomers in power vs the younger generations X and Y. When my generation is in power will it be different in Laos? People my age I have talked don't seem to work in the way that the current senior government do at all. I think they can see ways that things can be improved, so they seem to have a vision for their country's future. I just can't imagine them working like the senior government officials do.

The average government employees are paid a base rate of around $30 US. I'm guessing the senior ones are paid more. I'm unsure of what they can get on top of that- they can be paid by external organisations to attend meetings and training sessions. This may be around $10 per day. So they don't have that much money compared to a local project officer/ manager/ consultant which may be paid $200- 500 per month. It's hard for the government to get foreign aid money compared to international and local NGOs.

So they need control! The government wants to know much of what everyone does, including the organisation I work for. They like us to do the work and give them credit and pay them to attend meetings which is fine. You have to mention things casually to them privately, then let them think about it and eventually they'll agree. They will oppose new ideas if you tell them for the first time in front of a few people. They don't like not knowing something. I don't know how much benefitting the public is a motivator but I'm sure it's in there somewhere.

Sunday

2007-06-18T12:29:00.000+07:00

Sunday I rode my bike a whole 4kms to town and had breakfast at Croisaant D’or. I had a reasonable brekky with scrambled eggs, small sausages, bread, fruit and coffee for 23 000 kip ($3 AUD). It is very similar to the breakfast at Vista Café. It was quite enjoyable to sit inside and read my Lao language notes. I went to have a massage on the main road in town which is really ripped up at the moment, affecting business in that area.

I went to the big liquor store with a large range of wine from Argentina, Chile, France and Australia. It also has the best collection of spirits I’ve seen in Laos. They seem to have the entire range of Absolut and Smirnoff Vodkas- I might have to try the ‘peppar’ Absolut which I think is chilli, because I’m curious, even though I don’t really like vodka. I bought a 750ml bottle of Malibu which cost $13US. I can’t remember the name of this store what it is called but is located at That Dam.

I found a really nice salon at That Dam and got my haircut. The hairdressers usually give a good head massage which I like. I had a lady boy cut my hair. She had good hair and was wearing cutoff jeans, as I’ve noticed a few lady boys do. I like the cut she gave me- she had the vision to cut all the faded bits off and the confidence to hack off much of the volume. She did take lot of care. I’m glad I didn’t end up with a mullet- one of the hair magazines I looked at had a disturbing number of them. A haircut costs $10US and this is probably the most you’d pay in Lao. I'm sure the locals would wonder why anyone would pay so much for a haircut.

There was an environment day concert on at the cultural centre on Sunday night. My housemate and I managed to catch a public bus for the first time just randomly. It costs less than 30c for a trip the city. Lao style, it was quite old with a cracked windscreen. To open the door, the driver pulled on a dodgy looking rope that is attached to the door handle. I wonder whether Lao buses are buses retired from Thailand.

The concert was held inside the hall, even thought I thought it would be outside. People barged into the hall even though the police tried to let just a few people into the hall at a time. They simply ducked under the policeman’s arm as he was holding the door open. After getting some dinner, we did manage to get into the packed hall and was standing on the side aisle. The Lao people seemed to be really enjoying it. We saw a play in Lao that featured a battle between evil tree fellers and environmentalists. Eventually the environmentalists end up stabbing the tree fellers. Some big Lao acts played that nigh- the Cells, Overdance, LOG, Modern Dance and Princess. One of them did a metal version of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time after time’… bizarre.

Work is good. It is a similar level of difficulty to the stuff I was doing back at home. The difference is that we seem to be under more scrutiny here. Sometimes at home there can be a general tendency for monitoring and evaluation to be a little too relaxed- we don’t want to make the pollies look bad if something doesn’t succeed! The funding agencies want to know whether what we’re doing has worked which is fair enough. Also the government wants to know exactly what we’re doing. Some little things require a little more patience eg starting a new job, the language barrier, working in a new sector, figuring out bad, lazy English from native English speakers to make it useable for Lao people, people occasionally smoking in the office- (office falangs are big offenders).

Generally people seem friendlier and easier to work with than at home. If something goes a bit wrong, they are pretty cool with it, so there is little pressure there. The other perspective is that foreigners in the office are more concerned if something goes wrong and it can be challenging to explain why we are so bothered by something we think needs to be done! The hours are reasonable and it only takes me 15 minutes to get there. I can go home for lunch if I like too. It is flexible so if you need to leave an hour early to go to the bank or catch a bus you can. In Lao it is also generally acceptable to take a day off to look after your family if you so had to. I think these little things make a lot of difference!

Udon Thani 2

2007-06-18T12:22:00.000+07:00

I went back over the border to Thailand on the bus on Friday. The bus was worse than any bus I’ve traveled in at home and sweat was pouring off me because it was over 30 degrees inside, but it really wasn’t that bad and it left on time. The purpose of this trip was a visa run/ holiday for A and I was just tagging along for the trip to the airport. This time when I reached Thailand I think I may have experienced culture shock. The tuk- tuk drivers run alongside the bus with one hand on it as it pulls in to the bay and crowd around people exiting the bus. This just wouldn’t happen in Lao! The tuk tuks in Thailand are so shiny and new. I heard the few taxis in Lao are retired taxis from Thailand. I suspect the tuk- tuks are the same. Luckily it was a short walk to the hotel. That night we went for some all you can eat shabu- shabu and walked around the shops.

A left early the next day and I made a mission to the orchid farm. I was the only visitor to this farm and was given a tour. There are some dancing plants there that move to music. It is just the small baby leaves that move. They didn’t move when I was talking really close to them. I did see some leaves move, in a circular motion, maybe to the background music. I did ask whether I could have a walk around the orchid farm by myself because to look at the orchids more closely but the girl didn’t let me.

I went to the shopping centre and did most of my shopping at department store Robinsons. I bought some shoes more appropriate for walking and a blender. There are some well priced nice clothes there but they are not modest enough for everyday wear in Lao. I missed the first bus I wanted to catch back to Vientiane because I lined up 45 minutes too early and thought it had sold out already. You have to go to the ticket booth one hour before the bus departs. There was a lot of pushing to get to the ticket booth initially, but eventually a line did form and I was happy to get a ticket. Just so I remember, buses from Udon Thani to Vientiane are at 8am, 10am, 11:30am, 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm. You need visa for Laos to get on that bus. The bus returning to Vientiane was much better than the one I caught to Udon. Bigger, more air conditioned and for some reason it took only 1.5 hours – half an hour quicker. They did have more people in the aisles though, and more shopping. I still can’t work out why anyone would bring 4 bags of 5 mini watermelons from Thailand to Laos. I don’t know why they bring back rambutans and bitter gourds either.

Hmong return to Laos

2007-06-13T10:48:00.000+07:00

Below are two articles about the Hmong people who are returning to Lao from Thailand. Some Hmong people supported the US in the Vietnam war and the government can't seem to handle this. Have a look to see how different the articles are even though both are reporting about the same event. Note that Lao does officially have an office for propaganda. It is called the 'Propaganda and Training Committee of Central Committee'. One article is from the Vientiane Times and the other is from the Brisbane Times.

Vientiane Times

Laos welcomes Hmong returnees

'Lao authorities have welcomed back another group of Lao Hmong from Thailand , who had been detained in Thai prisons as illegal migrants for several months.'

Brisbane Times

Hmong vow to resist repatriation to Laos

'LEADERS of 8000 Hmong people in a refugee camp in Thailand have vowed to fight deportation to Laos, where they say they will be tortured because their relatives backed the US in the Vietnam War.'

HIV

2007-06-13T10:45:00.000+07:00

Recently, there was a big initiative to test Lao people for HIV aids. Over 14 000 people volunteered themselves to be tested. Around 1/7 of the people tested found out they had HIV. I'm guessing and hoping the people tested suspected they had HIV or were in a high risk category ie testing wasn't random. People chose to be tested after hearing that drugs were available to cure the disease. When word got around that the drugs only slowed the onset of sickness rather than curing the HIV, the numbers of people coming forward to be tested dramatically decreased.

Fathima and Vista cafe

2007-06-11T13:03:00.000+07:00

We tried a new Indian restaurant for dinner last night called Fathima. The prices there are very reasonable, and I thought the food was quite good too. The hightlights were the crisp dosa filled with spiced vegetables and the tandoori chicken. The breads were quite good, but would have been better had they served them hotter. The curries were spicier than the other Indian restaurants around Vientiane which was good. Vegetarian curries are around 10 000 Kip ($1 US) and meat curries cost up to 25000 kip ($2.50 US).

I think there's only one Indian restaurant in Vientiane to go! I do think Fathima is the best one. I've had the buffet at Rashimis which is quite good, but you can have a better variety of food for cheaper if you just go out with at least 4 friends and order a few different dishes. Definitely better than Nazims and the availability of dosa and being slightly spicier pushes it just past Taj Mahal.

One activity that I'm starting to do regularly on the weekends is ride my bicycle into town and have breakfast at Vista Cafe. I've even found a good journey there as the main road through Vientiane is being repaired and is entirely trashed. They've dug the road a few metres deep and are starting to fill it up. Vista Cafe makes a nice cooked breakfast which is a more manageable size than the ones I in Sydney. Brekky comprises tea or coffee, fruit salad, eggs, pancake or waffle and sausage or bacon. All for 21000 kip ($2.20 US). It's popular because you can use the internet free if you eat there and the connection is quite good. They use Linux on their computers too which I hear is good- that was my first experience with it. There is wifi access so you can byo laptop, although this isn't always reliable. It has a nice verandah to sit on, or you go inside to air conditioning if you wish. Pastries, cakes and tarts are from nearby Croissant D'or so are always perfect. Vista also has a massage business upstairs which I'll have to check out sometime.

No water in Vientiane

2007-06-10T13:39:00.000+07:00

The water supply in Vientiane was cut off for 24 hours, from Friday night to Saturday night. At first we didn't think it affected our house. I had not realised that the large tank that is taller than me, out back next to the clothesline, is full of water. The main purpose of this tank is to give our house water pressure. I learnt that water pressure is really low in Vientiane. This tank was such an effective water supply, we didn't even realise the water was cut off in our area.

My housemates only lasted 15 minutes of Napoleon Dynamite... we are divided!

Coffee

2007-06-08T12:53:00.000+07:00

Our modest office has a supply of coffee that tastes absolutely perfect. It is something to look forward to each morning. I’ve heard Lao is supposed to have some of the finest coffee in the world and this could be it. This coffee is probably from a farmer that earns little for their work has no idea what their produce is worth. Most people drink their coffee with condensed milk. I have my coffee black because condensed milk it’s bad for the teeth and the coffee is smooth enough to not need milk. The coffee beans have been crudely ground- they look like they’ve been mashed with a blunt object, perhaps ground with a mortar and pestle. You simply put the coffee in a cloth net and pour water through. It comes out rather well for such simple technology.

Another popular use for condensed milk is to put it in Ovaltine and add sugar.

In Lao they banned the ‘R’ sound in their alphabet... just like that. This happened some decades ago when they decided it was too foreign in a time they didn't feel friendly towards foreigners. Therefore the ancient capital of Luang Prabang is technically supposed to be Luang Pabang, but people still say it the old way.

Recently I was granted a visa to stay in Laos for a year. They let me stay because I am a 'foreign expert'- I have a yellow card that says so.