As the subject on this blog entry says, we are off to Vietnam on Tuesday on our Sunlabob holiday - and I think everyone is really excited. We are going to the beach near Vinh - leaving 6am Tuesday morning on the bus (44 of us!) and arriving there sometime that evening :-) Then we are there for three days, before coming back next Saturday. This is the only opportunity that most of the Laotians at work get to have holidays and to see the beach, and it is also a great opportunity for us to spend time together and get to know each other better :-) Speaking of holidays, Chris and I have also booked tickets for our holiday in Malaysia in early October - yippee!
Other than organising holidays :-) I've been up to the following:
- Drinking far too much lao lao at our neighbours' house one Sunday afternoon. Sam forged a close friendship with them over Lao New Year (which they also spent drinking) and pleaded that we come and help him. I went, mainly because I wanted to meet my neighbours...but ended up pretty ill and had to go to bed at 6. Just the thought of lao lao makes me want to be sick now.
- Helping my friend after a motorbike accident. I came across the accident while I was on my way to lunch, and was shocked to see my friend as the victim. Basically a car had tried to park right in front of her and bumped her off her bike ('road' and 'rules' are two words that don't go together here). She was ok, although a bit shaken, so I took her to the Lao hospital to get checked up. It was the first time I had been inside the Lao hospital - and let me just say it wasn't the most sterile place I have ever seen!
- Trying to get my motorbike fixed. Last Friday night, the headlight stopped working, so I figured it was finally time for a check up (since it hasn't had one since I bought it in December!) and to get the headlight fixed. After its trip to the mechanics on Saturday, it ran really well...for about 10 minutes, when the headlight stopped working again. So it went back to the mechanics on Sunday morning - the headlight was fixed, but then all of a sudden it started stalling whenever I braked and was almost impossible to start again (very annoying!) We stopped at a different mechanic - Chris turned the key and took it out, and the bike was still running! So it had another visit to the mechanics the next day...it seems to be running ok now, save for some more stalling and difficulty in starting. Maybe I would be better off driving around in the dark! :-)
- Playing guitar. I'm going to be playing music at church from now on - probably by myself, since our pianist just dropped out. Just a little bit scary! However its been great reacquainting myself with guitar, and songs from church that I love to play :-)
- Getting my multiple entry visa!! Thats right, after only 9 months we've finally got it :-) No more exiting the country every 30 days and getting a new tourist visa, and losing more pages in the passport! However, we can only get it at one entry point, and have to hand over our passports for three weeks while it is processed..so we have to wait until we get back from Vietnam to get ours.
- Work - which has been busy as normal. Chris spent another night away this week, this time in a village in Luang Prabang Province surveying for a mini-grid they are building there. On Thursday I travelled to a village an hour from Vientiane with five technicians to install Sunlabob's first solar electric fence - we got there (in the pouring rain) and found out that our truck couldn't go up the road to the farm, so we waited in the village for an hour for a four wheel drive - which we then piled to the roof with our equipment (plus a tractor!) When we got to the farm, the sun came out and was relentless all afternoon as we installed the fence. We got back to Vientiane at 6.30 that night - and I was absolutely exhausted!!
Sok dee deuh,
Susan
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