One Step at a Time - the Conyers in Laos

Reflections on the good, the bad and the in between

2008-10-10T02:08:00.001+11:00

What I will miss:

- The people I have met - Lao and falang.

I don't expect to ever meet people like the Laotians again - constantly giving, never angry, always easygoing. They make us Westerners look like the fussiest and unhappiest people on Earth - I hope I have managed to learn some of their ways while I have been here.
The foreign community has really sustained me during my time here - from the AYAD group (especially our lovely flatmate Sam), to my tight knit work group, and others I have met along the way.

- My church.

I really thought that being a Christian in Laos would be difficult, considering that it is a predominantly Buddhist country. But God took care of Chris and I, and we ended up at an amazing church with a very strong sense of community and some very good teaching. I have learnt a lot this year and am in the best place I have ever been in my Christian walk (plus I have had the opportunity to lead music - just me and a guitar! - for the last few months!) While I have a good church in Sydney to return to, I will sorely miss the fellowship that I have experienced at this church.

- The food.

Where to start??? I will miss being able to afford to go out every day to fantastic restaurants - Lao (laap and sticky rice, yum! And my daily dose of khao pheak for lunch...), French (the creperie, creme brulee from Le Silapa, and the baguettes from Le Benetton), Japanese (croquettes and hot chocolate cake from Yulala....THE best restaurant in Vientiane), Italian (Le Gondola's homemade fettucine and Swedish pizza), Indian (Nazim's for church lunch on Sunday), Chinese (one word required - DUMPLINGS!), Vietnamese (bi bun, kao jii, spring rolls, and that yummy fried rice ball thing from Nam Neung, PVO and the Spring Roll shop)...the list goes on and on. I have absolutely gorged myself this year - and usually for less than $5 a pop. God help me trying to cook again.

- The massages.

I'm never sore for very long here when I can go and have a massage for $5 at Oasis. The best thing is you can walk straight in off the street and be relaxing within 5 minutes. And if Oasis is full? Then there is always another place within walking distance :-)

- My job.

Kind of a strange thing to say?? Not really - thats why I came. And it hasn't disappointed. Its been an exhilarating, stressful and frustrating ride at times, and sometimes I'm not sure whether I have contributed anything. But the people who work at Sunlabob are phemenonal - especially our managing director Andy, who has more energy and drive at 50 than I have ever had. The technologies that we get to play with here, and the techniques for introducing them to Lao villages in a sustainable fashion, are really innovative and exciting - and I'm proud to have been a part of it.

- The country, and the region.

Laos is a amazingly beautiful country - my bus trip from Vientiane to Phonsavan during my third week in Laos was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, as we wound our way through mountainous terrain in a bus for 10 hours. But I don't even have to travel to see beauty here - behind my house every afternoon is one of the most awe inspiring sunsets you will ever see, as the sun sinks behind the banks of the Mekong River in Thailand.
I've also loved the sights I have seen in other places in South East Asia - Halong Bay in Vietnam and Angkor Wat in Cambodia instantly spring to mind. There are really a lot of sources of inspiration here :-)

What I'm not sure about:

- The roads.

I absolutely love getting around on my scooter - its such an exhilerating experience (although the SuperCub doesn't go particularly fast...) The SuperCub is one of my prized possessions - hot pink (matches my helmet!), very retro looking, having only the bare minimum functionality in order to be on the road..........

But the unpredictability of the traffic can be extremely wearing - there's only so many times you can take people coming down the wrong side of the street at you, or driving through red lights, before you start to feel serious road rage. But in line with the Lao character, you will usually just be greeted with a smile and a wave by the lunatic who almost just killed you.

What I won't miss:

- The language barrier.

I tried very hard to learn Lao in my first six months here, and looking back on it I know I made considerable progress. However, I struggled a lot with tones and being able to put words together into sentences. Sometimes I wish I had had the patience to keep trying, because I feel I could have made better friendships and learnt more about Lao culture if I could have spoken the language better.

- The homesickness.

I was really surprised by this - possibly because I've never really experienced it before (but then again, I've never been away from home for so long before!) It got better every day, but I still felt the absence of my family and friends all the time, and wished I could have been there to share special times with them. My trip home in April helped to soothe the homesickness, but the strength of this feeling convinced me that I am not meant for the development 'lifestyle', and that my family and friends at home always come first.

- The bugs.

Before I left I really expected that the mosquitoes would give me grief (with the potent combination of me having yummy blood that mosquitoes like, and nice diseases like dengue fever and malaria for the mosquitoes to give). And don't get me wrong, they were really annoying (although thankfully I ended up with no diseases, and found a really awesome and entertaining way to kill them with my Lao electrified tennis-racket-shaped mosquito killing machine). But the ants were far worse. Within five minutes of you putting food anywhere they were all through it (eventually all food had to live in the fridge). And if you got on their wrong side then their bites were vicious. They particularly seemed to love my towel, and I would only discover this after I had finished my shower, dried myself and was stinging all over.

- Lao lao.

Just thinking of this stuff makes me want to retch. It smells like methylated spirits, and I'm sure it tastes just the same. You can feel it disinfecting all your organs on its way through the body. The worst part is, its rude not to have some if it is offered to you (especially in the villages, where they pride themselves on their home brew - and this is the strong stuff). Thankfully I can get away with just one shot these days, although that is more than enough.

I learnt this the hard way when our neighbours were having a party, and I thought that since I didn't like beer, I'd go for the lao lao. Now I say - give me beer any day.

- Not being able to find things.

Some of this springs from language barrier of course, and some of it springs from simply being in a developing, non-Western country. But the rest of it (when it comes from going from A to B anyway!) springs from no road maps, no directions, no street signs, and no street names. I got seriously sick of having to explain things like this: 'To get there, you have to travel on the one way street into town, turn right on the second dirt road after the traffic lights, and drive along this until you see the white house with the black fence..' etc. It made every conversation about 20 minutes longer than it had to be.

Last week at work + Malaysia!!

2008-10-10T01:06:00.005+11:00

Sa bai dee everyone!! Chris and I have just returned from our week long trip to Malaysia and are coming to terms with our last few days in Vientiane - we leave next Tuesday. We have a few farewells planned for the next few days, plus getting rid of as much junk as we can so we can still pack our suitcases, and preparations for the boat racing festival are getting into gear, so we should be pretty busy!!

My last week of work seemed full of farewells. First of all to AJ, who has been working on the water purification project with me for the last few months - we did some karoake and bowling :-) Then on Tuesday night, we farewelled our bible study group with dinner at our favourite Italian restaurant, La Gondola. Wednesday was my last day at work, so Chris and I paid for a Lao feast for lunch for everyone in the office, just like we used to have every week when we first started. However there are now so many people working for Sunlabob we could hardly fit around the table!!! And the tables were absolutely covered with food....As a farewell present Andy gave me a German beer glass which were used for German National Day on October 3, which I thought was nice. I will really miss my work and the people at Sunlabob - its been by far one of the best professional and personal experiences I have ever had :-) However I was pretty excited about four weeks of holidays!!! Wednesday night was another farewell, as we went out for dinner with some of our Sunlabob colleagues, including Mariano and Simon (Andy's son) and Kate (who was an AYAD and is now Mariano's girlfriend).

Thursday morning we left on our AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur - I was really surprised about how long it took, about 2.5 hours from Vientiane to KL and then an hour just from the terminal to the city. After getting confused at both the airport and the train stations, we didn't get to our hotel until 5...but were greeted with a lovely view over KL Tower and the Petronas Towers, which was alright considering how cheap our room was! For some more information, KL Tower is the fourth highest tower in the world, and the Petronas Towers are the tallest twin buildings in the world. We set off to the revolving restaurant at KL Tower for dinner - the buffet was really yummy, and the views were great! Especially as the monsoon storm rolled in...KL Tower was beautifully lit at night, and twinkled every 15 minutes (reminscent of the Eiffel Tower!)

We got up early on Friday morning to go to the Petronas Tower to get a ticket to go on the Skybridge. However, true to Malaysia's amazing cultural diversity, it was the last day of the Hari Raya Aidilfitri (end of Ramadan) so it was a public holiday and thus not open. We instead went to the central market where we did some shopping (I felt like I was in about 5 countries at once! The bizarrest thing I saw was the fish spa - where you pay to have fish nibble your dead skin off your feet. Yuck...) and then to the Bird Park in the Lake Gardens, the largest covered bird park in the world. We then caught a tourist coach around town, stopping briefly at Merdaka Square where Malaysia declared independence, before heading back to our hotel for a sleep. The evening was spent eating and walking around the massive night market in Chinatown, not far from our hotel.

Friday morning we headed back over to the Petronas Towers, and joined the massive line to get tickets. We eventually secured tickets to go on the Skybridge at 2.45pm. We got back on the tourist coach to take us to the Aquarium, only to find out when we got there that we were literally 2 minutes walk from the towers - we had basically paid for the driver to take for an elaborate trip around the block. We had a good laugh about that :-) The aquarium was cool, with an underwater tunnel where stingrays and sharks swum above our heads. After laksa for lunch (yay!!) we headed onto the Skybridge - even though the Skybridge is on the 41st floor, its still less than halfway up the building. They're pretty huge!!!! We spent the evening in Jalan Bintang, one of KL's shopping districts, where I bought myself a very cool souvenir Paul Frank t-shirt!!

The next day we headed for the East Coast. Not an easy endeavour at all - we caught a taxi to the bus station at 4.30am, then the bus to the terminal which arrived at 5.45am, then a plane to Kota Bharu on the east coast at 7.30, then a taxi from Kota Bharu to the jetty at 8.30, then a boat to our island (the Perhentian Islands) at 10am. However, as soon as we got there I knew it was worth it.....soft white sand beaches, crystal clear blue water, cloudless skies and bright sunshine (we were worried about the monsoon, so this was a blessing!), and hardly any development - no roads on the island, just beaches and walking paths. By the end of the first day I could already feel myself becoming comatose :-) Aside from swimming, reading and eating, the only thing we did all day was take a short walk to the other side of the island - while there was not much to see there, we did encounter some huge monitor lizards and black monkeys who threw stuff at us from the treetops. Thanks to our early wake up, we were in bed early :-)

The next day we went on a snorkelling trip in the morning. Usually I love snorkelling, but I was put off by warnings of a triggerfish that would take a bite of me if I went anywhere near its home, so I spent most of the snorkelling looking for it so I could avoid it. The first stop was Shark Point, where some reef sharks were spotted - completely herbivorous, but another thing to arouse fear :-) The end of the trip was highlighted by sighting a giant turtle near our resort, which must have been more than a metre long.
In the afternoon Chris and I went to the resort spa and had a scrub - when we had asked for a massage. It hurt a bit on our already sunburnt skin, but at least I smelt nice!

Tuesday was quite similar - a snorkelling trip in the afternoon, where we saw the turtle again and I tried to avoid the biting fish. Dinner in the evening was lovely - fresh fish and prawns cooked over the BBQ, washed down with an almost comically big pineapple juice (1L!) that Chris and I shared (having learnt from our first day that no, we couldn't drink an entire one each!!)

The next day we left at 12pm - we had hoped to leave at 4, but the boat wasn't running. Thus we had to kill about 5 hours in Kota Bharu before our flight back to KL. We went to the cultural centre, where there were demonstrations of martial arts, drumming and batik (painting on silk). However, other than this it was a pretty boring town, and we were happy to get to KL and collapse into bed at our hotel at 11pm. We went straight from bed to the airport at 6.30 am this morning :-)

I will probably post again a few more times with some thoughts about my time in Laos, but I doubt I will post any more about my activities. I hope you have enjoyed my stories from Laos - I know that this experience will stay with me for a long time to come.

Home sweet home in just five days!!
Susan

A years work shows some fruit

2008-09-23T20:22:00.004+10:00

Sa bai dee! Its three weeks today until I leave Vientiane - now I am really getting into 'last' territory. Chris has already finished work (as you would know from reading his last blog entry!) and now my last day of work is next week. Both the idea of leaving here and the idea of returning home seem very surreal...

The big news from this fortnight is that we installed the water purification unit in Ban Sor last week!!! However, it didn't all go to plan :-) We arrived at Ban Sor last Thursday at about 11am to find the Sunlabob workshop crew already feverishly laying pipes, putting up solar panels etc. The house for the water purification unit has already been built (and recently painted, as I discovered after I had white paint all over my black Sunlabob shirt). It was very exciting to see something that we had been envisaging all of this year finally have a physical presence. We got to work installing the water purification system (well, I got to work filming other people doing it). Everything was going swimmingly well until the afternoon, when we couldn't test the system because there wasn't enough pressure. Thankfully we did have an extra pump and solar panels with us so we got started on building that - in the dark.
The evening was passed drinking lao lao (not much for me!) and eating yummy Lao food - and my first public shower. Most people in Ban Sor wash in the river, but the family we were staying with collect rainwater in a small tank and pour it over themelves with buckets. So I wrapped myself in my sinh and stood around washing myself while trying to a) not expose myself and b) get clean. I managed to do it in the end :-) That night we slept three under the mosquito net - but with the heat and the 6.30 wake up call by the village roosters, I didn't get much sleep.
Friday was the day we were meant to train the two Sunlabob franchisees (Boualai and Khamsao) how to use the system. We got started on this - thankfully we have trained a Sunlabob technician, Khambang, how to operate the system over the last few months so he did most of the explaining! - while the other Sunlabob workers put together our second pump. We eventually tested the system again just before lunch - the first water that came out was brown, but that didn't faze us because we expected some stagnant water in our pipes. But then we got more, and more, and more brown water....eventually we made the call back to the office, slightly panicky about our brown water! We were reassured that everything would be ok, so we went back to our training sessions. The most interesting part was when we started discussing the financial aspects of selling the water - Boualai and Khamsao were very against the idea of us selling our water cheaper than our competitors, because by undercutting our competition we would give ourselves a bad name and wreck our future prospects. I guess this must be how things work in a Communist country :-) After work was finished, we went on an expedition to buy a jar of lao hai, the fermented rice whisky that tastes a lot better than lao lao. It was good to explore the village, even though at any one time we had about 20 Lao kids following us, keen to see the falang.
That night, over dinner, we noticed some yelling coming from nearby and soon people were running past with logs lighted by fire. Thinking this was a lot of activity for a Lao village, we asked what was happening - it turned out that something akin to an exorcism was happening in a nearby house. Thankfully it all calmed down before long, and we settled in for another night under the mosquito net.
The next morning (Saturday) we left in a sawngtheaw for Vientiane at 8.30. The road was pretty bad - especially considering the flooding that occured last month - so it was a bumpy ride, and eventually we got a flat tyre. We ended up making it back to Vientiane by 2 - while the trip there had only taken 3 hours!
I'm pretty happy that we got the system installed, and confident that we will find a solution to clearing the colour from the water after meetings at work this week. A new intern has started to replace me and I am hoping that I can teach her everything she needs to know before next Wednesday (my last day). In more exciting work related news, Andy is coming to speak at this year's EWB conference in Melbourne! So it looks like I will be making a trip down south at the end of November :-)

In other news:

More farewell parties - Christian this time, an Austrian intern who had been with Sunlabob for three months. The Sunlabob staff had a shirt printed with pictures from his time in SE Asia - what a great idea!!
Dinner at Leon and Geri's house with their Lao friend Air - they cooked us laap with sticky rice and I watched and learned. After dinner we then went to Wat Si Muang, because it was the last full moon of Buddhist Lent and it was time to make offerings. We walked around the temple three times with flower and incense offerings before laying them at a stupa. Something that I have never done before :-)
Our computer was fixed! Hooray!!!!

Next week Chris and I are off to Malaysia for a weeks holiday - I can't wait! We are heading to Kuala Lumpur for a few days, then to the Perhentian islands off the East Coast. I will try to write as soon as we get back - possibly my last blog entry before I leave Laos!!

Pai gorn deuh,
Susan

Chris goes for a walk

2008-09-22T20:19:00.002+10:00

I officially finished work a week and a half ago, so last week I took the opportunity to fly to Luang Namtha, a town in the north of Laos near the Chinese border. Luang Namtha is the main starting point for treks through the Nam Ha National Protected Area, which is the most famous natural feature of Laos. It is a remote location, but the new airport opened a few months ago, so it is now possible to fly there.

I arrived on Monday afternoon and explored the town on foot. I had read about a hill on the side of town that had really good views of the whole valley, so I walked up there. Apart from the views (which were great) I found that this hill was also the site of a new giant golden stupa (pointy looking temple) that was visible from basically the whole town. It is still under construction, but looks like a fair imitation of That Luang, which is the most sacred stupa in Vientiane.

The next day I left on a three day trek with one of the local tour companies. We were trekking (in Australia we call it bushwalking) for three days through the middle of Nam Ha NPA with a Laos guide named Sai and some assistance from some villagers who live on the edge of the NPA.

I had put my name down and the company tried to find someone else who wanted to go, and they found someone late the evening before. She was a 43 year old Serbian woman called Tanja who clearly was not an experienced hiker.

We were due to set off at 8:30am, so I arrived and got myself ready at about 8:15. She wandered in at 9, introduced herself and immediately asked me to go and buy some children’s books for her. She gave me 4000 kip (50 cents) and asked me to buy three books, assuring me that they were only 500-1500 kip each. I walked down the road, leaving her to pack her bag (no, she hadn’t even started to do that), and found that the books were 5000-15000 kip each. Not having brought my own wallet, I returned empty handed. She therefore spent the next half hour buying the books herself, along with a Coke that was her only breakfast.

Upon arriving at the village that were starting the trek from, Sai showed us around. Tanja loved the school, and spent over half an hour playing with the children, and talking to them in English despite the fact that they clearly understood none of it. When we finally managed to drag her away, she remembered the books she had bought to give to children in the villages, so I got one out of my pack (they “didn’t fit” in hers) and she promptly returned to the school to read the book to the children in English. The theory was that it might “help them to learn English”, which most of them will never study. (The book also had Lao writing in it for the children to read themselves, which was the idea. The English text is so that tourists like Tanja and I know what the book is about when we buy it.)

By now it was 11am, so I was impatient to get going. We only had 4 hours of walking on the first day, but we had missed the cool of the morning and would be walking in the hottest part of the day. Tanja then asked if she should wear socks. She wasn’t wearing any and was starting to get blisters. (She had one pair of ankle length socks which she wore for the whole three days.)

Once we set off, I found myself being stopped every 50 metres to take photos of Tanja, and after 500 metres I found myself carrying half of Tanja’s water, which was frustrating, but the scenery was nice enough. We crossed several small streams, most with log bridges, and the dense jungle was really pretty. There were lots of different butterflies and later I noticed at least 6 different species of fly, some of which were bright green and bright yellow. We stopped for lunch halfway where two Khmu villagers (from the village we started in) had prepared a delicious Lao lunch.

The afternoon was a much tougher walk since it was an almost constant steep climb, but we reached the forest camp at about 3:30. It consisted of three buildings: A kitchen, and large hall for sleeping and a toilet. There was also a really nice stream about 5 minutes away where we could wash ourselves off, and I sat on a log and soaked my feet for a good 15 minutes. It was a great end to the day and the area around the camp was probably the prettiest on the trek.

The next morning, we were aiming to set out at 8:30, and at 8:10 Tanja was still in bed. She refused breakfast and went to have a wash since she hadn’t bothered the previous afternoon. When she came back she pulled out a litre of shampoo and gave it to the Khmu guides, since there were “no showers” and she didn’t want to carry it.

I was still carrying a litre of water for her.

The second day’s trek was extremely tough. It was 6 hours of walking, but we took 8 including stops. It was hot, and it was very muddy. It reminded me of pictures I have seen of the Kokoda Trail, with everyone up to their ankles in mud as they climb up steep hills, surrounded by jungle. It was slow going, trying to pick the path that you wouldn’t sink too deeply in to, and trying to avoid the bamboo that had been broken and was across the track about a metre off the ground. Sai explained that water buffalo had used the track recently, churning up the mud and breaking the bamboo. It was at times very difficult to force my way through the bamboo, and I got remarkably muddy, and by lunchtime I was already exhausted.

The one good thing about the mud was that we could see tracks. Mostly water buffalo tracks, but a handful of tiger tracks as well, which was exciting to see.

By mid afternoon we left the mud behind, crossed a river, and an hour later I found I had lost a sandal that had been strapped to the back of my pack. Sai went back and found it near the river. A distance that had taken Tanja and I 45 minutes took him about 20 minutes – return. My only consolations were that he had done it without his pack, and that he did find my sandal so I could walk around that evening without my boots on.

We spent that night in an abandoned village of the Akha people. When the NPA was created, this village (and probably some others) were within the boundaries so they had to move to the edge of the forest. Most of the building were barely standing and had been stripped of the easily accessible timber walls. Only the hut that we stayed in was intact. An Akha man met us at this camp (as the Khmu villagers had returned home that morning), prepared our dinner and gave us “happy water”, which is really just Lao-lao, or rice whisky, made by the different ethnic group.

It was another beautiful campsite, and I really needed the rest that night. There was another nearby stream, and the ruined buildings, and it was very peaceful.

Tanja spent the evening explaining to Sai that he should start his own business doing some things for tourists. The problem was that the tour company we were with already did all these things, she just hadn’t bothered to go in and ask. She basically wanted someone to come up to her, tell her everything that she wanted to know (but only the things she was interested in, and without asking what she was interested in), and organise her trip for her, all with no input from her.

Nevertheless, we all slept well.

We chose to take the easy route on the third day. It was shorter and easier terrain, and Tanja and I were tired enough to choose that. Tanja again refused breakfast, and we were outside the NPA quite quickly and wandered past rice fields, rubber plantations and vegetable plots. The views from this track were better than the day before since they weren’t totally obscured by trees, so the third day turned out to be just a pretty as the first two. Tanja insisted on very long, regular breaks (the last 20 minutes of walking took about an hour including breaks), but we made it to the Akha village for lunch.

The Akha people have a unique culture, and three of the most interesting aspects were explained to us while we ate:
1. Once a woman is married with a couple of kids, she is no longer expected to hide her breasts. This was not merely explained, but observed.
2. When a woman give birth to twins, the Akha consider this to be an “animal” birth. Animals have multiple births, people have single births. Traditionally they kill both babies and send the parents into the forest for three years as punishment. More recently, the Lao government has stopped the infanticide and the babies simply disappear from the village as if they never existed (and are adopted and raised in Khmu or Thai Dam villages).
3. When an Akha man reached 15 or 16 (old enough to be a man) he builds himself a very small hut. He still spends the day and works with his family, but he spends the night in his own hut. He finds a village girl that he would like to marry and she stays with him in his “Loving Hut” for about three months. If she gets pregnant, they get married. If not, “he does not love her enough” so she moves out and they both look elsewhere for a future spouse. “But she usually gets pregnant.”

From there we walked to the main road, and since we were early and the mobile phone network was down that day, we walked a couple of km to a crossroads to wait for a tuk-tuk to take us back to town. At the crossroads was a 400 year old stupa which was knocked over by a bomb during the Vietnam war, so I climbed a very large hill to see it. There was also a new stupa next to it, but that wasn’t as impressive.

When I got down, a tuk-tuk had arrived, so we went back to town for a relaxed afternoon.

The next day, freed from my slow and slightly infuriating companion, I hired a bicycle and visited a waterfall to the north of town. It was beautiful, but difficult to get to since the path and a bridge had been completely washed away in recent flooding. I also rode to the southern town, about 6km south of the main town, to explore that before I flew home in the afternoon.

It was good to get home, but I promptly locked myself out of our bedroom by forgetting that Susan, who was away for work, had the room key. Luckily we have a spare room, so I slept there, and got Susan’s keys from work the next day. So my adventure was finally complete.

Time is ticking by...

2008-09-03T19:19:00.002+10:00

Sa bai dee everyone! Again, I am typing on the work computer as Chris and I are starting to fear we will never see our laptop again...Chris has now been to the computer shop four times and received just as many stories as to when it will return. It is a real pain not having a computer at home - but if the latest story is true, we may see it tomorrow :-)
Today it is six weeks until I arrive home - simultaneously it feels like a long time and a short time. I'm approaching the time of 'lasts' - for example, Chris' last day of work is next week. However I received some good 'first' news today - in two weeks time we will be going to Ban Sor to install Sunlabob's first solar powered water purification system! I am excited that it is happening before I leave. Also, next week the girl who is replacing me arrives at Sunlabob, so my 'last' few weeks at work will no doubt be very interesting!

Other than that, what is news?

Another 'first' - my first motorbike accident. However before you panic, its not as bad as I'm making it sound :-) I went to the clinic at the Australian Embassy to get the doctor to check my sore throat and ear. As I was leaving, I smacked my foot against a concrete block on the side of the road (all along the road in Vientiane there are these concrete blocks which seperate the footpath from the road - their only real purpose seems to hurt people). It was quite painful, and when I arrived back at the office a few minutes later, I discovered my foot had already swollen to resemble an egg covered in skin. Thankfully I got some ice on it straight away and while it is still swollen and bruised, it could have been a lot worse.
Going to the circus. This is not a frequent occurrence in Vientiane, despite the fact that there is a building called the National Circus. A bunch of French performers had come to Vientiane and taught some Lao people some circus skills, so we went to watch the end result. I was extremely impressed - first there was the Lao girl twirling hoops that must have weighed more than her, then there was the cortionist, then there was a long elaborate choreographed sequence which include a person wrapped in a rug, flying bowls, and a trampoline amongst other things. Good value for only 10000 kip! (just over $1 USD)
Attending more farewells. The most significant of these was Sugandha, a Nepalese girl who had been working at LIRE for four months. First there was a farewell party, then a farewell dinner - I made a photo album for her with pictures from the last few months and got everybody to sign it. She seemed quite sad to be leaving...I wonder what I will be like?
Sunlabob badminton competition. Last weekend there was a annual Buddhist festival where people offer food and other things to their ancestors. We celebrated on Friday with a badminton competition :-) I was pretty hopeless, but I still enjoyed the BBQ and free flowing beer :-)

Stay tuned for the next few blog entries, where I will share my adventures of water purification in rural Laos, and Chris will share his adventures trekking in the mountainous province of Luang Nam Tha, which borders China in northern Laos :-)

Sok dee,

Susan

Making the most of opportunity...

2008-08-30T19:58:00.003+10:00

Quote from journal entry, 10/8/08

'A new question is plaguing me...have I made the most of this opportunity? I am plagued with doubt.
Part of me thinks I could be trying harder - after all, I've had to work at some things very hard in the past. Perhaps I could have spent all my free time trying to learn Lao, and practising it, and making all sorts of friends, and not watching DVD's and other similar useless endeavours. But that thought makes me sick to the stomach - how could I have wasted the opportunity I was given?
But part of me thinks I have tried hard enough - this is really the largest challenge I have thrown myself. I have learnt a lot of things I never knew before, met people I would otherwise have never had the opportunity to meet, seen and done things I have never done before. My eyes have been thrown wide open. I have come closer to God, and I have had the chance to be involved in projects at work that I could have never dreamt of.
But it doesn't feel right to say I have tried hard enough if there are things I haven't achieved. Plus it feels like a complacent thing to say - if I've tried hard enough, then I don't need to do anymore, do I? But shouldn't I constantly be striving for challenge?'

A very interesting two weeks indeed...

2008-08-20T18:27:00.002+10:00

Hello all :-) In contrast to my last blog entry, this one proves to be very interesting, since much has been happening over the last few weeks! However I am updating the blog at work today since our laptop kicked the bucket the other day and has gone to the doctor in Thailand - hopefully to return in two weeks. I am missing my Skype chats already!

So you might be wondering what was going on with Chris' blog entry that indicated impending doom due to flooding. Well it came pretty close. E-mail flood warnings started pouring in after the Mekong rose beyond 12m, and our boss told us to put all our computer boxes on our desks. I started going for afternoon walks along the road that follows the Mekong behind our house, and watched the water get closer and closer to the top of the levee bank every day. It got to the point on Tuesday where we started to move things upstairs (and I couldn't sleep for fear of floodwaters in the living room when I woke up!) and our AusAID manager telling us to evacuate on Wednesday. We stayed with our friends Philippa and Sam (who were fantastic to us, feeding us, watching Olympics with us and lending us books!) until Sunday afternoon - the river eventually peaked at about 13.5m. I have no doubt that the flood that we dreaded would have occured if not for the Lao government's heroic efforts of laying two million sandbags all throughout Vientiane - Chris says this is one of the advantages of an authoritarian government :) It was amazing to see army guys laying sandbags behind our house on Thursday when we popped by for a visit. Although they did go a bit overboard with the road closing, which was annoying. I think the sandbags will stay until the end of September, as the river actually normally peaks in September and if previous records mean anything, we could see an even higher peak (and consequent flood risk).

Other than that excitement, there has been:

Another visit to Ban Sor to do some site assessment and water testing. Ban Sor will be the village where we launch our new solar powered water purification system - which will probably happen in the next five weeks before I leave Sunlabob. Preparing for some crazy times ahead! AJ and JB got to taste their first shots of lao lao over lunch - and ended up having 4 or 5 each (I've spent all year steeling my resolve to say 'no' to lao lao, so I got away with just one).
Games day at our house. Even though Chris and I only have a deck of cards and a chess board, we managed to entertain 20 people for about 6 hours! Of course, it helped that they brought their Risk and Scrabble and various other things. There were some very funny games of Celebrity Head and Mafia to get us started :-) It was meant to be Olympic themed (since we had many different countries there, and the Olympics had started the day before - which incidentally we can watch on about 5 different stations!) but we gave up on that quickly :-)
Weekend away at Ban Sufa. Chris and I were both in need of a break, and so we took our bike out to this small resort 12 kms from Vientiane. Its a beautiful spot on the edge of an enormous ricefield stretching to the horizon, with several bungalows, a swimming pool and horses and........the best part......French owners, who book the most amazing French food. Chris and I spent our time alternating between swimming, reading, getting massages, sleeping and EATING. I felt like a total glutton - at least I didn't have to walk very far!!!

I also found out this week that one of our fellow AYAD's has some famous friends and has asked them to come to Vientiane to play a charity gig for COPE, the organisation that produces prosthetics for UXO victims. The friends? Regurgitator. When? The day after I leave. I can't believe it!!!!!!!!!!

My time here in Vientiane is dwindling away - I can't believe that it is now less than two months until I leave, and only five more weeks of work. My emotions are mixed - I have started to get comfortable here in Vientiane, and haven't felt homesickness now for a long time, but at the same time I am really keen to get home, see everyone again, and get started with my new job :-) How do I balance these out??

Sok dee deuh,

Susan

Flood Warnings

2008-08-12T18:27:00.003+10:00

Susan and I have been warned of possible flooding over the last few days. This morning it became a bit more urgent and people started referring to "1966", which is never a good sign. This afternoon I heard a comparison to 1920-something. It could be a big one.

Before you worry about us too much though, we have a two storey house, and the second story will definitely be safe. We will move our things up there (the landlord's furniture might have to get wet though), and if our house is seriously threatened, Vientiane College is already looking into alternative accommodation for us.

So if you hear about flooding in Laos in the news,
a) It is not as bad as Vietnam (100+ dead in the north), and our safety is not seriously compromised
b) We have lots of support
c) We (and our things) should survive unscathed
d) Everyone here is finding it exciting in some weird, massochistic way
e) There is absolutely no need to worry about us
f) Prayers for us and for the Laos people, who generally can't afford to lose things to flooding and who are generally more exposed, would be appreciated anyway.

Chris

Life in its 'normal' state

2008-08-05T19:37:00.004+10:00

Sa bai dee!! It has been a little longer than two weeks this time, so I have to apologise. However in most ways it has been uneventful so that is why I have left it for so long!
So what's been happening??

Getting my multiple entry visa and ID card - can you believe it! It only took 10 months! It is valid until next August, so I could come back.. Now all I have to do is get a new passport, because this one is almost full with Lao tourist visas. The most amusing thing is the ID card, which says that I am a 'foreign expert'.
Ultimate frisbee. Chris and I have started playing on a Thursday after work to get our muscles a bit more active (the only muscle that gets regular exercise is my jaw, from all the chewing...) Its a lot of fun - for those who have never played before, it is like netball crossed with American football, with a frisbee instead of a ball :-) However since it rains all the time, the field is usually a mudbath and you end up getting absolutely filthy and spending most of your time trying not to fall over..
Playing music at church. I have never sung in front of people before!! I've been playing now for four weeks, and really enjoying it, although it is time consuming finding music (the stuff we have here is really old and I know none of it!), picking songs and practicing throughout the week.
Unfortunately we have had some sad times at church recently - Kenji, a Japanese man, was back visiting his family this month when he was in a car accident, which landed him in hospital and killed his wife and parents-in-law, and Sue, an American woman in Laos for many years, had to rush home to spend time with her nephew who is dying from leukaemia. Please keep them in your prayers.
Hanging out with some new friends. Sunlabob and LIRE have had an influx of new falang colleagues, so now we find ourselves with many new people to hang out with. Bowling, eating dinner together, going out for drinks, housewarmings...it is a very social group! Unfortunately though we had to farewell one on Saturday - David from Germany, who I have worked very closely with for the last six months. While he drove me mental sometimes (its the Germanness I think!) he was lovely and we got along very well, so I will miss him. Being part of the expat community here, you see people come and go all the time, but it is never any fun to see them go - and it will be my turn soon.
Going to another costume party - this time for Nin, a Lao girl who worked for Vientiane College and who was leaving for Canada studying fashion design. This time I actually made an attempt and took a prop! (the little dagger we bought Sam for his birthday...)
Working. We have made some nice progress with our water purification project - we're now making clean water! - and so we're getting ready to install our system very soon. We are off on a field trip to Ban Sor this Friday (the village where we will install the system) to do some site assessment :-)
Cooking - Chris and I used our kitchen for the first time in months last week! Chris made spaghetti bolognaise, and we also had brie from the French delicatessen, some sourdough, some salad with balsamic vinegar, and sweet treats from Le Benetton, my favourite bakery. Yummy!

My Flickr photos this fortnight, while they are few, show the Mekong river furiously rising. According to our friend at the Mekong River Commission, the Mekong has only been this high 10 times in the last 90 years, and about half of these years it has flooded. If it floods I can guarantee my living room will be under water...
Compare this photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/susieblue/2479566783/ - with this photo - http://www.flickr.com/photos/susieblue/2734543861/ - to see just how much it has risen since April :-)

You also might like to watch the video that I put together for my mum's birthday (which was last Sunday, so now I can tell you about it!), which is about us visiting the sites where my grandfather was a POW in SE Asia during WWII. You can find it at http://www.youtube.com/susiebluec :-)

Sok dee!
Susan

Vietnam!!

2008-07-15T22:00:00.003+10:00

Sa bai dee!! As you can figure from the title (and from the fact that I am writing just a week after I wrote last!) I have been to Vietnam and have lots of stories to tell :-)
Last Tuesday morning at 7am about 45 Sunlabob and LIRE people tumbled onto a huge bus (along with about 400 cans of BeerLao - I kid you not!) and started on our way to Vinh, Vietnam (the closest beach to Vientiane). Everyone was very excited, although tired - so half the bus was singing Lao/Thai karoake and drinking beer (I got offered my first beer at 7.30am!) and the rest of the bus was sleeping. After a stop for a bowl of noodle soup for breakfast (yummo!) we were back on the bus - and driving in the rain. Not long after we turned inland to head towards the Vietnam border, we encountered a traffic jam (not something you would usually encounter in Vientiane, let alone in the middle of nowhere!) so we all got out to have a look - it turned out the road was flooded. We moved all our bags into the bus from the underneath compartment and headed on through the flood in the bus. Not long after this, the bus had to cross a fairly dodgy bridge over a flooded raging river (this bit was particularly scary)! And then, not long after that, we encountered another traffic jam - this time for a landslide. We didn't have any hope of getting past this one, so we turned the bus around. I was worried that Andy would cancel the whole holiday after this (it was about 1pm when this happened), but instead we headed down to the next border crossing - not a trivial thing, considering it was several hundred kilometres away (about in line with Savannakhet on the map of Laos). We arrived at the border at about 8pm (12 hours on the bus!) to find that it was closed, so we found a guesthouse and stayed for the night.
The next morning we were back on the bus at 7am. The border crossing took a very long time, but we were through at about 10am. About 10 minutes we passed through Khe Sanh (made famous - for Aussies of my generation anyway - by Cold Chisel's song) - little did I know that the beach were heading for was formerly part of Vietnam's demilitarised zone, or the former border between North and South Vietnam, and was the site of many of the Vietnam War's worst battles (I had no idea where I was until Saturday when I came back and looked at a map!) A few hours after crossing the border we stopped abruptly - we had found a nice beach called Cua Tung, and so we decided to make our holiday there :-) It was a lovely beach - noone else there, little huts with hammocks in it stretched all the way along the sand (run by entrepeneurial Vietnamese - although not clever enough to differentiate themselves from each other!), and beautiful water. Me and my roommate Sugandha (one of LIRE's interns from Nepal) nabbed the best room with a seaview on the top floor, and then we all had a fantastic lunch (prawns!!!!!!!!!!) The afternoon was spent relaxing in the hammocks, swimming and playing frisbee, and crawling over some ruins at the end of the beach. In the evening many people got drunk (as was the way for the entire holiday) and we all danced to some very loud Lao/Thai music (the Lao girls have this linedance that they sometimes do, so they tried to teach the falang girls...)
I woke up the next morning for the sunrise on Ek's request - the sky was crystal clear. I then spent the next few hours sleeping in the hammocks and learning how to count with Ek in Vietnamese (it was funny watching the Lao guys trying to communicate with the Vietnamese - now they know how I feel every day!!) before everyone else woke up and we had Vietnamese drip coffee together (strong stuff - needs a lot of sugar!) The day consisted of much of the same relaxing that had happened the day before - except I had a stomachache in the afternoon and so spent most of the evening in bed :-(
The next morning was our outing to the market - I had images of buying lots of lovely shoes and lacquered objects like I did in Hanoi, but it was really just a general purpose market. The most amusing/annoying thing was that all the Vietnamese kept grabbing onto me and touching me - I think my white skin was very different. They're definitely very different to the Lao people in this respect! The afternoon saw us get our Sunlabob photo taken in our new Sunlabob shirts - it was really special to be a part of this, and I really felt like a part of the 'family' in that moment :-)
The next morning I woke up for sunrise again - but only because we were leaving at 6am to go home. We didn't get back to Vientiane until 8pm that night - so we literally spent as much on the bus in the holiday than we did at the beach! But still, I had a great time - not many people would get the opportunity to have a holiday like that, and it was a really good opportunity to get to know my Lao and falang colleagues :-)
In other news, one of the AYAD's who arrived in Laos in March had a bad motorbike accident while I was away and had to be flown to Bangkok and get a toe amputated. It definitely scared me, and reminded me that I have to be far more cautious on my motorbike than I currently am - because things like this can happen in a instant.
One final thing (exciting this time, I promise!) - my roommate from PDT Lisa (the one who lived in New College with Amy and whose first words to me were 'do you have a twin sister?' as I woke up, and who I snuck into the Qantas lounge with at Canberra airport) will be in Vientiane tomorrow, so I will get to catch up with her and all her exciting stories from her AYAD assignment in China. Yippee!!

Sok dee deuh,
Susan

To Vietnam on Tuesday!

2008-07-05T19:26:00.002+10:00

Sa bai dee tuk tuk kun! It's Saturday afternoon, and I am slowly coming down from the heights of annoyance after having to go to work this morning for a 'brief' meeting that resulted in me being at work for 5 hours (namely because the guy we were meeting was an hour and a half late, and then the meeting went forever...) But I should get there soon, and some Skyping with Amy and all her housewarming people (Amy and Jason have moved to Sydney now! Yay!) should cheer me up :-)

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!!

I'll post again very soon to tell you all about Vietnam!

Sok dee deuh,
Susan

It is well with my soul...

2008-06-21T15:02:00.003+10:00

Sa bai dee :-) It's Saturday morning again, Sam is watching AFL and yelling at the television again (and its still not talking to him!), and I'm updating the blog again :-) The only thing that is not normal is that Chris is not here - he's in Cambodia again for work (having found out on Wednesday that he had to leave on Thursday). But he'll be back this afternoon :-)

The last two weeks have seen some very exciting news...........I have been offered a new job for when I arrive home! One of my old uni lecturers, Geoff Stapleton, owns a small company which consults on energy projects in developing countries (predominantly solar, although he wants to diversify), as well as providing training for Australian technicians learning about how to install solar systems and energy efficiency (http://www.gses.com.au). After swapping some e-mails when I first arrived, he expressed interest in offering me work when I arrived home, and recently we started talking seriously about it. We finally come to an agreement this Monday :-) I'm so excited - I get to continue working in this interesting area of work, I've finally found a way to work in solar energy in Australia, I'll be working from home, I'll get to travel from time to time to exciting places, and I don't have to return to EnergyAustralia (even though they have a position waiting for me when I returned, I knew that there were reasons I left in the first place, and it would be hard - almost impossible - to go back). I'm due to start work on November 3. After receiving this news, Chris and I started planning all the details for our return - Chris has lined up his return to work at Connell Wagner, and we've booked our tickets home! We arrive on 6.15 am Wednesday October 15 (the plan is to finish work here at the start of October, have a short holiday in Malaysia, and pack all our stuff up :-)) Although I had difficulty going to sleep the other night thinking about just how different it was going to be when I got home....

The other interesting thing that has happened since my last blog entry is that Adra came to visit :-) She arrived last Thursday morning. In an effort to keep her occupied while we were at work I took her to one of Vientiane's many massage/day spa places, and she spent four hours there being pampered (she needed it, after spending a week in crazy Vietnam!). We took her to Yulala for dinner (our favourite restaurant :-))
Chris and I both got Friday off thanks to some overtime we had put in over the past weeks, so we had a bit of a sleep in and took Adra to Le Benetton for some yummy French bread. I then took Adra for a little shopping at Toun's shop (the girlfriend of one of my colleagues, who has a dressmaking shop and also sells lovely bags and scarfs), and for a quick trip to see That Luang. We then all piled into a sawngthaew and headed out to Ban Pako, an eco-lodge 50 km outside Vientiane, for the night (http://www.banpako.com). After a rather bumpy ride, we arrived - and it immediately started raining. After some food, we settled in on our balcony to while away the afternoon - Adra and Chris almost immediately fell asleep in the hammocks, and I finished my book :-) The night consisted of more food, and watching the various bugs and creatures crawling around (Adra was a bit scared when a gecko decided to land on her head!)
The next morning we had a Lao guide take us for a walk around the jungle and show us a million things that we would have never guessed were useful for something. Then we had a herbal sauna in a little wooden hut set up in the jungle - I'm not usually a fan of saunas (I do enough sweating here without needing a sauna!!) but this was really lovely, the smell of the herbs (freshly picked for us!) was just amazing, a window let natural light in and offered views (until it steamed over!), and when the heat got too much, we just ran outside and jumped into the fresh spring.
After some lunch, we got in a boat and headed to the next village, where we were due to catch the bus back to Vientiane. However, the bus wasn't due for about half an hour, so the Lao guys there immediately started pouring BeerLao down our throats - thankfully a sawngthaew came past and we jumped on, otherwise I would not have been in good shape on the bus (although I should be thankful it wasn't lao lao!) We got home by 5. Dinner was at the creperie, followed by a cocktail at the Jazzy Brick (originally not part of the plan, but it started pouring rain while we were walking around after dinner and it was the closest shelter!)
The next morning we took Adra to Joma for some bagels for breakfast, and showed her Wat Sisaket, the Morning Market and Pataxai (where she had a ride of the SuperCub!) When it came time to take her to the airport, it started absolutely pelting rain (this rainy season is seriously starting to get on my nerves!) so by the time we got there, I was literally dripping and had to go and wring out my clothes (Chris and I then had a couple of days where we thought our phones hadn't survived the trip, but they both came back to life - yay!)
It was lovely to return the favour that Adra showed us at Christmas time and show her around my new home - we are hoping that we might get the chance to hang together in Malaysia before we go back to Australia :-)

The next two weeks doesn't promise too much - but I do know now that I will be going to the beach in Vietnam for our Sunlabob holiday from July 8-12. I can't wait!!!

Sok dee deuh,
Susan

A new motorbike designed for Lao people!

2008-06-20T13:01:00.003+10:00

(This comes courtesy of my colleague Francois)

1) No indicators - because you won't use them.

2) No side mirrors - because you won't use them.

3) Only one handle - because you only need the one with the accelerator on it!

Getting wet ..and a couple of other things...

2008-06-07T21:50:00.003+10:00

Sa bai dee! It’s just a regular Saturday afternoon in Vientiane – I’m writing in my blog, Sam is listening to the AFL over the internet (although he has been sick now ever since his wisdom tooth was removed – I hope that’s not normal!), and we’re taking it easy :-)

The last two weeks have been quite uneventful, although I feel a shift within myself – for the first time since I arrived last October, I don’t have any undercurrents of homesickness. I have found routine and friends here, and while there are still unique frustrations – like not being able to speak Lao! – I have grown used to them and have found ways to cope :-) The other ‘event’ has been the onset of the rainy season – I now get wet pretty much everytime I get on my motorbike. And I’m not talking a few drops – I’m talking absolutely drenched, need-to-wring-out-my-clothes-and-have-a shower-as-soon-as-I-get-in-the-door kind of wet. The first few times it was amusing, and then it got plain annoying – and we have four months of this left! I was so wet when I arrived home one night this week that I raced inside out of the rain – unintentionally leaving the gate unlocked and the keys in my motorbike until the next morning. The only reason I think it wasn’t stolen was because noone wanted to come out in the rain and get it!! But there is an upside to the rainy season – it clears the haze from the air, so the sky looks a brilliant shade of blue and I can see Thailand on the other side of the Mekong quite clearly, like someone has given me glasses. It’s quite beautiful :-)

Other than these non-events, I’ve been up to the following:

Being sick – Chris and I were stricken with a vomiting bug last Sunday and had to take it easy, while I was still recovering from my cold I had caught the week before. I eventually ended up taking a day off work the following Thursday after a particularly nasty bout of dizziness;

Experimenting with chlorine at work, in preparation to launch our integrated village based, solar powered, water purification and bottling system. This has brought me back to what I love about engineering in a development context – problem solving on the ground with limited resources (my days in Nicaragua were also filled with this type of work, and I think that’s where my overwhelmingly positive impressions of development work came from). Sunlabob is going from strength to strength at the moment – having just won two grants worth $200,000 each from the World Bank and UNEP respectively, and attracting tremendous interest – its such an exciting place to work. For example, I found out on Friday that I will be presenting our water purification system to the World Bank’s Director of Gender on Monday afternoon!

Work has also been exciting for Chris – he spent the last week in Cambodia negotiating with Ericcson for Sunlabob to supply components for remote telecommunication applications, a contract worth many million dollars. Of course this meant I was alone, but I kept myself amused by watching DVD’s and getting a pedicure (for 20000 kip, or $2 USD!) with my friend Kaylie :-)

Another exciting event at work – a snake and a gecko squaring off outside my window. Who won? The gecko never had a go, but the snake was killed (apparently it was poisonous..) so I guess you could say the gecko :-)

Going to numerous costume themed parties – for some reason, everyone in Vientiane seems to be jumping on this boat at the moment. We went to a fellow AYAD’s ‘Into the Wild’ birthday party, followed by a random costume party the next week (which was also a farewell party for our friend Tom, who has been working for Sunlabob’s partner – the Lao Institute of Renewable Energy or LIRE - since Chris and I arrived). I was a bit of a party pooper and didn’t dress up for either – too much effort!!!!

Playing touch football – the netball team has now combined with the Lao women’s rugby team training session on Tuesday night to try and attract more people to join the team. I’d never played touch football before so I wasn’t very good!!

Church activities – Chris and I have been elected onto the committee now, so there has been a few meetings to attend. An amusing – and related! - event: last Sunday we went out for our customary lunch after the morning service, and were pestered by someone trying to sell us things while we were eating. After failing to get us to buy watches and a electric massager, he finally pulled out the Viagra! But noone bought that either :-)

Inviligating – for those who don’t know what that word means (I didn’t either) it means supervising an exam. The AYAD crowd were asked to help supervise the Australian Scholarship exams this morning – 700 students sitting a logical thinking/English exam. Only 40 of these will be selected to receive a scholarship to study in Australia – so for these young Lao people, a lot was riding on this test. For me, it was an opportunity to see just what it was like for all those exam supervisors I’ve had over the years (but of course I was nowhere near as mean as them!)

Next Thursday morning Adra arrives for a three day visit – we’re planning to take her to an eco-lodge outside Vientiane for a night :-) So next time I should have some more interesting news!

Sok dee,

Susan

More thoughts about development and life in general...

2008-05-29T20:41:00.003+10:00

Being sick over the last week (I'm not really that sick - but enough to want to be stationary!) has given me some more time to think about the crazy new life I find myself living here (albeit temporarily - at least as far as I know!)
So my new insights:

When I went to Nicaragua in 2002 (where I first caught the development/travel bug - I remember coming back and watching every plane and wanting to be on it, and having an intense hatred for our consumerist lifestyles) I was only there for three weeks - and thought I had just scratched the surface of development work. But after being here for almost eight months, I've realised that I'm still on the surface - because what really enables development work is a knowledge of culture, of language, of customs, of place, and these things take a lifetime to develop. I think I'm showing some of my Generation Y characteristics here - of just wanting to be able to achieve good and great things without having the patience to discover what they are or how to do them (but I think I will find that in any career choice I make...)
A debate I've always had with myself, but has returned due to a conversation last week - what is development actually for? The obvious answer is that development workers want to provide those less fortunate with the opportunities and freedoms we have - like access to medical care, education, shelter, drinking water. But sometimes I think development can cross the border from providing basic human rights to telling people what we think is right - or even instilling Western values in them. Do we really want people to 'develop' to be just like us? At what point does disparity (of incomes, opportunity etc.) become ok - even a matter of choice?? I think these are the questions that a lot of people working in development never ask themselves.
The NGO vs. private company debate has caused me to question human nature. I have heard many people say that NGO's are corrupt (wasting time and funding and shuffling paper around) because they have no profit to motivate them. But this is why NGO's are started (in my understanding) - because of an altruistic idea of helping the less fortunate. Is that not enough of a motivator?? Or only for the people who started the NGO? Meanwhile, the private sector, which is motivated by profit by definition, often scorns projects that aren't money spinners - which usually ends up leaving the poor behind.
Something that concerns me about some development workers I have met is that they have a 'holier than thou' attitude - that this is the only worthwhile thing they could be doing, in fact the only worthwhile thing that anyone could do (I can say this because I used to be there). However - and this is the Christian coming out in me now - I think there's not really anything that anyone can do to make their life any more worthwhile than someone else's. As long as they are not hurting others by what they do (consciously or unwittingly - so its not just drug dealers or murderers I'm talking about here) then people are free to do whatever makes them fulfilled. Essentially, by thinking this, these development workers are saying that all people should be the same and have the same motivations - a ridiculous idea when its stated so clearly.

Any thoughts??

Back to normal life

2008-05-24T15:15:00.003+10:00

Sa bai dee :-) It's early Saturday afternoon, and I'm feeling a bit sick and sorry for myself after managing to catch a cold - I blame it on the weather in northern Laos (but more about that later!)
The first full week back in Vientiane was spent catching up with people and with work. On Sunday after church we headed out to the Nam Ngum River with about 20 other members of the congregation to have lunch on a boat - Chris and I had been here before, but all the boats were booked out last time so we had to settle for the floating restaurant. It was a lovely experience - motoring up the river while feasting on lots of tasty Lao food, and then cutting the engines and floating peacefully back down to our starting point. We watched some Lao fishermen pulling their huge fishing nets out of the water, and then back at the restaurant we watched some crazy Lao boys throwing themselves 20m off a bridge. All in all an entertaining afternoon :-)
I found out on Tuesday that we were welcoming a delegation from Hong Kong during the following week - 25 young professionals who were part of a practical training week (with the GIFT organisation http://www.globalinstitutefortomorrow.org) and would be writing a business plan for Sunlabob - and that I was to be part of the staff that was to help take care of them and answer their questions. Part of this included presenting on Saturday afternoon when they arrived, taking them out to Ban Sor village to visit our systems there on Sunday, and flying up to Phonsavan and taking them to Nam Ka on Monday. I got ready for a very busy week!!
After a few nights of dinner with friends and busy preparation at work, the weekend came around - Sam was back from Australia so we spent Saturday morning catching up with him (yesterday he had a wisdom tooth extracted in the chair after it got infected - so it hasn't been the best month for him!!) I headed to work in the afternoon, greeted the GIFT guys, gave my presentation about solar powered water purification, and then headed out to dinner with them and the other Sunlabob greeting group at a swanky Lao restaurant (which I had never been to before).These guys were at the end of a 3 month orientation program for their new investment banking employer CLSA, who have offices all over the world (GIFT was just running the practical training week) - it was phenomonal talking to them, because after their time in Laos they were all headed to various locations (London, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, you name it...) to start their first 4 month rotation. EnergyAustralia grad program, eat your heart out!! Although I could see that these people were bred to be nice little bankers, which I never want to be... After that we headed to another AYAD's birthday party, but went home early because I had a 6 am start the next day.
Sunday saw us heading out to Ban Sor, a village which I had visited quite a few months ago (and got my first taste of solar powered water purification, which has become my primary project at work). After stopping to see a solar powered village water pump, and a village health post with a solar refrigerator, I took one small group of a tour of the village - to see the water purification unit, the battery lanterns (which just won Sunlabob the World Bank 'Lighting Africa' Development Marketplace Award in Ghana last week - and $200,000! Have a look here http://lightingafrica.org/index.cfm?Page=DM) and the rental systems, and to ask the villagers questions. I learnt a lot that day - it can be really good to get a fresh perspective. For a lot of the GIFT guys, it was a completely new experience and it was good to be able to show them around.
The next day, we got ready to fly up to Phonsavan (where I spent my birthday and first week at Sunlabob last year). However, the weather was so bad in Phonsavan that our flight was delayed...and delayed...and finally cancelled. I thought the whole trip would be cancelled, but the GIFT group decided to send half of their group to Phonsavan the next day, so I still got the chance to go (even if it was now a 24 hour trip instead of 48). Even better, when we got there on Tuesday afternoon it was 3 pm and we couldn't go to Nam Ka, so instead we headed to the Plain of Jars!! These jars are scattered in sites all around Phonsavan, are about 2000 years old, are about one tonne and one metre on average, and have various theories associated with them (e.g. that there were used for burials, or for storing alcohol). I wanted to see them the last time we were in Phonsavan, but didn't really have the chance - so I'm glad I didn't miss out this time!
After that we headed into town (I dropped into the MAG shop again, where they were showing a documentary about cluster bombs and the effect they have had on Laos. Cluster bombs, which are still being used in wars all over the world, break up in mid air and shoot out hundreds of little 'bombies', many of which are lying unexploded all around Phonsavan. They're deliberately made to kill people and not destroy targets, and they're still having that effect in Laos today as people try to salvage them for scrap metal - a tragic combination of poverty and the remnants of a war from 30 years ago...), had some dinner, and then headed back to our classy hotel on the hill overlooking Phonsavan - the GIFT guys were amazed at the view, I don't think they had seen trees and mountains for a long time after being stuck in Hong Kong!
The next morning we headed out to Nam Ka - thankfully the weather had improved so we could drive to the village, although we had to walk the last kilometre because we got bogged trying to come up the last hill. We had a meeting with about 40 villagers, which was great - again I learnt a lot of new things. We showed the guys the village grid (where I tried to explain how everything worked) and then headed back to Phonsavan for our flight home - a short visit, but good nonetheless :-)
Friday we went to Green Park Hotel (the classiest place in Vientiane, where the GIFT guys were staying) to watch their final presentation and business projections. Their suggestions were quite interesting - I was amazed to see some of the profits that they expected Sunlabob to make!! Chris and I came back to have dinner with them at the hotel that night, where they were unwinding from a hard week of work by drinking BeerLao and throwing each other fully clothed into the pool (they also sung a song for us based on their tune 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight', but with Sunlabob-inspired lyrics - very funny :-)) We then took them to the Martini Bar for a bit of salsa dancing - that was all I saw before I headed home :-) It was really great to have them around, they were nice people and hopefully will get some investment for Sunlabob with their business plan - and they made my week at work quite interesting :-)
I'm not too sure what the next few weeks hold other than a visa run and Adra coming to visit for a few days in mid June - another visitor, yay!! It can be a bit difficult to settle back into normal life after such an exciting holiday - I keep daydreaming about more trips in South East Asia - but I'm getting there :-)
Until next time, sok dee,
Susan

Three more weeks of holidays!!!!

2008-05-10T14:34:00.005+10:00

Sa bai dee! It's a rainy Saturday in Vientiane - the wet season has truly arrived :-) Perfect weather to tell you all about the rest of our holiday! I'm actually happier than I expected to be to be back in Vientiane - I'm excited about the next five months here, and its nice to be sitting still for a few minutes (compared to the last few weeks!), although I miss hanging out with Amy and Jason, and Katie and her family :-(
Just before you start reading this epic post, please feel free to check out the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/susieblue (the blog slideshow only allows for 20 new photos - and there are more than that!)
So...where did I leave you? We were just about to fly to Hanoi :-) We left for our 6pm flight at 4.30, four people in the back of a tuk-tuk with a lot of luggage. However we had a moment of panic when we couldn't find Amy and Jason's camera, so we turned the tuk-tuk around and headed home - but it wasn't there either. Eventually we found it...in the bottom of Amy and Jason's backpack :-) We still made our flight with plenty of time :-)
Hanoi was just as I remembered - busy, crazy, people driving around with their hands permanently glued to the horns of their cars. We were amazed to actually have a hotel room (we'd 'booked' with the exact same hotel that turned me away in November saying they had no space, despite having already 'booked' a room). After a rather ordinary dinner down by the lake, we had an early night (no doubt also preceded by a game of 500 or canasta - we did more of this on the holiday than anything else!)
The next morning we first headed to the lake and checked out the temple. However two guys with video cameras decided they wanted to follow us around outside the temple, despite us being in hysterics and wondering aloud why these guys were stalking us (when Chris bought us tickets to the temple, he had one of either side of him!) Eventually they left us alone when we entered the temple :-)
Then we headed to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, which was an amazingly detailed museum which studied pretty much every culture existing in Vietnam. The most impressive part was the outdoor exhibits, which had life size models of various houses. However there is only so much you can read about other cultures in one go, and it started to rain, so we headed back to the hotel and waited for the rain to subside.
In the evening we went to another restaurant on the lake called 'Legends Beer' - I would have thought it was pretty forgettable, but Chris and Jason raved about the beer (which was unique to the restaurant), rating it as the best beer they'd ever had (and probably the best experience of the entire holiday!) After this we headed to the water puppet show, which I thought was pretty unique and special (although any more than a hour and I think I would have got bored!)
The next morning we left for one of the most anticipated legs of our holiday - our 3 day cruise around Halong Bay, which is soon to be voted one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world (which is 3 hours drive from Hanoi). We got there by midday and transferred to our boat - it was pretty amazing, with 8 rooms on the bottom level (each with a view of the bay, hot showers, airconditioning...although we didn't need it!), a restaurant on the second level, and a sun deck on the top level. The bay was amazing - 3000 islands jutting out of the ocean, it felt like you could just get lost in it. In the afternoon we stopped at a floating village (complete with kids rowing over to our boat to sell us Pepsi and Oreos!!!) and jumped in sea kayaks to do some exploring. We went kayaking through caves that brought us out into lagoons that had no other access way - it was incredible. We anchored in a secluded bay that night :-)
The next morning we stopped at a cave, which was nicely lit and had lots of interesting formations inside. The boat then took us to a spot with lots of beaches, and we jumped back in the sea kayaks and did some more paddling. We came back for lunch, where they had set up a table for 8 on a tiny beach which could only be accessed by boat. The sun was out, the food was fresh and yummy...until the water actually started lapping at our feet under the table and we realised the tide was coming in and our beach was disappearing! So we had to leave :-) In the afternoon we went for a 'trek' on one of the islands to visit a couple who lived there by themselves - except it was actually more like rock climbing. We had no idea how difficult it was going to be - I was one of the only people who had worn joggers. We were all pretty glad and sore when this was over!!!
Our last morning on the cruise it was raining, so when they dropped us at a lovely beach we weren't able to appreciate it properly :-( We got back to the port at midday, after a thoroughly enjoyable three days - probably the highlight of the trip for me. Soon we were back in Hanoi - I took Amy to do some shopping (one of the things I like most about Hanoi!) while the boys went and had some more 'Legends Beer'. We all had dinner together at a nice restaurant I had tried back in November.
The next morning was thoroughly bizarre - we went to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. Last time I was in Hanoi, he was hanging out in Russia with his other Communist buddies, so I didn't get to see him, so we thought we'd drop by this time. The whole experience was quite uncomfortable - guards telling you exactly where and when you could walk, walking into the mausoleum which was cold and smelt of nail polish (to keep him preserved...), and then shuffling past this guy in a glass coffin......I was happy to get out. However we weren't allowed to bring our bag with us, so we sent Chris to get it - and then he couldn't get back to where we were without some guard barking at him to turn around. Eventually I went to find him, and he went to find the others, and we agreed to meet in front of the mausoleum...only this time I had guards barking at me and I couldn't get to him. After about two hours of this we were finally all reunited with each other and with our bag...and were determined to get out of Hanoi!!!!
We flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia that afternoon, arriving just before dark. Our hotel was lovely (complete with pool!) so we spent the evening there, washing our clothes, eating and playing some cards.
The next morning we left at the ungodly hour of 5am (with our driver, who took us around all day for $30 - there's a lot to see!) to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was pretty incredible, we saw an amazing sunrise :-) We then spent about five hours wandering around the complex - it's just amazing. Its the largest religious building in the world (initially built as Hindu temples but eventually used as a Buddhist temple - hence the name), built almost a thousand years ago, and virtually every surface had some sort of carving on it. On each outside wall of the temple, there are scenes that are carved in the rock (called bas reliefs) which run for several hundred metres!
Unfortunately the temples are visited by so many tourists that at each one there was a collection of kids waiting to pounce on you when you left and sell you things you didn't want. I was pretty impressed by their knowledge of different languages and of Australia, and also of their manipulative techniques, but I never bought anything. I got very sick of hearing 'ten for one dollar' (although I had to laugh when I told one kid I wanted nothing, and he shot back with 'ten dollars for nothing' :-))
After our time at Angkor Wat, we were pretty stuffed, so we grabbed some brunch and went back to the hotel to relax in the pool and watch the hottest hours of the day go by. In the afternoon we headed to Ta Prohm, where Angelina Jolie was filmed in Tomb Raider. This temple was amazing for it had been left mostly as it was when it was discovered, and so was slowly been crushed by many ancient trees, which had grown all over the top of the rocks. After a few hours here, we headed to Phnom Bakheng (a temple on a hill) to watch the sunset over Angkor Wat, but the weather meant there was no sun to see :-( Dinner was during happy hour at the Foreign Correspondent's Club (which we had also visited in Phnom Penh).
The next morning we slept in, and then went to the new Angkor National Museum. This was really good, because it gave us a background to what we had seen the day before. There certainly are a lot of Hindu gods!!! In the afternoon we went to Bayon, which has more than 200 faces carved into its towers - pretty amazing. We did some more wandering around other temples of Angkor Thom (the ancient city in which Bayon is located) but it started to rain so we headed back to our hotel. That night we headed to a buffet and dancing show recommended by our driver - I found the Khmer dancing to be quite clever and entertaining, and there was so much food!!!!!!!
The next day we got up again to watch the sunrise in a different location, only we were foiled by bad weather :-( We spent the morning exploring several lesser known temples - Bantrey Krei (where the sun finally appeared!), Preah Khan, Pre Rup, Ta Som, and Ta Keo (this was the tallest of all the temples, and the steps were seriously scary and dangerous!) Our flight to Bangkok left in the afternoon. Exploring the Angkor temples was another one of the highlights of the trip - there were still so many that we didn't see (although I think we might have got temple overload!)
We were all very tired when we got to Bangkok, so we checked into our hotel and didn't venture out except to check our email for the rest of the day. I was getting a bit exhausted by pushy salespeople and totally insane traffic, and Bangkok wasn't going to be any exception....
We left early the next morning for another highly anticipated part of the trip (for me anyway) - our trip to the Death Railway, which my grandfather had survived through despite truly appalling conditions as a POW in WWII. First we stopped at the war cemetery, where over 5000 prisoners of war were buried - it was Anzac Day just the week before, so the memorial was still covered in wreathes. Then we visited the Bridge over the River Kwai and walked across it - not an easy experience for someone afraid of heights! After this we went to the train station and caught the train along the railway - 100 kilometres of the 400 km railway are still operational. We caught the train for two hours, and then stopped for a lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the river - and a 400m wooden bridge built by the POW's during a three week period (which we also walked along after lunch). We were then driven to Hellfire Pass - while constructing the railroad, many cuttings through rock had to be made, and were often built simply by POW's hacking at the rock with rudimentary tools, and placing dynamite inside. Hellfire Pass got its name because often the POW's had to work at night, and the sights of their emanicated bodies working by firelight literally looked like hell. The pass was built in 12 weeks, with huge casualties. We explored the museum here, which was set in an beautiful location - one of the boards here mentioned the rescue of my grandfather and other POW's by American submarines after the ship taking them to Japan was torpedoed. Then we walked through the pass itself, which also had many tributes from Anzac Day still present. We headed back to Bangkok just before sunset - it was an amazing journey for me and Amy, I just wished that I knew more of my grandfathers story so I could have played tribute to his achievements in particular.
We ordered pizza in our hotel room in Bangkok that night - it tasted truly terrible. Maybe I'm just used to getting nice take away pizza here in Vientiane!!!
The next day we took things nice and easy, with a late breakfast and some cards before we finally had to check out. We went to Wat Phra Kaew (despite being totally sick of temples and Buddhas, and despite having a taxi driver who seemed determined to take us somewhere else and eventually dropped us in the wrong place!) to see the Emerald Buddha - which lived in Vientiane until about 250 years ago. This was a lovely temple complex (although we had to borrow clothes in order to wear head to toe coverings!!!) After this, we went to get a late lunch on Khao San Road - the backpacker headquarters in Bangkok, full of dazzling lights, signs, people selling illegal documents, and guesthouses. We went to a place called Susie Pub (yay!)
We caught our flight to Ko Samui at 8.30 that night (after a few more hours hanging out in the Bangkok Airways lounge). Halong Bag, Angkor Wat, and the Death Railway were highly anticipated - but they had nothing on this. We spent most of our holiday talking about how awesome it would be when we got to Ko Samui and spent 5 days in the most amazing villa possible, overlooking the ocean, and with its own pool, and spent time with Katie, Rob, Benji and Lilly.
We weren't disappointed. We stayed up until midnight when we arrived swapping stories with Katie and Rob (they had spent the previous week in Phuket). The next morning I was woken up by my adorable niece Lilly, who immediately went and jumped into the pool with her Auntie Amy :-) After a long shop at Tesco's in town, we were all in the pool - and that night, a Thai chef we had hired for the evening came and cooked us a feast!
The next day, Amy, Jason, Chris and I left Katie and the kids behind and went for a snorkelling trip to Ko Tao, an island about two hours from Ko Samui by boat. We first stopped at Ko Nangyuan, just off the coast of Ko Tao, which was a lovely spot with a white sand strip joining three small islands.
This was where the comedy of errors begun. Amy took her rings off after remembering how Bryce had lost his wedding ring snorkelling in Fiji, and put them in the camera case. Jason went walking and taking photos later, and dropped all by Amy's wedding ring on some rocks. After lunch, Jason went to search for the rings, foregoing his chance to go snorkelling with us off the coast of Ko Tao in the afternoon. We were just boarding the boat again when Jason showed up with a big grin on his face - he had managed to find both of the rings he had dropped. So we all went snorkelling again happily.
We were all boarding the boat to leave our second snorkelling spot (the snorkelling was altogether quite disappointing - I had to swim a long way to find any fish sometimes, and I managed to get sunburnt!) when Jason saw someone jump off the top of the boat into the ocean. He asked me if I dared him to do it, I said yes, and got the camera ready to take the photos as he jumped in....For the next ten minutes, him, Chris and a few others looked for his glasses, which had been on his face when he jumped, but they were gone forever. It was funny looking back through the photos of him jumping off :-)
The next day Katie, Amy and I checked out the shopping along Chaweng Beach (the most famous beach on the island) while Chris went for a swim (Chris didn't rate it that highly though, and neither did I when I saw it - we have some pretty awesome beaches in Sydney!) We went for dinner that night at a seafood restaurant - where you pick your own fish fresh off the ice and tell them how you would like them to cook it :-)
On our fourth day on Ko Samui we didn't even leave the villa - we were completely in chill out mode :-) We had 250 DVD's to choose from, I managed to read all of Alex Garland's 'The Beach'
(a cult novel about finding new travel utopias in Thailand), we had lots of card games to play, a pool to swim in (although it had turned a disturbing shade of green after some vengeful Thai pool cleaners sabotaged it...) and food to eat...
On our final day on the island Katie and Rob took Benji and Lilly to ride the elephants, while we went to check out a beach on the western side of the island - a beautiful beach, but there appeared to be little stingers/jellyfish in the water so we didn't swim for very long. We had our final meal together in Chaweng at Rice - an Italian restaurant :-)
It was pretty sad to leave Ko Samui the next day -knowing that our awesome holiday had come to an end, knowing that I wouldn't see my family again for another five months, and knowing I had to go back to work the next day after 4 and a half weeks off! Thank you Katie and Rob for saying yes to coming to Thailand - we had a lovely time with you and the kids, and I think we should definitely do it again :-) And a big big thank you to Amy and Jason - you were perfect travelling partners, we had such a great time seeing all these cool things with you!! :-)
We arrived back in Vientiane that night at about 9 - to find that one of the bolts on the front door had slipped into its hole and we were locked out :-( After an hour of trying to break the door down, we eventually managed to pull out our Swiss army knife and pull the bolt out of the hole from the bottom of the door using a pair of pliers - finally getting in. It felt very MacGyver (we even had a piece of string going at one time!)
The first two days at work have been good - I feel ready for the task, even though there's still plenty of things to do before I leave in October :-) I'm taking things easy at the moment, just trying to get used to life here again :-)
Well, it's taken me a good two hours to write this - if you've gotten this far, congratulations! I promise that from now on I'll be writing more regularly (especially considering I have no money to do anything now!) One final request - please keep your thoughts and prayers with our flatmate Sam, who has returned to Australia briefly after a death in his family.

Sok dee,
Susan

An Extended Description of the Vientiane Water Park

2008-05-08T16:32:00.004+10:00

Thinking it would be a good way to spend a hot afternoon in Vientiane with Amy (Susan’s sister) and Jason (her husband), we went to the Vientiane Water Park. Upon arriving, we found that the parking area for motorbikes is a rough patch of ground 100m from the entrance. To get to the entrance you had to walk along the edge of a large, foul-smelling open drain (no fences).

When we entered the water park, we wandered around trying to find the change rooms. They were eventually pointed out to us behind the building, out of the way and un-signposted.

This was the location of my first unexpected and notable experience at the water park: Just as I was about to use the urinal, which was right next to the door, and middle aged Lao lady walked in, stared at me for a bit, and proceeded to wander around the men’s change room. After 30 seconds or so, when it seemed like she had no intention of leaving, I decided that I didn’t really need to go to the toilet after all and went to the slides.

There were 3 types of slides: A slide that goes down, then up (so you come back down again backwards, then get out), a twisting “regular” sort of slide, and a straight speed slide. We decided all to try the first one, took a mat and went to the top.

Amy, for some reason that we couldn’t then comprehend, wasn’t allowed to, but had to use the twisting slide. We later worked out that she had the wrong coloured strip of fabric underneath her mat. (These colour strips were not shown or explained anywhere.)

Jason, Susan and I went to use the down-up-down slide. The staff there showed us how to lie on the mat (i.e. headfirst only, with some mysterious angle at which the front of the mat should be held) and the held our ankles to push us down the first part of the slide. This was a necessary service since the first few metres were decidedly un-slippery.

This slide was pretty good, but when we got to the bottom we found that Amy had hurt her jaw on the way down the twisting slide. Thinking that she was being a sook, we all tried it for ourselves and were thoroughly thrown around, bashed against the sides, and dumped unceremoniously in the pool at the bottom with limbs flailing in all directions. That all three of us escaped uninjured was a miracle.

Looking to the final slide, I suggested that not even Lao safety standards could make a dead straight slide dangerous. The kids on it all seemed to be doing OK, so Susan, Jason and I went to this final slide.

After another instruction in how to hold her mat (Susan’s instructor adjusted the angle of the front of her mat 8-10 times, all within a 10 degree arc, before unaccountably settling with a position that had been unacceptable the previous four times), we were again gripped by the ankles and pushed down the slide.

The first half was fine.

On the second half, Susan somehow injured her elbow. It was not serious, but she had restricted movement in that elbow for 2-3 days afterwards.

Additionally, on account of several pieces of foam that were placed about halfway down the slide to act as speed bumps and slow us down*, Jason and I strongly recommend against the use of this slide by all uncastrated males.

Final toll:
- One sore jaw
- One sore elbow, restricted movement
- Two potential sterilisations
- Four unsatisfied customers

* The speed bumps, while painful, were insufficient to prevent me hitting the end of the slide with some force.

Three weeks of holidays!!!

2008-04-21T14:13:00.004+10:00

Sa bai dee!!! I'm writing from Vientiane, only this time it's a brief stop in the middle of my 5 week holiday!!!!!!!!! Its been really great so far - since it's been three weeks since I last wrote I probably can't remember everything in as much detail as I usually do, but I'll try :-)
The last week at work was a real struggle - just hanging in until holidays started. We had some guests from Singapore towards the end of the week who we signed a distribution agreement with for electric fencing material - they were quite old and entertaining English characters, not what I expected!! We went 20 minutes outside Vientiane to LIRE's Jatropha field and set up a trial electric fence, which was lots of fun (except for the heat - it is really hot now!!)
Chris and I also had a small party at our house on Thursday night to see off a few people that were leaving Laos whilst we were on holidays -always a sad thing to do, but it seems to be a part of life here in the expat community. We went with the international food theme again - the Germans are always good at participating with this!
Saturday night saw us leaving for Australia - I was so excited that I couldn't sleep and spent most of the day sitting around watching the clock :-) We flew to Bangkok at about 10pm, and had an eight hour stopover - so we decided to check into a dayroom at the airport. Only hoping for some sort of horizontal surface that wasn't a collection of chairs to sleep on, we instead got a fully fledged hotel room, complete with bathroom, computers, TV and king sized bed, complete with view of people wandering around just outside the window - for the hefty price of $200US for six hours. I slept like a baby :-) We arrived back home at 8pm on Sunday night to a reception from Mum and Dad and Rosie and Bryce :-)
It was a bit bizarre being home at first - getting around everywhere in cars on the left hand side of the road, the cost of everything, the neatness and predictability of people, houses and traffic - but it didn't take long before I felt normal again :-) We filled our time before Robbie's wedding by going to Rosie and Jimbo's graduation (yay!), flying down to Albury for a brief catch up with Chris' family, seeing Rosie and Bryce's new house, eating and shopping and hanging out with my parents and my sister's family, having high tea at the Sofitel with my friend from church in Kirribilli (yum!), lunch at uni with PhD buddies, breakfast in the city - basically food with people!!! Chris spent Thursday and Friday doing wedding related things with the boys, so I amused myself :-)
Saturday was Robbie and Sandy's wedding in Wilberforce (near Windsor) - Amy and I spent the morning dolling ourselves up at Mum's flat (Katie lent me a dress, and I bought some killer - literally - purple shoes to go with it!) and then headed out. The boys (especially Chris and Jason!) looked exceedingly dashing in their suits with knee length coats, and Robbie and Sandy looked esctatic to be finally getting married. It was great to catch up with some of our closest friends - even though our lives have all changed so much since we were at uni together, we still spend all our time together laughing :-) The reception was in Belmore in the evening - we ended up back at Mum's flat just after midnight.
Sunday we had a huge family breakfast (considering the whole Berry family was actually in Sydney - a very rare occasion! Although it won't be so rare if Amy and Jason move back this year....) and spent the afternoon hanging out with the family preparing to come back to SE Asia.
We boarded our plane to Bangkok at 9pm - it was simultaneously sad to be leaving knowing I wouldn't be back again for another six months, and exciting to be leaving for holidays with my sister and brother-in-law!! :-)
We arrived at Bangkok very early in the morning, and were lucky enough to be flying with Bangkok Airways to Luang Prabang in the afternoon - which meant we got to hang out in their lounge for a few hours. We were all very exhausted, sleeping on the chairs, doing puzzles, and occasionally getting up to play with the internet.
We arrived in Luang Prabang in northern Laos (the ancient capital city) at about 3pm - to absolute chaos. Lao New Year (Pii Mai) had begun the day before - this is the Buddhist New Year, and is usually characterised by cleansing with water - although now it has evolved to a full-on, three day long massive water fight (appropriately timed, because April is the hottest month in Laos). Our taxi got drenched a few times on the way to the hotel, and we were only out of the car for about two minutes before we were also drenched. Being so tired, we were all a bit confused and grumpy, and so avoided the water throwing as much as possible before we went to bed!
The next day, with 12 hours sleep behind us, we were ready to explore. We visited Luang Prabang's most famous temple, Wat Xieng Thong, before settling in a cafe to watch the New Year Parade (a safe spot to avoid the water throwing!) We ventured out after a few hours to climb to Phu Si, the temple on a mountain in the middle of the city (being drenched in the process!) - the views were amazing. We enjoyed Happy Hour at the bar across the road after 5 (something we enjoyed so much we went back every day!) We visited the night market in the evening and did a bit of shopping.
Wednesday we went outside Luang Prabang for a truly awesome experience - elephant riding! Two of our fellow AYAD's who we had run into during our travels around Luang Prabang also came along. It was a bit scary and wobbly to start with (especially with Chris as our mahout - who is the one who directs the elephant!) but after awhile we started to enjoy it :-) After a yummy lunch we started on a three hour trek to a Khmu village - a quite crazy thing considering that it was about 40 degrees. The scenery was amazing and the village very interesting - but when we finally got back to the river to catch the boat back to the elephant camp, we were all very glad!!
Thursday we took it easy - visiting Tat Kuang Si, an amazing waterfall about 30 kms outside Luang Prabang with crystal clear, cool swimming pools. In the afternoon we had a massage and did some more shopping. Friday we checked out, only to find that the Royal Palace Museum which we had planned to visit was closed for the morning - so we settled into a cafe and played 500 for a few hours until it opened :-) After about a hour and a half wandering through this (as far as I know, the royal family was killed with the communist revolution in 1975 - so it was fascinating seeing what life used to be like) we went back to the cafe for some icecream (the weather was seriously hot!), then shuffled onto our happy hour bar before going to catch our plane to Vientiane :-)
We took Amy and Jason on a abbreviated tour of Vientiane on Saturday - going to Wat Si Saket (the temple with lots of Buddhas), That Luang (the Golden Stupa), That Dam, and Pataxai (the 'Arc du Triomphe'), with plenty of breaks for food and drink along the way (unfortunately lots of my favourite restaurants were closed for Lao New Year, so they got a somewhat downgraded food tour!) We watched sunset over the Mekong with cheese before heading out for some French food :-)
Sunday we all went to our church in the morning, which has changed a little with the temporary departure of our CMS-UK missionary friends. We had lunch with the congregration, then headed to Vientiane's brand new water park, complete with slides - something that we had been looking forward to for awhile. But after Amy bruised her jaw, I hurt my arm (the other one from when I fell off my bike!), the boys almost became sterile, and we all almost lost our swimmers, we decided the place was far too dodgy to hang around, and so we were out of there in an hour!!! To top it off, a ant bit me on the side of the eye later in the afternoon, causing my eye to swell up to match my arm (don't worry Mum, they're getting better!!!) So we spent the afternoon chilling out at home, before dinner in town and a martini at the Jazzy Brick bar :-)
Chris and I are in the process of packing for the rest of the trip while Amy and Jason are at a Lao cooking class, so I had best help out :-) We are off to Hanoi tonight (including a three day cruise on Halong Bay), then Siem Reap (aka Angkor Wat), then Bangkok, then Ko Samui (where we meet up with Katie and her family for five days of beach filled fun!) so I won't be back for another three weeks - but there will be plenty of stories!!! (and photos!)
Until then, sok dee!!!
Susan

Thoughts about development...

2008-03-30T21:22:00.004+11:00

'Always worth it
If only to realise
Not always perfect
But somehow deserving of time...'
Sarah Blasko, Always Worth It

I don't spend too much time on the blog talking about work, because most of the time I would much rather talk about other things I have been doing :-) However, work is the real reason I came here (possibly the last time I make a decision solely based on work...) and it deserves a little more time. I have gone from being an electrical engineer in a massive government owned company in Australia to a photovoltaic/electrical/whatever goes engineer in a small private company that works in development in Laos - a significant change!!!!
So what do I think about this change? In particular, what do I think about working in development?

Development is a vocation, not a job. Even in your time away from work, you are thinking and talking about it - its hard to avoid considering that the vast majority of the foreigners working in Laos are here for exactly this reason. I've taken my previous separation between work and play for granted - I found now that they have merged, and that is a struggle for me. But in a way, it has to be like this - after all, we are trying to improve people's lives, and you really have to think about this very hard, because bad moves can have bad consequences. The World Bank thought they were doing a good thing in Bangladesh when they drilled thousands of wells - now people are dying of arsenic poisoning.
Just like any job, development requires a special type of personality. You have to be willing for your job to be a vocation, for a start - you need to have the passion to be able to think and talk about development all the time. You need to be very patient and able to try things over and over again - after all, you could be introducing completely foreign ideas. You need to be able to plan and think about every action you take. A desire to lose yourself in a new culture and language helps too.
I don't think I am this type of person. I'm a terrible planner, I've discovered :-) I'm also not very good with learning new languages, and not good at focussing at anything for a long period of time. I also have things that I would like to achieve on a personal level, and I don't know how an involvement in development would allow for that - it really feels to me like its an all-or-nothing thing. But here comes a dilemma - if I have found something where I feel I can really contribute and improve people's lives, how can I walk away from that for the sake of my own personal desires? Hmmm....
Development has just as many conflicts of opinion as anything else. There seems to be a split between the ideologies of non-government organisations (NGO's) and private companies, which is to be expected. I have found some people dismiss the private sector almost without question, because of the whole 'money' aspect - which infuriates me no end, because it seems like a very ignorant way to think. However I do think that when I arrived I was 'hooked' on my bosses philosophy to development - that the private sector is the only way to ensure sustainability (don't you love buzz words!) - maybe because he is such a forceful personality. In recent weeks, I am starting to see more of the NGO's point of view - that every move you make must be justified and recorded and evaluated and monitored (particularly in regard to my own water purification project). Is there a middle ground?

Please feel free to ask me any questions, I don't know if these thoughts are completely clear! I'd like to know what you think :-)

Sok dee,
Susan

7 days until I see Sydney again....

2008-03-30T19:31:00.005+11:00

Sa bai dee!!!! The title of this blog should give a good indication of my state of my mind at the moment - counting down the days until holidays and until I can see my family, friends and my home again :-) I'm in that state of mental exhaustion at the moment - which I'm sure you have all experienced when it is time for a holiday - where I barely have the reserves left to push through another week. Thankfully I can see the light at the end of the tunnel :-)
Let me start my last blog entry before I am back in Australia :-) The last few weeks have been very hectic from every angle - starting from the day after Julie left. Chris spent the day preparing his sermon for the next day, while I spent the afternoon endeavouring to make unbaked cheesecake for Deb's birthday - thankfully it turned out ok! Cooking here is much more of an adventure than I am used to :-)
On Sunday morning Chris gave his sermon (a combined Palm Sunday/Good Friday service, since Good Friday is not celebrated in Laos) to the biggest congregation we have seen since we started going to this church. It went very well - you know when ministers ask if you are 'theologically trained' that you're onto something!!! Sunday night we went around to Deb's to indulge in some pizza and Summer Heights High viewing (Deb had got herself a copy of the DVD - the series hadn't finished when we left Australia). It was nice to enjoy some good Aussie humour!!!!
Monday night, after our Lao lesson, we headed to the French festival which had just started on the banks of the Mekong with our friend from church, Kaylie. I was pleasantly surprised - there was music and dancing, random strange drama and painting, a wine bar and food stalls (I ate from everyone!), movies on a large screen, boules. It's not often something this exciting happens in Vientiane! So we sat around all night eating and enjoying the entertainment.
Tuesday night was our dinner with the new AYAD's - 18 of them, who will all be staying in Vientiane, asking the same questions I was asking when I arrived, and looking just as dazzled and confused. It was strange feeling like I was more experienced about life in Laos, and realising that I had actually been here for five months. They all seemed very lovely, and I continued to run into them all throughout the week (they weren't hard to spot - they were often wandering around in big groups!!) I hope I've made 18 new friends :-)
Wednesday night saw me at netball - which has now moved from Sunday night to Wednesday night in order to attract more people, which it seems to have done. Its very hard to exercise in this heat (at least, thats what I keep telling myself - I've become very lazy since I arrived here!) so we ran for a little while, drank water for a little while, ran for a little while etc. :-)
Thursday night one of our friends from church held a Passover service and dinner at her house - obviously a Jewish tradition, but with a Christian spin. I'd never been to one before so I thought I'd see what it was like :-) It was very interesting - a lot of tradition involved e.g. the food you eat, when you eat them etc. I made a macaroni cheese pasta bake at Kaylie's house (another person I have discovered with an oven! Hooray!) This night we also had an enormous storm that hit - at 4.30 in the morning. It sounded like it was happening right above our roof. We all ran around in our pyjamas, half awake, closing windows, trying to stop water pouring in, assessing damage.....it was very hard to get back to sleep with all the noise, so I was very tired the next morning :-)
Friday night Jane (our friend from CBTB) arrived - although her flight was delayed by about 6 hours, which was a real pain! So we took her home to get some sleep with promises of an exciting weekend :-) Which is exactly what we had.....Saturday morning we went to the yummy French bakery for breakfast, then showed Jane That Dam (the stupa that was meant to protect Vientiane from the Siamese but didn't succeed!), Wat Sisaket (the oldest temple in Vientiane - most were destroyed by the Siamese - and it is packed to the rafters with about 8000 Buddhas!!!), Talat Sao (the Morning Market - Jane did her souvenir shopping), Haw Pha Kaew (the former home of the Emerald Buddha, which now lives in Bangkok), Pataxai (Vientiane's Arc du Triomphe), and That Luang (the Golden Temple). All that walking made us tired, so we stopped for a massage, then raced home to watch the sunset over the Mekong behind our house. Then we went for some good Lao tucker down by the river, and finished with a visit to the French festival, which was having it's last night (and it seemed like most of Vientiane had showed up for it!) We all collapsed into bed at about eleven after that huge day :-) Although another massive storm hit that night, so we were sleep deprived again....
The next day was much more sedate - we went to church in the morning for Easter Sunday, then had dumplings for lunch, did some exploring along the Mekong 'beach', then took Jane to pack and off to the airport. Jane flew to Luang Prabang at about 6 - it was great to have her around for the weekend, we had a lot of fun, plus it was really good to chat, catch up on what is happening at home, and get a perspective outside of our own on how life in Laos is affecting and changing us. Plus we appreciated the stock up in our chocolate supplies!!!!!!!!!!
This last week has proven to me just how exhausted I am and how much I need a holiday - work was really crazy, we hosted a big Water Purification Expo in our workshop which David and I had organised and ran, plus we're applying for some funding to continue our water purification work, Chris put together a massive tender for Sunlabob to construct some remote telecommunications...it has really sapped our energy. Consequently this week was nowhere near as interesting outside work :-) Monday night we had our Lao lesson, followed by watching the rest of Summer Heights High - classic stuff!! So reminscent of school.... Tuesday night Chris and I took it easy and tried to recover our energy. Wednesday we went to our bible study group (one of the CMS missionaries here and his family are about to go back to the UK, so we are trying to spend lots of time with them before they leave), Thursday night we had a massage as I got over the expo, and Friday night Chris took me out for a lovely French dinner to celebrate the end of the week!!! Yesterday didn't help us reenergise either, as we ran around in the heat trying to get things done before we leave next weekend - we ended up picking fights with each other all day! But thankfully last night was better - Philippa and Samuel invited us over for a candlelit Earth Hour BBQ. We contributed by bringing along one of Sunlabob's battery lantern prototypes to add to the light :-) (although I left the lights on at home..it's a good way to deter home invaders!)
I really can't believe that I'll be coming home next weekend, and will be on holidays, and will see all the people that I've been missing and who mean so much to me. Chris and I arrive home on Sunday night (April 5) at 8pm, spend a week with our families and friends and (in Chris' case) preparing for Robbie' wedding, go to the wedding on the following Saturday (April 12) then fly out with Amy and Jason the next night to travel around SE Asia for three and a half weeks!!!! It doesn't get much better than that :-)
I imagine I'll write again in three weeks with many many stories - until then, sok dee!!!!!!!
Susan

Fun and games with Julie!

2008-03-15T20:05:00.004+11:00

Sa bai dee! It's a hot Saturday in Vientiane and I'm taking it easy after an awesome but exhausting week with Julie! :-)
Let's start from the start. Julie arrived last Friday afternoon after taking the long way through Darwin, Singapore and Bangkok. We took her out for crepes on Friday night (one of the best meals in Vientiane!) and then let her get some rest :-)
Saturday morning saw us boarding the local bus to Vang Vieng, a picturesque small town on the banks of the Nam Song river three hours north of Vientiane. Vang Vieng is the heart of the backpacker scene in Laos - but all I had seen of it until now was amazing, jagged limestone mountains (from the bus heading to northern Laos on my work trip way back in October). We sat on plastic chairs in the aisle (a bus is not full here until the aisle is also full!) for most of the trip, but it didn't bother us because we were too busy catching up :-)
We arrived in Vang Vieng at midday and headed to our bungalows on the river - complete with bathtub, which I was rapt about. After some food, we headed to Tham Jang, a large cave within walking distance. After climbing about 200 steps to the entrance and exploring inside (the cave is electrically lit) we found the main cavern where there is a viewing point out across the town - very pretty :-) We then went swimming in the cave - this was pretty incredible too (Lao people like to swim in their clothes though, so to be respectful I did the same...then had to walk around with wet clothes for another hour...I felt like I spent the whole weekend in wet clothes!) We went home, had a shower and headed out for dinner...at least, until Chris fell into a hole in the footpath. It seems like the concrete here is fairly bad quality/people like to steal parts of it, so there is often holes in the footpath, but it was dark and we didn't see this one. Chris cut up his leg fairly well :-( It was rather amusing a few days later to see that someone had put a stick with a plastic bag on it in the hole to alert people to its presence!!! Dinner also took a very long time, so it wasn't such a good evening :-(
Sunday morning we headed out of town to a collection of caves. The first one, Tham Sang (Elephant Cave) had an interesting elephant like stalactite, and a rather ugly Buddha (Julie said she has Buddha overload after Laos!) The next two, Tham Loup and Tham Hoi, were shown to us by a Lao guide - apparently Tham Hoi extends 7 km into the mountain and has claimed the life of one tourist in recent years who got lost inside (hence the requirement for guides now!) We headed to the nearby organic farm after this for some famous mulberry pancakes - this is also the starting point for tubing down the river (which is the main backpacker activity!) so we figured we could get a tube here. But no...all the tubes are in fact in town, so we headed back to Vang Vieng, got a tube, and came back :-) Chris didn't come due to his leg :-(
Tubing was a bizarre, surreal experience....we could hear loud music as we headed down the river, but didn't know what lay ahead. Then we rounded the corner...and saw massive bars alongside the river, full of young, white backpackers wearing next to nothing, Chilli Peppers music blaring, huge structures where people were swinging into the river. I couldn't believe it...such a beautiful place, transformed into simply a place to get drunk and stoned. It was rather disturbing....Jules and I finished that trip rather quickly (plus it was getting cold in the water!)
Monday we chose to come back to Vientiane via a kayaking trip on the Nam Lik river (it was a public holiday thanks to International Womens Day!) Despite our best efforts to keep Chris from getting his wound wet, he capsized a few times in the rapids :-( Meanwhile, Jules and I zigzagged up the river - we made kayaking look hard!! We came to a large rapid and Chris and I decided to try it together. We watched everyone else go over successfully...then we promptly capsized and floated off down the river (thankfully rescued by our tour guides!) Lunch was on the rocks next to the large rapid, then we did some more kayaking, stopped to let some people chuck themselves off a high rock (I didn't try this one!) and then caught a sawngthaew back to Vientiane and took Julie to dumplings for dinner :-)
Tuesday it was back to work - the boss was back this week, but I didn't experience the same increase of motivation I did last time - I think I'm just getting frustrated and need my holiday (just three weeks now!) to refresh me and get me excited about my job again. We took Julie to our favourite bakery for breakfast :-) and then for a massage in the evening to iron out the kayaking kinks (unfortunately it wasn't very good!) and our favourite Japanese restaurant (Julie says she will remember Laos for its food!!!) Julie saw most of Vientiane during the day! We returned home that night to no water - for some reason half of Vientiane had their water turned off (I was told it could have been due to water shortages because we are approaching the end of the dry season).
Julie went on a day trip to the national park the next day. Thankfully she arrived home just in time to enjoy cheese and wine with us on the banks of the Mekong as the sun was setting :-) Then we headed off for some Lao food for dinner, and to a French restaurant for creme brulee for dessert :-) Thankfully that night the water was back on (not a moment too soon - the weather is starting to get very hot now...)
Thursday I got an early reprieve from work and Julie and I headed to a guesthouse that runs short Lao cooking classes. We chose to cook laap (the quintessential Lao dish), papaya salad and fried spring rolls. We headed off to the market with our teacher to shop for the food, then came back, donned our aprons and started cooking. I was amazed at how simple Lao food is to cook (although Jules and I didn't do much except chop a few things every now and then!) Then we ate all our creations for dinner - it was the best Lao food I've ever had, so fresh and tasty, and made with that extra special ingredient, love! We had another massage after this (much much better this time!), Julie bought me a present (to go with the Vegemite, Tim Tams and c.d she had already brought from Australia for me!) and we met Sam for some more crepes :-)
Friday we gave Julie a final hurrah by going to the bakery again for breakfast, and she jetted off to Nepal for a three week trek at lunchtime. It was lovely to have her here, Julie has such an infectious smile!!!! :-) But I was so exhausted by Friday night that I ate Vegemite on bread for dinner, watched Sex and the City for a few hours and then crawled into bed :-)
The next week promises to be interesting as well - tomorrow Chris is giving a sermon at church, on Tuesday the next bunch of AYADs arrive, and on Friday Jane arrives for a weekend in Vientiane. I will try not to count down to my holiday too much during the rest of my time!!

Nok jork,
Susan

Two days before Julie arrives....

2008-03-05T17:54:00.002+11:00

Sa bai dee!! I want to start by assuring everyone who reads this (how many people that is I'm not sure!) that I am doing fine - when I wrote my last post I was feeling particularly down about life in Laos. However I feel like the cloud has lifted and that everything - work, friendships, adapting - is going much better. I have a lot of things to look forward to in the next two months - Julie arrives in two days (yay!!!! And we have a long weekend this weekend! So we are off to Vang Vieng :-)), Jane arrives in three weeks, and I am on holidays at the start of April (including a week in Australia - I am so excited!!)
Before I tell you about the last two weeks, I'll tell you two unusual places you can see me (other than Facebook or on this blog..):
1) http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/20/1203467158750.html - I had a rather amusing experience while taking sleeping pills a few years ago. The sleeping pill (Stilnox) is getting some bad press in Australia at the moment, so I thought I'd share my story with the SMH...and then they decided to share it with everyone.
2) http://www.youtube.com/susiebluec - During the last month, I've spent some of my spare time putting together a video for my church in Sydney to let them know about life in Laos (I always like to have some little creative project to do....) I've finally finished it and put it up on YouTube - please feel free to watch! I've really been blown away from the response so far - its so good to know that people are thinking about us and praying for us at home, just like we are doing for them here.
So what's been happening?? Well, just after I last wrote, we attended our second function at the Australian ambassador's residence, this time for the Lao students who had been fortunate enough to win scholarships to study in Australia. This one wasn't attended by half of Laos (unlike the Australia Day party) so there was plenty of room for us to move around and talk to people - Chris introduced me to lots of his maths and chemistry students at Vientiane College. I also wore my new pretty peacock sinh set to me by Julie in Pakse :-)
The following Friday night was a treat - I spotted in the paper that there was a classical trio playing at the French Cultural Centre for 10000 kip (the equivalent of US$1), something I've never seen before in Vientiane. So Chris and I went along and heard some lovely Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart...and then four encores!!
Carrying on with the French theme, Chris took me out to the most expensive French restaurant in town on the following Saturday night. I relished my french onion soup and my pile of dessert (for some reason I got three different desserts...but one of them was creme brulee, thank God. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmm...) but after that I could barely move...
Sunday was a BBQ at Nishan's house (an extremely belated housewarming). I got in and cooked a cake again - this time mudcake. This was dangerous because everyone could smell chocolate cake as soon as they arrived, and when the children were offered a piece, everybody went for it, even though dinner was ready yet. I was lucky to get some!
I couldn't sleep after the party because of a migraine, which I think was brought on by dehydration. Finally I got rid of the headache but then spent the next day sleeping...
Last week passed rather quickly, my boss was back in the office and I instantly felt ten times more productive and efficient (he has that effect on people!) I think this was a major contributing factor in lifting my spirits, because I felt I was contributing at work again. However one major distraction was the 10 puppies that have been wandering around - Andy has four dogs at the office (since he lives above it) and one of them gave birth recently. They are incredibly adorable, I could watch them learning to walk, jumping on each other, sleeping in piles, for hours. But they do yap a lot, which is hard when you're trying to work...
On Thursday night I made chocolate mousse for a potluck dinner I was going to the following night. Chris vowed he wouldn't help after the pavlova episode of a few months ago. However, I'd lost my whisk, and I think I looked a bit sad whipping by myself, so Chris started beating away at the cream with a fork...two hours later, he was still going and ready to throw the cream through the wall...so Sam suggested we divided the cream into three bowls and all have a go. Eventually we got there...but this time I really think Chris will never help me again!
Friday night came the potluck dinner - it was a farewell for some of the AYAD's that arrived this time last year. I can't believe that when the new AYAD's arrive in two weeks time I will be no longer be a 'freshie'! The chocolate mousse went down a treat :-) Before the potluck, we went to a wake for the father of our incountry manager, Katherine. He arrived in November for a holiday and they discovered while he was here that he had cancer :-( Last week one of the AYAD's from our intake also headed home after receiving bad news about his father.. its scary to realise that anything could happen while I am here, and I am a long way away.
On Saturday Chris and I headed to the Friendship Bridge (which is the bridge between Laos and Thailand, 20 kilometres from Vientiane) to get our new tourist visas (don't ask when we'll get our multiple entry visas!!) We headed over the bridge to the Thai town on the other side of the bridge, Nong Khai. The first place we went to was their shopping centre, which was amazing...Starbucks, KFC and Tesco!!! Wow!!!! We had lunch on the river and then meandered through the markets before making our way back across to Laos.
That night we went bowling with our Lao friend from work, Ek. Everyone was in good form - in the third game, Chris got 165 - his highest score ever - and then Ek came in and got 167 (his highest score ever!!) We played five games - by the end my standard was definitely dropping because my fingers were so sore :-) Then it was off for some Lao food to end the night.
Sunday Chris and I went to church in the morning, and then joined everyone for lunch at an Indian restaurant afterwards. Chris' jaw dropped when he realised that there was Australia vs. India on the TV - these guys had a satellite connected :-) We contacted Sam straight away and Chris and him spent the next five hours there enjoying the entertainment (as well as yesterday afternoon...it's a pity that Australia lost because now there's no more games to watch!)
I will be back soon to report on what Julie and I get up to over the next week - yippee!!

Sok dee,
Susan

Reflections on four months away from home

2008-02-22T15:30:00.003+11:00

It has struck me recently that I spend a lot of time on my blog talking about things I've been doing, and not much else. That isn't a real reflection on how I find life here in a Buddhist, communist, developing nation in Asia 8000 kilometres from home. So let me be honest with you :-)
I go through many phases here. Sometimes I am inspired, I love my work, I love learning, I love Lao people, I love being constantly exposed to new things. But just as often I find myself feeling lonely, ineffective, lacking confidence, depressed, totally confused. I'm going through one of these phases at the moment - it has dawned on me that I am not achieving what I would like to at work, and I see other falang in my office who are doing a much better job at developing this organisation. I'm feeling very crippled by my lack of confidence in my engineering abilities (well, I've always had this! But now it is worse), my subconsciousness when trying to speak Lao (even though I have improved so much since I arrived), my lack of knowledge in how to be innovative. Maybe its just my frame of mind at the moment, but I am struggling to know how I am going to get out of this, since the working framework is so different here, as well as the structure of this organisation. I have even come so far as considering leaving, which is something that most people reading this would know never usually enters my mind, just because I am starting to think that if I am not skilled enough to do this, then maybe giving up is better than continuing. I am still here because I want to see if this really is a phase, I am actually interested in my work, and I don't want to leave wondering if I could have done better.
The other significant down phase I have been through here has been regarding friendships. This is still an issue, although much smaller now and not as difficult as my work situation. I'm not somebody who makes friends quickly, because I reserve my opinion for those who I am really close to. Also, it seems like much of the socialising here revolves around the constant drinking of alcohol, which I'm just not really interested in and can't pretend to be for very long. I often compare this situation to when I was at uni, when I made lots of wonderful and very close friends in what seemed a short space of time, to now - and all I can think of is that I was particularly blessed while at uni. I have been really surprised that I haven't connected with people as much as I expected, because I really thought the ex-pats engaged in this sort of work would share some similarity in their mindset. I'm yet to really see that. Thankfully I have met enough people now that I am starting to feel like I have some sort of community here. I particularly like the Christian community (although much smaller than at home!) - it is comforting to know you always have a home with Christ's family, no matter where you are. And you know that Christian people will always care for you, and put you before themselves.
I think I got more than I bargained for when I asked God to use this experience for whatever purpose he wished. I think that he is trying to break all the knowledge I thought I had, and bring me back to him. Perhaps the two most valuable things I have got out of this experience so far is a much closer relationship with God and a real sense of his presence, and a lot more time with Chris. I am very very lucky to have Chris here with me, even though he goes through a lot of the same troubles that I do - we are growing an awful lot together, and learning what is really important in life.
I feel like this has been quite an intense and depressing blog entry, so maybe I should say some good things!!! I love having a lot of free time, although sometimes I struggle to know how to fill it (I don't have to clean, cook, wash, study a Masters, anything!) Life is slow, so I have time to appreciate things more - like food, like beautiful scenery (sunsets on the Mekong behind my house!) I haven't had this much time to think since I was back in Dungog, so I think with so much more clarity and I can really quantify what I am thinking, as opposed to the fuzziness that clouded my stressed mind back in Sydney. I love being involved in such an innovative organisation that is directly changing peoples lives, and getting to play with funky toys at work - even if I do struggle with what I am personally contributing. I love riding around on motorbikes, especially my SuperCub - there's not much that spells out 'living in Asia' more than this! And I love this city - I know this because whenever I am away from here, I just want to come back :-)
Thanks for giving me a chance to be honest - please make sure you keep me this way in the future :-)

Sok dee,
Susan

My Lao February

2008-02-20T22:01:00.004+11:00

Sa bai dee!! I know my posts seems to be coming every two weeks now instead of one week like I initially said - I'm sorry about that :-) But Amy is doing a good job of reminding me to write :P I'm just thankful that I actually can write, after our laptop had a hissy fit on the weekend - we were worried we'd never be able to use the internet again!
The last two weeks have been lots of fun - as Mum said, revolving around food most of the time!

I've been to two Lao weddings - but both vastly different. The first was two falang (foreigners) - I played netball in Hanoi with Emily. We were actually invited to the baci for this one, but after getting very lost (which is not so hard to do here!! See my earlier post on directions in Vientiane :-)) we ended up arriving just after the baci finished (ironically, the house was just behind my office). The second was a girl from work, who I have previously said about ten words to! The whole office was invited to this one :-)
Klastofunk, an awesome funk falang band, played a concert at one of Vientiane's pubs last weekend. It was a very refreshing change from Lao music, which of course I can't understand and is always played at a level which is above the pain threshold. I put my boogie shoes on - I miss my concerts from home!!!
Mattijs, LIRE's Dutch intern (LIRE is the Lao Institute for Renewable Energy, which is an 'independent' research institute that has its office on Sunlabob premises) had his birthday last week at one of Vientiane's many BBQ/soup style restaurants. I volunteered to cook the cake (since I'm deprived of cooking opportunities!) - he got apple cake, which I don't think quite measured up to the Dutch equivalent but anyway :-)
Last Friday, Sert from work invited us to play badminton at a court near his house. Badminton is very popular in Laos (along with petong and soccer, as far as I can tell!) I have played badminton very little since high school, so I wasn't particularly good - but I was usually saved from losing by Sert, who was very good :-) After two hours of this, I was pretty stuffed!!!
On the weekend, our AYAD friend Michelle (who is living in central Laos) came to Vientiane and stayed with us (our spare room seems very rarely empty - Sam has had friends in and out for the last few weeks. I usually discover they're staying by waking up in the morning and finding their stuff strewn all through the house!) She was keen to find a particular market, so we spent Saturday afternoon cruising around and wandering through various markets. I felt so adventurous - I haven't done anything like it for a long time!! And I felt like I didn't even have to practice my Lao at home, because I had to use so much at the market! I find particularly the food markets very inspiring and interesting - they just make me feel like cooking!! Rows and rows of fresh herbs, fruit and vegetables...and then of course mystery meat and fish, which is not so appetising. I was also really pleased by how well I went 'dinking' Michelle on the back of the SuperCub - I haven't done this very often at all, but there were no problems...
Sunday lunchtime saw Chris and I on another adventure with some friends to a floating restaurant 24 km out of Vientiane. This place is amazing...you can hire a boat to take you around on the river for an hour, and eat and drink while cruising around!!! Or you can sit on their floating platform on the water and enjoy the scenery. We did the latter (the queue for the boat was long!!) It was a lovely way to while away Sunday afternoon.
Last night my AYAD friend and her Swiss partner had us over for dinner...which consisted of Swiss cheese fondue!!!! Now that rates as one of the most spectacular meals I've had here in Vientiane - even though they made us drink shots of lao lao when we dropped our bread in the fondue :-)

Work has been going ok - I spent last week writing proposals to get a lot of money out of the Finnish government, and next week I will probably be going to a village to install a homemade water filter. I find it quite amusing that I am posing as some sort of water engineer at the moment, but it really highlights the value of my skills, not just as a photovoltaic engineer, but as a critical thinker. We had no electricity at work again today, but it wasn't Sunlabob's fault this time :-)
I will be back again soon - at least I will be able to tell you about the latest event I have been invited to at the embassy (I don't know how many of these they have, but I'm always up for free food!!!)

Sok dee,
Susan

The good, the bad and the ugly - Phnom Penh

2008-02-06T02:07:00.000+11:00

Sa bai dee!! Life has been more exciting this past week and a half - including a swanky Australia Day party, and a trip to Phnom Penh - so I'm coming to write sooner :-)
Last Tuesday night was the party (not Australia Day, but anyway!!), held at the ambassador's residence - I don't know what I was expecting, but whatever it was the party surpassed it by a long way :-) There were fairy lights all over the house, a red carpet when you arrived, hundreds of bunches of flowers as presents for the ambassador, a jazz band flown from Australia, free flowing food and wine, a parting gift of a bottle of wine for everyone who attended....and half of Laos was there, it seemed. I soaked it up, because I know that I'll never get to experience anything like it again!!
Then it was only 2 days until Chris and I left for Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. I have to say I was itching to get away from Vientiane - I needed to have a little adventure :-) We arrived just before lunch - straight away I knew I was in another psychotic, crazy SE Asian city (I get the feeling that Vientiane is just about the only place in SE Asia that isn't completely chaotic!) People were doing whatever they wanted on the road - for one example, I saw someone breastfeeding their baby on the back of a motorbike on the way to the hotel.
We booked into a lovely hotel recommended by my boss - with a pool! How exciting! It was just around the corner from the Independence Monument (which is far more attractive than Vientiane's version of the same thing). Chris and I wandered over to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda in the afternoon, which has a lot of seriously jewelled Buddhas, and an amazing, crumbling mural all around the walls of its courtyard. After that it was off to the National Museum to look at ancient Khmer sculptures (which just whetted my appetite for Angkor Wat in April!) followed by a wander along the riverside at sunset, and dinner at a great tapas restaurant.
This is where I first started to see apparent poverty - I was approached by many beggars, including one guy on a stretcher who was being wheeled around by a friend. There was also one occasion where Chris and I were approached by two beggars at once, one of whom we had given money to not very long before. We went to give them both money, but didn't have enough to give both of them the same amount. The one who gave money to previously didn't get as much, so he rejected our money and then followed us down the street asking for more money, before swearing at us as we crossed the street. It was very confronting - I've never seen anything like it.
We didn't expect Saturday to be any easier, because we were going to delve into Cambodia's Khmer Rouge years (1975-1979). In the morning we headed to Tuol Sleng Museum, which was a high school that Pol Pot turned into a prison and torture centre. It was bone-chilling - walking through rooms where people were tortured, seeing photos of all the victims (20,000 people were detained here, and only 7 survived), seeing the cells where the victims were held. Its amazing that these things have happened in our lifetime - and are still happening all over the world.
If this wasn't enough, in the afternoon we headed to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, about half an hour outside town. This was where all the prisoners from Tuol Sleng were brought to be executed, and then buried in mass graves. There is a massive stupa, which is stacked to the roof with 8000 exhumed skulls. The site is then full of holes - maybe what you'd imagine a bomb site to look like, but they are actually exhumed mass graves. Half of the graves at the site have not even been exhumed.
To cheer ourselves up, we headed back to the hotel and went for a swim in the pool (it was pretty warm in Phnom Penh, as opposed to Vientiane, which was cold and miserable all the weekend thanks to a bit of Chinese style weather). Our Lao AYAD friends Hugh and Katherine, who were also holidaying in Phnom Penh, met us there and we headed out for a yummy Lebanese dinner (something we don't have in Vientiane!)
The next morning, we went shopping - I was determined to buy our flatmate Sam a Cambodian present, as it was his birthday the next day. We ended up buying him a wooden dagger (plus some presents for me...) after what seemed like hours of wandering through silk shop after silk shop. Lunch was at a lovely cafe overlooking the river, and then we spent some time wandering around Wat Phnom (which is on the hill where Phnom Penh gets its name - it means 'hill of Penh' - Penh being the lady who allegedly discovered the temple). We left in the afternoon - by that point I was happy to leave, since I was getting sick of being pestered by tuk-tuk and moto drivers on every street corner who pounce on every white person they see (motos are literally some guy on a motorbike, who offers for you to jump on the back...no thanks!)
Work is going ok, although I am perpetually confused about how to get my project done. I am constantly amused by the people streaming in and out of Sunlabob - this week we had another German intern join us, and this afternoon a consultant for the Finnish government came in offering millions of dollars in grants....
Every week I feel more and more settled here in Vientiane - I am glad that I was sent to this quiet city after visiting places like Phnom Penh (its like Dungog, but with half a million Laotians instead!) One of the things I enjoy most is driving around on my pink Honda SuperCub scooter - it likes to stop randomly while I'm sitting at traffic lights, and starts to shake violently if I try to go above 40k/h, but I really love the sense of freedom - I'm no longer scared of riding on motorbikes :-) However I'm sure I'm getting into some bad driving habits.....
I'll be back again soon, hopefully with some more stories :-)
Sok dee,
Susan

Mosquitoes - why you should hate them too!

2008-01-31T03:17:00.000+11:00

I was inspired to write after being eaten alive by mosquitoes twice this week.

You know you have a problem with mosquitoes when:

You think a burqa would be a good choice in clothing, even though you're not Muslim. You'd have to wear sunglasses though.
You go to get a lovely foot massage and are dozing off in your chair when you are woken up by a slap in the face by your masseuse. She's trying to kill a mosquito (this actually happened to me today).
You start looking for blood donors because you think you'll need a blood tranfusion soon.
You have the phantom mosquito illness. You randomly slap yourself every few seconds because you think a mosquito is biting you. During fits of this, you look like you're doing a demented line dance.
You have this awesome mosquito zapper shaped like a big tennis racket. You love it. You even sleep with it next to you. That's so you can kill the mosquito that's buzzing in your ear when you're in bed.
You know where all the mosquitoes hide. You enjoy going and surprising them in their hiding spot and killing them. For example, they like to hide in the shoes outside our front door. It's a good stress release!
You have your pet spots when you hate mosquitoes biting you. I hate it when they bite me on the bottom of my feet or my face.
DEET is your new perfume.
You wake up every morning expecting to have dengue fever.

Australia Day, weddings and other events

2008-01-27T16:50:00.000+11:00

G'day from Vientiane :-) I know its been a long time between drinks on the blog again, but it's been another few quiet weeks here. Sometimes I like how there is very little to do in Vientiane except eat, drink and hang out with friends - after all, it's better than being stressed! - and other times it just drives me insane, when I've been used to the fast pace of Sydney for several years now.
There have been a few interesting things happening though:

Last weekend Chris and I went to our first Lao wedding. They are vastly different from what we're used to, for a few reasons:

The 'wedding' itself is actually a baci ceremony. Only family and very close friends attend this. So when I say 'going to the wedding' I actually mean the Lao version of a reception.

You can invite absolutely anyone to a wedding. In this case, we were invited because we work with the groom's brother Sert. I still haven't met the groom and bride! There was room for 500 people at the wedding, so I gather there were plenty of other people in the same situation!

You don't actually give a gift when you go to a Lao wedding. Instead, you use the envelope you received your invitation in (with your name on it), and put about 50000 kip inside ($US5) into a box as you enter.

You can have a wedding on any day of the week. There are several restuarants near our house that have weddings virtually every night, with consequent traffic jams.

The wedding was great - especially the part when they turned all the lights out and tens of waiters came out with plates of candle-lit BBQ duck. I had a brand new skirt tailor made for it.

Our AYAD neighbours Deb and Nicole hosted an Australia Day party yesterday (Deb being possibly one of the most ocker people you'd ever meet). I was really impressed by the amount of 'Australiana' they managed - we had a kiddie pool, a BBQ with kebabs and rissoles, an esky full of beer, Vegemite and fairy bread, Australian music, a Lao made cricket set, stubbie holders, lamingtons, and tons of Australian flags. My job was to make chocolate cheesecake, which thankfully turned out just as well as the pavlova (and was nowhere near as hard). Chris' job was to man the BBQ :-) I also managed to hit the cricket ball over someone's fence..so all in all it felt like I was back in Australia :-)
This Tuesday night the ambassador is hosting a Australia Day party at the embassy - free music and drinks for a few hours. Woot!

Work has actually been quite ordinary these past two weeks. I thought my workshop went well, until at the end of the second day I found out that what I'd been teaching was far too difficult and technical, was not necessarily something the technicians needed to be learning, and that they'd latched onto one thing that I'd said and misintepreted it to extremes. That was probably my lowest moment here in Laos, although since then I've been trying to reassure myself with the knowledge that I'd never tried anything like that before. There have also been plenty of moments where I've been itching to get away from my desk and lamenting that my day to day working environment is actually not very different from Australia.
However I am excited about my projects, which are to incorporate solar electric fences and a solar powered water purification scheme into Sunlabob's overall program. There is also a constant stream of international experts coming through Sunlabob - last week it was a Swiss consultant, Ueli, this week it is a German consultant, Dr Frank - who keep life interesting with their stories of experiences all over the world. I also enjoy spending time with my work colleagues - at the end of last week, we had dinner together after work, accompanied by rice wine in a pot, which has to be drunk (with a straw) with someone else in a drinking game fashion. I managed to beat the boss...

Last Sunday morning Chris spoke at our new church. We've only been going there for a month, but the numbers are pretty low so I think they like to share the jobs around a lot!!! I think he did a very good job :-)

It's time for Chris and I to do another visa run (it looks like our permanent visas are still awhile away yet!) so we're off to Phnom Penh next weekend (it's about time we got out of Vientiane!) I'm looking forward to seeing the Khmer Rouge prison, which is now a museum, and the Killing Fields - it will no doubt be depressing, but it will be interesting to learn more about the history of this part of the world.

Phop gan mai!
Siao saan (the closest Lao word to my name - it means expert!!! I hope they don't expect much!)

Just a few regular weeks in Vientiane

2008-01-13T22:12:00.000+11:00

Sa bai dee moo kong coy :-) The reason I haven't written for awhile (other than random funny observations) is that the last few weeks have been much slower than the last few months, so I've been saving up my stories so there is actually something for you to read! Here goes:

New Years saw Chris and I in Vientiane, having dinner and drinks with some of our AYAD friends. As it neared midnight, we headed to another bar, but passed a far more attractive option on our way - a party in the middle of the street. We stopped to check it out, saw that there was also free beer at the party, and so we decided to stay. This is where I saw my first moments of 2008 :-)
Chris and I have been on several picnics in the last few weeks. On New Years Day, our picnic was on Vientiane's 'beach'. Basically the Mekong River has been drying up steadily since the wet season finished just before we got here, and now is only a fraction of the size it was in October. The 'beach', which is the dried up riverbed, extends several hundred metres to the new banks of the Mekong.
Yesterday Chris and I went to Buddha Park, which is a park full of rather interesting concrete Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, 24 km out of Vientiane (our furthest motorbike journey so far!) After eating our picnic, climbing over the sculptures and talking to an English speaking monk about Christianity, we went home - only to get a flat tyre about half way there (the third time in two weeks!) Thankfully we were only 100m from the nearest mechanic :-)
Work has been going well for both of us - I am presenting a two day workshop starting tomorrow (a bit worried about that one!), and Chris won his $1.5 million tender that he has been working on with Sunlabob for the last month, which means he is now employed for the next two months at least. Every afternoon after work has now become games time - in addition to petong (boules) which is played every day by the Lao staff, there is now a table tennis table, and another game that resembles a cross between air hockey and snooker.
I did have one bad experience at work last week though - Nishan asked to look at some of my documents from uni that were sitting on the floor under my desk. I picked them up - and found that my report on the bottom of the pile had a massive hole all the way through it thanks to the worms that had come up through the floorboards and had been feasting on it for the last month. Gross!!!!!!
Last week we said a temporary goodbye to Sunlabob's German intern, Christina (who should be back later this year to do research for her thesis). Nishan, Christina and I collectively came up with the idea of 'international dinner', since there are staff from so many countries at Sunlabob. I had the task of making pavlova, which consisted of the following steps:
1. Buy a whisk (I couldn't find any beaters) and a baking pan from Vientiane's homewares shop;
2. Find all required ingredients. This involved trips to multiple supermarkets, and I eventually had to give up on finding cornflour and use ordinary flour (although I found strawberries, which I was very pleased about!)
3. Go to Nishan's house the day before to cook the pav (since he has an oven, a precious commodity!) Take turns with Chris to whisk the pavlova for an hour and a half, eventually giving up when I got blisters on my fingers. Despair when the pav looks very runny.
4. Hide pav in the bedroom so the mae ban (maid) won't throw it out.
5. Tell everyone at the party to expect a really crap dessert.
The party was really fantastic, it was a German, French, Sri Lankan, Dutch, American and Lao eating extragavanza. But the real surprise was how well the pavlova turned out!! Everyone really loved it, even though we tried to tell them it wasn't normally sticky. I think it was because we had brought their expectations so low :-)
Chris and I have now joined Vientiane's only gym, thanks to a cheap deal. I've been to a yoga class (which was entirely in Lao, so I spent the whole time watching everyone else!) and a fitball class (which left my tummy muscles in pain for many days afterwards!)
Chris and I started to learn to read and write Lao in our Lao class this week. I am hoping this will really improve my Lao, since it is far easier to distinguish between words with the same spelling but different tones when you are writing/reading. But don't hold your breath!!

Well, thats all from here. Hopefully I will have more to report soon!

Sok dee,
Susan

What did you say?

2008-01-06T01:16:00.000+11:00

Something I love about phasa Lao (the Lao language) is that most words has two or more meanings (well, not technically, since they usually have different tones, but to tone deaf Westerners they sound the same). This wouldn't be a problem, except it always seems to happen to the most common words, and there is always one incredibly rude or paradoxical meaning. I've already told you some, but I just thought I'd put them in a list:

Koi - I / penis
Sak-wao - fly a kite / masturbate
Gai - near / far / chicken
Moo - friend / pig
Muay - tired /pubic hair
Kowtod - sorry / fart
Maa - dog / horse/ come
Kii - ride / shit
Sii - four / colour / will / f***

And my favourite:

Lao - he or she / people of Laos / alcohol

Finding our way

2008-01-06T00:56:00.000+11:00

How not to give directions in Vientiane:
1) Give a street name: most streets in Vientiane have no names. Some streets have names, but nobody knows what they are.
2) Give an address. In addition to point 1, there are no street numbers.
3) Say that it is 'near a temple'. There are temples on every street corner.
4) Say that there is 'near the BeerLao sign'. One in three shops sells food, and all these shops sell BeerLao (and proudly display this on signs outside).
5) Say that it is 'near the Mekong'. Vientiane is built along the banks of the Mekong River. Everything is near the Mekong.

How to give directions:
1) Find out the name of the nearest temple.
2) Find out the name of the village, which is Ban (Lao for village) followed by the name of the local temple (e.g. Chris and I live in Ban Wat Sop).
3) Find some significant landmarks, such as a noodle soup shop or telegraph pole. This is how the internet people found our house.
4) Describe your house. Ours is the white house next to the brown house, with the dog out the front.
5) Find out where the one way streets are in your neighbourhood. This will dramatically alter the route taken. For example, if you want to go to the shop ahead on your left, turn right, travel 1 km to the first one way street going the right way, turn left, turn left again, turn left again and then turn left again.

Our curry Christmas...

2007-12-29T12:04:00.000+11:00

As I'm writing today I have to say I'm not feeling the best. I am covered from head to foot in very itchy mosquito bites (it seems mosquitoes all over the world think I have tasty blood) and I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself that I can't be in Jervis Bay with my friends frolicking on the beach and eating fish and chips. Oh well, at least it is a long weekend in Vientiane (which I intend to use to catch up on sleep and celebrate the New Year!) and I have some great stories to share about my time in Singapore for Christmas :-)
To be honest, I spent most of the week before I left for Singapore counting down the minutes - not the most productive week at work :-) Chris and I left Vientiane early Saturday morning, and swapped for our Singapore Airlines flight in Bangkok - it was pretty good, although I thought Qantas was just as good (so much for being the worlds best airline!) We got to Singapore at 8pm, and were picked up by Adra and her brother Sherman at the airport (Sherman is a very cool dude - we spent most of our time in Singapore cruising around in his fully sick car :-)) You might be thinking - 8pm, might start thinking about bed in an hour or two. Not a chance in Singapore. We went for a cruise down Orchard Rd (which is the main shopping district, and was covered from end to end in elaborate Christmas lights) and then joined up with Adra's parents for dinner at about 11! It's truly a 24 hour society - they don't seem to do sleep very well, and there are many shopping centres open all the time. I didn't have any culture shock - I was just so excited to be back in a Western culture (even if it's a interesting Western-Asian fusion which speaks an abbreviated form of English - good enough for me!)
Consequently, we didn't get out of bed until about 11 the next day. Sherman drove us to Changi Chapel and Museum, where we went for a tour. It was an amazingly depressing and sober experience - even more so because I know my grandfather lived through it. I left a note and a candle in the chapel for him. To tell you an short version of my grandfather's story - after fighting in Malaysia in WWII, he was withdrawn to Singapore and was there when it fell to the Japanese in December 1941. He was one of 40,000 POW's marched to Changi Prison (of which only half survived). After three months there, he was sent to work on the Burma-Thailand Railways (or the Death Railway as it is known - because again, only half of those working on it survived) and spent two years here. Being judged one of the 'fittest', he was placed on a ship to Japan to work in their factories. The boat was torpedoed on the way to Japan by the US, and sunk. The Japanese refused to rescue the POW's, so he was left for dead on a raft with fifteen other POW's. Three days later, when a US submarine rescued him, he was the only one left on his raft. It's a pretty amazing story - because he survived this, I am here today (my mum was born after the war). Next year Amy and I will visit the Death Railway in Thailand :-)
After this, we went to Little India and wandered around in the rain (since its monsoon season in Singapore now). I had my eyebrows threaded (basically plucking your eyebrows but they use a thread instead! Its amazing!) and my hand decorated with henna, and visited a Hindu temple. We wandered around Raffles Hotel for a while (the first hotel in Singapore), had Malaysian stingray for dinner (yummy!!!) and then went for a spot of late night shopping and Christmas performance watching on Orchard Rd.
Christmas Eve saw us at Sentosa, which is an 'recreational island' (basically a big amusement park). It was pretty tacky and touristy, and very expensive :-) The best attractions we went to were the Skyride up the mountain and the Luge back down, and the Butterfly Park. The WWII fort on the southern side of the island promised to be interesting, but was ruined by talking wax dummies. We made our way home in time for midnight mass at Adra's church, and then drank and ate with Adra's family until 3.30 in the morning....I told you they don't like to sleep (as opposed to Laos, where everything is shut by 12)...
Christmas saw us at Adra's uncles house, with a whole lot of Adra's relatives (I've never been to such a big Christmas dinner!) We had curry for lunch and dinner, which was just bizarre on Christmas - but there was a chocolate fountain and piles of fruit, which was fantastic :-) It was a great Christmas, and I'm really glad I was able to share it with Adra - if I was in Vientiane for Christmas, I would have been working!
On Boxing Day, we were so stuffed from three days of running around that we only managed to have breakfast in Adra's suburb and wander around like zombies for a little while before we were on the plane back to Vientiane. I think Chris and I will be taking things a lot easier for the next two months - at least until Julie gets here in March! Travelling requires lots of energy and money, and we're short of both :-)
On Friday night Sunlabob had its New Year party, so work was over by 3 and the party started :-) We had a live Lao band, two cows on a spit and plenty of beer, lao lao and whisky going around. It was fantastic , except the music was so loud we couldn't hear anything else.
Just before I leave, I wanted to share what I learnt in my Lao lesson this week (I am slowly understanding more Lao, but still don't have the confidence to speak it yet). I wanted to know why so many Lao expressions end with the word 'jai' (for example, kawp jai - thank you, and kao jai - I understand, sai jai - I care). My tutor, Toula, told me that jai is actually the word for heart, so the expression 'I understand' actually means 'it enters my heart' and 'I care' actually means 'it is put in my heart'. What an interesting language!!
Its usually this time of year where you think about how far you have come in the last 12 months. This year I've moved into a lovely apartment in Neutral Bay, finished another session of an excruciating Masters degree (only one more to go!), and then moved back out of the lovely apartment to come to a lovely country and fulfil one of my dreams - amongst other things. I hope that the New Year sees Chris and I settle into Vientiane more and find some good friends here - we never realised how amazing our support network was in Australia until we came here and had none. We miss you all more than you realise.
Sabai bpii mai! (Happy New Year!)
Susan

A guide to the best cuisine that the Lao PDR has to offer

2007-12-27T21:02:00.000+11:00

Noodle soup is the greatest meal on Earth. It consists of noodles floating in a bowl of hot water with a small amount of scrawny, bony meat, some alfalfa sprouts and a couple of balls of heavily processed devon-like meat. Its fantastic flavour can be enhanced by the addition of large volumes of fish sauce and chilli sauce. It is usually accompanied by a plate of lettuce and some other bitter leaves. Noodle soup can be eaten three meals a day, and it remains an exciting option.

A local delicacy is “Duck Blood Salad”. Approximate directions:
T ake one fresh duck.
Slaughter, pluck and de-bone the duck.
Place the slaughtered duck in a blender, and blend for several minutes.
Allow to stand to give the blood time to congeal.
While waiting, arrange lettuce and bitter leaves on a plate.
When there are congealed globules floating in the remains of the duck, pour the contents of the blender onto the leaves.
Serve.

(Note: This isn’t a joke.)

A common dish found in western style restaurants in Laos is “French fried”. (The Lao people clearly resent their former colonial maters.)

Caesar salad is a common western dish containing the following ingredients.
Optional: Roast chicken or smoked salmon
Cos lettuce
Caesar dressing
Bacon
Croutons
Parmesan

If these ingredients are hard to find or too expensive, the following can be substituted:

Deep fried, battered chicken in place of roast chicken
Iceberg lettuce in place of cos lettuce
A side-dish of mayonnaise in place of the Caesar dressing on the salad
Tomato in place of the bacon
Carrot and cucumber in place of the croutons
Raw brown onion in place of the parmesan

This should result in a delicious meal that even the most discerning Foleng (foreigner) will be unable to distinguish from the genuine article.

Occasionally you may meet a westerner who is a “celiac”, meaning that he is gluten intolerant. These people are disgusting mutants who should be starved out of existence. As a result, all rice (the staple food of most celiacs) should be mixed with gluten to make “sticky rice”, the staple food of most Lao people. The health problems caused by the subsequently high sugar content of a typical Lao diet is a small price to pay for the suffering that can be inflicted on those who cannot eat gluten.

Sometimes you may meet a westerner who claims to be a “vegetarian”. The meaning of this word is uncertain. They will repeatedly request food that does not contain meat. This obviously makes no sense. The best advice is to either ignore their request, or if they are insistent, serve a bowl of boiled lettuce.

Some westerners also request food without seasoning (MSG). They clearly just don’t know what tastes good. Besides, who knows how to fry vegetables without MSG? It simply wouldn’t work. Try giving them food that contains slightly less MSG than normal.

Everyone loves alcohol – especially in large quantities.

The greatest beer in the world is Beer Lao. It is so great that it all gets drunk here and there is none left to export. It is so superior to all other beers that there is no need to show advertisements for other brands of beer. All such advertisements on the Thai TV channels are conveniently replaced by a very attractive “intermission” picture.

The greatest spirits in the world are Johnny Walker whisky and Lao-lao, a local rice whisky. Lao-lao is particularly enjoyable late at night, early in the evening, during the afternoon, as an aperitif for lunch, as an accompaniment for morning tea or with breakfast. Do not confuse Lao-lao with another liquid that is similar in appearance and odour: methylated spirits are not as tasty.

There is a saying in Laos, coined by the great Falung Sam (living with Chris and Susan) . It says 'It goes together like rice and cucumber'. Whatever you are eating (which is always rice), there should always, always be pieces of cucumber.

Westerners always eat too much. That is why they are too tall. If there are three or more westerners eating a meal together, withhold one of the dishes. Bring out each dish as the earlier one is finished, and then do not bring out the final dish at all. Perhaps the last person will not notice that they haven't eaten.

Western food is best enjoyed with a nice bottle of tomato sauce. Always provide a bottle of tomato sauce or "ketchup" with western dishes, such as pizza, fried fish and tuna sandwiches.

Rosie comes to visit!

2007-12-15T16:50:00.000+11:00

Sa bai dee! It's our first entire weekend in Vientiane for a very long time :-) Having Rosie here for the last week has been a blast - let me tell you all about it :-)
Rosie arrived on Friday morning (her birthday) - since my boss wasn't around, I treated myself to the morning off and Chris and I picked her up from the airport and took her for an authentic Lao lunch down by the Mekong. After work we went and had a massage (the first of many!), and then had the best meal I've had in Vientiane - at a French creperie. But by this time Rosie was fading fast (after a lot of flying, a long stopover in Bangkok and not much sleep) so we came home and let her go to bed :-)
The next day we took Rosie to see some of the highlights of Vientiane (which I hadn't even seen myself!) We went to Pataxai (which is Vientiane's 'Arc de Triomphe', although nowhere near as beautiful) and climbed to the top to see the view, then we went to That Luang, which is Vientiane's most famous temple (painted with gold paint from top to bottom) and is an important national monument. We had another massage (Rosie coming was a good excuse for me to treat myself too!)
Sunday was the most exciting day of Rosie's visit - as her birthday present, we had booked a day trip to Phy Khao Khuay National Park, which is one and a half hours north of Vientiane. After riding there in the back of a pickup truck, we got in a slow boat up a river for about half an hour, and then began a two hour trek through the forest. I was a bit worried about Rosie's ankle, since she broke it in the middle of the year, and the walk was challenging in parts. But we got to the other end to a fantastic reward - Tat Xai waterfall, which cascades over seven steps and has a beautiful big pool to swim in at the bottom. We had lunch here, and then Rosie and I had a good time watching Chris frolick around in the waterfall (neither of us brought our swimmers, and I thought the water was too cold anyway!) Later we found out that another AYAD had contracted schistosomiasis from swimming at the waterfall, which put him in hospital in Bangkok for about a week. But Chris seems ok :-)
Monday it was back to work - I had a good, productive day putting together a solar water pumping system and testing it. Chris took half the day off (which he did for the entire time Rosie was here) and took Rosie to see more of the town. After some yummy cheese and wine on the banks of the Mekong while watching the sunset, we had dinner with Nishan (Rosie and Nishan also know each other really well) and had some fun hooning around on the motorbikes (Nishan and Rosie won).
Tuesday saw the arrival of the AYAD program director from Austraining (Austraining administer the AYAD program on behalf of AusAID) - me and a few other AYAD's met with him. He gave me more confidence that what I am doing here is truly beneficial :-) Of course, because he was here we also had a big dinner with all of the AYAD's, which we dragged Rosie along to :-)
Wednesday was a very exciting day for me because it was the day that I got my new scooter!! It's a hot pink Honda Supercub, and was passed on to me by Kirsten, the coach of the netball team (whose farewell party we went to in the evening). I rode it home from the party - I was a bit wobbly, and I also discovered that the front brake doesn't work, but pretty soon I was in love with it :-) For those of you who like to worry, it also only has two gears and can't go any faster than 40km/h :-) (although there is also no fuel gauge, and no gear indicator!) Rosie and I also had another massage - this one was a sports massage, and I came out in more pain than I was in when I entered (that's how harsh my masseuse was!)
Thursday was Chris and my fourth anniversary - I gave Chris a chess set I bought him in Hanoi (although he guessed it before he even got it!) I gave a presentation in the afternoon at Vientiane College for Lao students heading to Australia, but my USB drive corrupted thanks to some virus it got from the work computer so I had no pictures to show - I was pretty disappointed :-( We had a lovely French dinner in the evening, and then took Rosie to the airport - she was off to Scotland for the next leg of her round the world trip :-) It was really sad to see her go, Chris and I loved having her here to talk to, and to give us hugs, and to have lots of fun with. We miss our family and friends a lot :-(
Yesterday at work was amusing - we had no electricity thanks to a faulty circuit in the building. We all had a good laugh about the energy provider who couldn't even supply themselves with electricity :-) Eventually we got the electricity back on (after all, we do have a lot of electricians around!!!) but the server was still down, so it was extremely hard to do any work. Chris and I left early and headed down to the Australian Embassy Recreation Club, where they were putting on free food and drink because they are closing at the end of the month - it was fantastic!
Next Saturday Chris and I are off to Singapore for our Adra Christmas, which should be very exciting. I will write about our adventures when we return :-) I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, and enjoy the holidays and spending time with family - we wish we could be with you!
Sok dee,
Susan

Down south the sequel

2007-12-06T15:43:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone! Its just one more day until Rosie gets here, hooray!!! I'm very excited :-)
Just before I tell you about my last week, I've added another feature to the blog (I've been playing with it a bit!) called Labels. For example, you can find any posts that talk about my travels under 'Trips'.
On Friday night, Chris and I headed to the bus station to catch the sleeper bus to Pakse for our long weekend in the Four Thousand Islands (they aren't marked on the map, but if you look where the Mekong gets a bit fatter next to the border with Cambodia - the islands are in the middle of the river. We had a long weekend because it was Lao National Day!) We'd booked tickets during the day, but when we got the bus station we discovered that the bus was in fact 'booked out'. Feeling very much like I was back in Hanoi, Chris and I asked every single bus company until eventually we managed to get on the local bus - no beds. So when we arrived in Pakse at 8 the next morning we were pretty tired!
Then we jumped on the back of a pick up truck (I believe the Lao word is sangatheiw) to get to the Four Thousand Islands. There was about 40 people on the back of this truck - just when you thought 'surely they can't try and squish another person on here' they'd stop and another person would get on. We got to the boat at about 1.30 in the afternoon, after making numerous detours to drop everybody off. Then a quick boat trip to the island (Chris and I chose the island of Don Det) and we finally stopped travelling - about 19 hours after we had left home.
We were looking at the various tours we could go on when Chris discovered we only had $40 (thankfully we'd already bought our tickets home). Crap!!!!!!!!!! After waving the Visa card around and realising that was useless, we found the cheapest tour we could go on, which was leaving ASAP. So 30 minutes after we arrived on the island (we still hadn't found a place to stay), we were leaving again.
Back on the mainland, we got into a minibus which first took us to the biggest waterfall in SE Asia (Khon Phapheng Falls) - which is basically a huge chunk of the Mekong tumbling over rocks. We spent about half an hour here, and then drove to the Lao-Cambodian border crossing. We jumped in a boat here, which took us to wait for a sight of rare freshwater dolphins in the middle of the Mekong. Just before I was starting to think these dolphins were a myth, we saw some! :-)
We got back to Don Det just after sunset, and found ourselves a bungalow on the river with two hammocks for $2 a night (at least we knew that we could sleep cheaply on the island!) The place was swarming with backpackers - there were more white faces than Lao, I was really surprised. The restaurants even sold 'happy' (e.g. marijuana laced) pancakes and shakes - I steered well clear of those :-) Chris and I went to bed at 8.30 after a really exhausting day - even the sound of all the generators (there is no electricity on the island) couldn't keep us awake.
The next day we went for a walk across the bridge to the next island, Don Khon, and looked at some more enormous waterfalls (Li Phi Falls) and had a look at Laos' only railway (which hasn't been used since WWII). I was a bit scared to see a little Lao boy at the edge of the waterfall trying to fish out somebody's hat - thankfully he didn't fall in. We spent the rest of the day whiling away our time in the hammocks, and watching the sunset.
On Monday morning we left at 11 am - with 50c in our pockets (somehow we had managed to eat ten meals between the two of us for $15.50). A minibus took us back to Pakse (no more pick up trucks!) - when we arrived in Pakse we found out the minibus would actually take us all the way to Vientiane if we'd like. We took them up on their offer, and were back in Vientiane by midnight - so only 13 hours on the way home!!
Yesterday Nishan and I went with two of the Sunlabob staff to a village two hours from Vientiane called Ban Sor. Sunlabob has all sorts of products here - solar rental systems, a solar powered water pump and purification system (which is having some problems, and its my job to fix it), solar powered lanterns. We spent a lot of time examining the water pump and purifier, and eventually ended up bringing one from the neighbouring village home with us. We also distributed 2008 Sunlabob calendars throughout the village (Sunlabob seems very big on their merchandise - last week I bought some Sunlabob shirts that say 'AC/DC - Sustainability Forever' :-)) It was amusing to see what the villagers were using them for by the end of the day - we saw two girls using it as an umbrella.
I should be back in a weeks time to tell you all about our adventures with Rosie, and about Chris and my 4th wedding anniversary! I am hoping to post soon about directions in Vientiane - which are just as crazy and strange as the road rules :-)

Pai gon der!
Susan

Down south

2007-11-27T19:19:00.000+11:00

Hi everyone! It's another day in the office - with one minor change. Chris is now working here! But only for the next month - he has been offered short term work sorting out a tender. The money will be very welcome :-) Also, we should have the internet connected at home tonight, so I will be able to Skype to my hearts content, hooray!
Just before I tell you about the weekend - you might have noticed that I'd added a little 'Lao Photos' slideshow to the blog. This is linked to my Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/susieblue) and will show the last 20 photos that have been posted there.
So about the weekend :-) I found out at 2pm on Friday afternoon I found out that I didn't actually have a public holiday on Monday - apparently the person who told me I did was wrong. That was pretty frustrating, but unfortunately how things seem to work here. Chris and I decided to go ahead with our plans anyway, and caught the sleeper bus to Pakse at 8pm (if you look at the map, Pakse is down south - approaching the border with Cambodia). It takes 10 hours. The bus was surprisingly comfortable and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in Pakse. Our fellow AYAD in Pakse, Julie, came and picked us up from the bus terminal and we went straight to her house. It didn't take long to fall in love with the town - Julie has made a lot of friends there already (and her Lao sounds great!). We spent most of the day eating, drinking, touring the town and meeting people. Keith, who has been living with Chris and I in Vientiane for the past three weeks, was also there on a stopover on a work trip to Cambodia.
Unfortunately an otherwise relaxed and enjoyable day was soured in the evening when we had to contend with a rather abusive and aggressive drunk. Alcohol turns people into morons and beasts - I'm sure you all know that, but it isn't any easier even when you know that a drunk person doesn't mean what they said.
The next day Chris and I got in a slow boat and travelled down the Mekong to Champasak, about 2 hours away (also on the map). The boat trip was lovely, although a little uncomfortable at the end after sitting on the wooden planks for so long. Nearly every kid on the riverbank was waving at us like crazy as we went past.
When we reached Champasak, we jumped in a tuk-tuk and headed to Wat Phou Champasak, which is a 1000 year old temple (originally Hindu, I believe, but eventually became Buddhist) and now a World Heritage Site. The site was beautiful - lots of intricate cravings in stone, frangipani trees lining a steep staircase which revealed the entire site and the surrounding plains once you reached the top. Chris and I spent two hours here before making our way back to the Mekong for the return boat trip to Pakse. We then got on the sleeper bus back to Vientiane - nowhere near as comfortable this time, Chris and I were squashed into a space that was really only meant for one person, and Chris' legs were hanging over the side the entire trip. Although I was pretty proud of myself for managing to squat in the moving bus toilet and not pee all over myself - but that was probably too much detail :-) We arrived back at 6am to a cold Vientiane morning, went home for a quick shower, and then came straight to work :-)
I've managed to catch up on my sleep now, but Chris and I are planning to do the trip again this weekend (since it is definitely a long weekend this weekend) - only this time a bit further south, to Si Phun Don (Four Thousand Islands) which lie in the Mekong Delta just before the Cambodian border. We might be doing it as a kayaking trip with the same tour company as Chris' previous trip, but unfortunately my arm is still not really improving - it might be time to go back to the doctor :-(
This week Chris and I are starting Lao lessons with a tutor from Vientiane College - it should be good, since I haven't progressed very far since my AusAID sponsored lessons ended about three weeks ago. There are a lot of Lao people in my office, so it would be great to communicate with them more. It would also be great to go to restaurants and be able to read the menu!!
In one last piece of news, Chris and I have booked tickets to Singapore for Christmas to stay with my friend Adra. I know that you are all thinking 'isn't she that girl who drove you totally mental in college?' but I'm a sucker for punishment it seems :-) Seriously, I am looking forward to it - it will be great to get away for Christmas, and spend time with Adra and her family. I'm also looking forward to visiting Changi Prison, where my grandfather spent time as a POW in WWII (before working on the Burma-Thailand railway for two years, which I also plan to visit).
I'll be back next week with news on our latest trip, and also to share my excitement about Rosie's impending arrival!! (she gets here on December 7 - her birthday!)

Sok dee,
Susan

Adventures in Central Laos

2007-11-22T14:56:00.000+11:00

As Susan has mentioned, I spent last weekend on an "Adventure Tour". I left home at 5:30am on Saturday morning, hoping to get a tuk-tuk into town. Unfortunately for me, tuk-tuks were as plentiful as I had been expecting at that time of the morning, and I had been walking for almost half an hour before I spotted one. Having made it to the tour office for our scheduled departure of 6am, I met our guide, Noy, and we went to pick up the other two party members from their hotel two blocks away en route to Vientiane's Southern Bus Station. It is still a mystery to me why they got picked up for free and I had to make my own way in, but that is the sort of consistency that I am coming to expect in Laos.

The other two party members were a very friendly retired French-Canadian couple called Nicole and Gerard. Gerard spoke very little English, but Nicole's was very good. Noy's English was also excellent and we all got along very well.

At the bus station we boarded a public bus which was no more cramped than any Sydney bus (ie, my knees would extend 10cm beyond the back of the seat in front of me if the laws of physics allowed my knees to occupy the same space as the seat) so the 5 hour journey south was rather unpleasant. Prior to the toilet break 3.5 hours in, the cramps in my legs were so bad I was starting to feel like I had been travelling inside someone's suitcase, but five minutes of stretching relieved the worst of it.

Once we arrived at our destination, though, the trip was quite pleasant. We left our things in our rooms (complete with western toilets and mosquito nets, but no hot water) and set out on mountain bikes. The moment we left the road we were into some fairly serious mountain bike terrain (stretches of road covered with lots of large loose rocks, streams to cross, short but steep slopes) with no instruction in mountain biking whatsoever. Nicole in particular wasn't very confident, and came off her bike early on hurting her knee. It wasn't serious, but it did hinder her and she generally walked her bike through the trickier sections from that point on.

Halfway into this trip we left our bikes and started trekking (aka bushwalking) over some tracks that would not have been approved by NSW National Parks, but were very pretty. Along the way we passed some locals carrying what looked like short spears and some heavy sacks. Noy spoke to them briefly and then informed us that the sacks contained dead rats that these men had caught in the forrest and were taking home for dinner.

At the end of the bushwalk we reached a 5m waterfall. It was a very beautiful spot, and we went swimming underneath the falls. It was wonderful, clean, clear, cold water and it was easily worth the trip to get there. After the swim we made our way back to the guest house, with Noy and I taking a detour through the village to see the "lake". The lake was a small resoivoir no more than 100m across, but I was kept entertained by the stunning views and the presence of a hydro-electric power station upstream from the lake.

Day two began with a 45km bike ride. The itinerary we had all been shown included a 1 hour bike ride followed by 3.5 hours in a boat, but this was apparently the wet season itinerary. Since it was now the dry season, the river was too low for the boat and we had to ride. Nicole rode in a minivan, but Gerard and I toughed it out and rode the whole distance. I was happy to get through without feeling too much strain in my legs, but unfortunately the bike was sized for Lao people, so I spent the whole trip leaning a long way forward to grip the handlebars, and subsequently carried most of my weight on my arms. I had never expected a cycling trip to give me such sore shoulders!

At the end of the cycling trip we were finally able to get in a boat to travel upstream though a 7 km cave. At several points within the cave we had to get out so that the boats could be pushed up the rapids (again, low water in the dry season) but it was a spectacular ride. My main gripe was that the boat drivers' headlamps had very bright, focussed beams of light that ruined night vision and allowed only a very narrow field of clear vision (~1m diameter circle at 50m). More dispersed light would have been far better, but even if I could have explained this, we were in a very poor and remote area, so I suppose I should have been greatful that they weren't using kerosene lamps. This cave is also a regularly used thoroughfare between villages, so the locals travel it often.

At the other side of the cave we disembarked and set out on a 1/2 hour walk to a village where we stayed in a family home for the night. The accommodation was very basic (a sleeping met and a mosquito net under a holey roof with no walls on either our left or right, no electricity, and shared village Lao-style toilets) but it was certainly interesting to see how people live in a remote village. Dinner that night was some very fresh chicken (we heard them kill it), sticky rice (as always) and lao-lao (very strong rice-based spirits), but it was probably the nicest lao food I've had. (Note: My judgement may have been impaired by the 45km cycle and 4km walk earlier that day.)

We were woken the next morning at dawn (5:30am) by the roosters and a couple of village generators used for crushing the rice husks. Breakfast included a pseudo-Baci ceremony. Having been to a real one, this seemed very basic and contrived for impressing the tourists. The most genuine part of it was that it included the obligitory shot of lao-lao, which was stomach wrenching at 7am. (Our host had two shots.)

The final day included kayaking back through the cave which was a fantastic experience (though it suddenly became slightly scary when I had to navigate for myself!) and lunch on the riverbank before returning to the guest house by minivan (so much easier than cycling!!!). From there Noy and I simply had to catch the public buses 5 hours back to Vientiane*, leaving at about 2pm. Nicole and Gerard stayed at the guest house and were travelling to Pakse the next day.

The scenery throughout the trip was spectacular, with the cave, tall black cliffs rising from the plains, impressive rocky hills, thick jungle, beautiful rivers, waterfalls and green plants everywhere despite the dry season being upon us. It was a stunningly beautiful part of the world and I hope to post some photos soon. If you can get there*, I thoroughly recommend this part of the worl to anyone who is interested in natural beauty.

* We waited 2 hours for a truck-taxi to take us an hour back to the main road through Southern Laos. We then waited 3 hours for a bus. It was full. After another 45 minutes, just as we decided to give up and get a guest house, another bus arrived. We had to sit on stools in the aisle for the first half hour. We reached Vientiane at 1:30am. We reached the Green Discovery office to drop off the moutain bikes at 2:15am. There were no tuk-tuks, and Noy had no form of transport, so we began the 7km walk back to my place. We walked just over 5km before we finally got a tuk-tuk and got to my place at 3am. A supposed 5 hour journey (5.5 hours to my place I suppose) therefore took 13 hours. I am informed that this was a one-off, but that still makes Lao public transport slightly worse than CountryLink trains. (A 13 hour journey I once had on an XPT was supposed to take 6 hours, so CountryLink do come out slightly ahead. I'm sure Morris Iemma will be relieved.)

Hanoi

2007-11-21T15:42:00.001+11:00

Xin chow! My pulse rate is slowly going down after returning from Hanoi. Let me tell you all about it….

We arrived in Hanoi at about 7.30 on Friday night, and caught a taxi into town (which is actually quite a long trip). This was my first taste of chaos – cars and motorbikes coming from every direction, noone wearing helmets, everyone constantly using their horns to inform anyone who was interested of their presence. Watch the video above for a taste of the insanity :-)

We arrived at the hotel that we had all booked into only to discover that it was booked out. How a hotel is booked out when you have already booked a room – 10 rooms in fact – escapes me, but we had to go searching for another room. Deb and I found one just two blocks away, and then went to a netball meet-and-greet function. The Hanoi girls were lovely, but I didn’t get to speak to the Thai girls because they arrived very late (in matching uniforms too – I instantly expected to lose to them the next day!) I had some amazing food too (although much more expensive than Vientiane).

The next morning we had a French style breakfast (the French influence is far more apparent in Vietnam) and then headed off to the netball at the United Nations International School (the first truly expat compound I have seen since arriving in SE Asia). It only took me about two minutes to realise there was no way I could throw or catch the ball with my busted arm, so I resigned myself to umpiring (for every game, we had to supply one umpire – I ended up umpiring four games). The first game as umpire was intimidating – I was umpiring by myself (it had been so long since I had last done it that I forgot I was even meant to have another umpire to help) and the Thai team who we were playing had dirty looks that could cut steel. I was really surprised when we won – and so was the rest of the team. We would have happily gone back to Laos with that victory.

But then we won the next game as well. We lost our third game by one point. According to the scoring system that was being used, we were actually tied with one of the Thai teams for leaders of the comp! We had to play that team in our last game, so whoever won the game would win the competition.

It was real nail biting stuff (some Thai girls offered to umpire, so I actually got to watch). We were trading goal for goal in the last few minutes, and the scores were tied. Our team scored with 30 seconds to go, and it was really hard not to yell out ‘There’s only half a minute left!’……

But they didn’t score again, and we won!!! By one goal.

We went to watch the Lao AFL team play afterwards (there was a netball and an AFL tournament running simultaneously). The Lao guys had met some Irish backpackers randomly on the plane the night before, and roped them into playing for the team (even though they later told me that Gaelic football and AFL are nothing like each other). However, they didn’t win any games.

We then went to a nearby hotel in the ‘compound’ for the presentation and some dinner. We got a lovely glass trophy J There was also a Movember raffle to raise money (most of the AFL team were growing mo’s) and the prize was a 4.5 L bottle of Jack Daniels, which was won by a Thai guy. I was rather disturbed to see the bottle empty when I left at 10.30…

We ended up going to some seedy nightclub after dinner, which seemed to be located right next to a swamp. I didn’t stay long, and was home by 12.30 (although Deb didn’t return until 3).

The next morning we met the team for breakfast, and then Deb, myself and Kate from the netball team went for a long shop along the streets of the Old Quarter (being pursued by every Vietnamese person who had something to sell, it seemed). I bought some lovely things :-) We also went for a walk around Hoan Kiem Lake in the centre of town, before meeting up with one of the Hanoi Intake 20 AYAD’s for an icecream. I asked him how we were going to get to the icecream shop, and he suggested that we all get on his motorbike. So Deb and I get on the back…three foreigners, driving around the streets of Hanoi on one motorbike, two of them not wearing helmets, and one of them wearing a bicycle helmet. Cheap thrills!!! After our icecream we met up with some more AYAD’s for a beer, and then the netball team for dinner.

On Monday morning we woke up early and went to the Temple of Literature, which is a 1000 year old school of Confucian teachings. Lovely, peaceful place…except of course for the horns outside and the other tourists. We walked from there to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum (he wasn’t actually there, he goes visiting to Russia every year at this time). We then had another long walk to a massive market, which turned out to be a massive disappointment (for Deb at least, who was on a shopping tour of Hanoi. For me, who was on a culinary tour of Hanoi – I was happy with yummy pastries, fresh spring rolls….) After a ride on a cyclo (basically a taxi for tourists, where you sit up the front and a guy pedals along at the back) we made our way back to the hotel, and then onto a bus back to the airport.

Since I got back, I’ve just been trying to catch up on sleep and talk to Chris (who went on a kayaking/cycling tour in southern Laos on the weekend).Work has been much better this week – I feel much more on top of things, and thinking clearly (without stress!) The Cambodian job is still not finished, they keep changing their mind about what they want (e.g. fully solar system vs. solar/diesel system). But I have my own desktop computer now!

My arm is still pretty sore, which wasn’t helped by me tripping over the steps last night at home and landing on it. I just hope it gets better soon. Chris and I are going down to Pakse and Champasak in the south of Laos this weekend (since it’s a long weekend in Vientiane) – we were planning another kayaking trip, but unfortunately my arm means we won’t be doing anything nearly that exciting.

I’ll just leave you with some random funny things from the trip:

Apparently in Hanoi you are taxed depending on how wide your property is. So all the buildings are 5 or so stories high, and just a matter of metres wide.
The only way to cross the road in Hanoi was to just start walking slowly so everyone had a chance to see you and swerve around you. Despite the fact that it often felt like you were about to be run over, this method actually worked.
The traffic lights (when people actually bother to obey them) have a timer that counts down until they change. So you know exactly when the lights are going to go green!
Lao Airlines (who we flew from Hanoi back to Vientiane) doesn’t have any lifejackets. On the safety card there is a picture of a guy ripping the cushion off his seat and then jumping out of the plane with that. Just in case the picture was confusing, on the back of the seat there is a sign saying ‘use the cushion for floatation’.

I’ll be back again soon with news from the next trip – and Chris will hopefully post soon with stories from his weekend.

First injury

2007-11-15T12:26:00.000+11:00

I am typing with one hand today. On my way to my Lao lesson on Tuesday I had a stack on my one day old bicycle.

Chris bought me a $150 bike on Monday – it’s the first time I’ve ridden a bike in years. So instead of Chris driving me to work in the morning, I rode – it was a lot of fun. The front mudflap was not secured properly though, and just before I got to work a screw fell off. There wasn’t much I could do though, so I just kept riding.

I left work at 3.30 to head to Vientiane College for my lesson. I was about 10 minutes away when all of a sudden it was like I’d applied both brakes really hard. I went straight over the handlebars, and landed on my right arm, which swelled up pretty much immediately and started caning. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that the loss of the screw actually made the mudflap jam against the front wheel. I gave Chris a call and got a van from the college to come and pick me and my busted bike up, and take me to the Australian Embassy medical clinic. I had an Xray, which thankfully came back negative yesterday morning - so it appears like I've just sprained it. The doctor thinks it will take about a week to heal. I spent most of yesterday sleeping and getting some rest :-)

The most unfortunate thing about hurting my arm is that I won’t be able to play netball in Hanoi this weekend – I’m still going, of course, but just not playing. Hopefully it heals quickly enough so I can take advantage of the two other long weekends coming up :-)

In other news :-) Work has been really stressful since my boss came back from his work trip last Friday. A Cambodian company urgently required a design and a quote for a massive solar system plus back up generator for a series of telecoms installations. Neither Nishan or I has designed a system in years and I was almost tearing my hair out trying to remember how to do it and get it right. I managed to download AS4509.2 (the Australian standard for the design of stand alone systems) and that saved my skin. Its about as far in the deep end as I’ve been thrown since I started working. But I’ve been told not to expect to achieve anything in my first three months here, so to get something major done in my first two weeks is pretty amazing :-)

I’ll leave you with some funny stories:

On Friday night, Chris and I went out for drinks with some work colleagues and AYAD’s. When we left, we realised Chris’ helmet was no longer with the bike. Chris was pretty despondent all dinner about his helmet being stolen, until an AYAD told us there was meant to be staff at the bar whose job was to mind the bikes. We went back to ask. It turns out that the staff had taken the helmet inside to keep it safe, and in true Lao style, hadn’t told us – because we didn’t ask.

On Monday night Chris and I went across the road from our house to have dinner with our housemates (we have two housemates at the moment – Keith, who is heading to the south of Laos in two weeks, is staying in our spare room). We didn’t really have any idea what we were ordering, so we picked the most expensive thing on the menu. A plate of red liquid with stuff floating in it came out, with our waitress also covered in the red liquid. It was…ducks blood salad, a Lao delicacy (and something we were told to avoid in our avian influenza briefing, because it could potentially carry bird flu). I think the duck met its fate about two minutes before we saw it in pieces in front of us. After seeing that we moved to another restaurant for second dinner :-)

I'll write again soon with news from Hanoi :-)

Chris is here too

2007-11-08T17:29:00.000+11:00

A few people have commented to me about my lack of posts on this blog so far. I can assure you that it an indication of my laziness rather than any unhappiness. Susan has done such a great job at writing about what we've been doing, I haven't had much to add. Now that I've finished sorting out all of the basic life issues (house, motorbike, groceries, international holidays, maid), I have a bit more time on my hands, so I thought I would begin contributing. To avoid repeating what Susan has said, though, I'm going to write about an aspect of life in Laos. Today, I'll tell you a bit about road rules in Laos.

1. Road rules is a misnomer. They are more accurately described as suggestions.
2. Most people ride motorbikes, but cars are the ultimate status symbol here, so we are told that some cars are owned by families that share a two bedroom hut between ten people. Cars are taxed at 110%, though, so most vehicles are still motorbikes.
3. A Lao motorbike is to an Australian motorbike what a Hyundai Getz is to a Supercar. Completely and utterly gutless, but easier to drive. My brand new US$587 Korean bike has been pushed as high as 65km/h, but cruising speed is generally 45-50km/h in good conditions. (That's fast here.)
4. Most Lao people drive on the right hand side of the road most of the time. Most of the rest of the time, they drive on the left. The remaining time is spent driving on the footpath.
5. When a traffic light goes red, that is an indication that someone somewhere behind you will have to stop.
6. When a traffic light goes green, that is an indication that you will be able to go soon. Going is at your own leisure though. The light turning red again while you wait does not prevent you from utilising your right to go whenever you are ready.
7. On roundabouts, you give way to traffic coming from your right. (This deserves careful consideration - remember that the regular side of the road in Laos is the right hand side, so roundabouts go in reverse compared to Australia.)
8. 70-80% of Lao motorcyclists wear helmets. 70-80% of these have them done up.
9. A Lao standard helmet has similar properties to an ice cream bucket (often including their ability to fit on a head). Some others bear an uncanny resemblance to construction site hard hats. (Susan and I bought our helmets in Australia.)
10. For motorbikes only: White lines on the ground have no purpose. There is no such thing as a lane.
11. Give way to vehicles that are bigger than you.

What a week and a half...

2007-10-29T16:24:00.000+11:00

Sa bai dee!! It's my second day in the office today so I am taking a break from reading the technical training manual to write :-) I've uploaded some more piccies onto my Flickr site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/susieblue) - Facebook rejects my attempts to upload photos :-(
First of all, I just wanted to thank everyone who sent me an e-mail or Facebook message to wish me a happy birthday. It made me feel really loved and special and definitely made home feel a lot closer :-) I will try to write back to everyone over the next week or so - we still don't have the net connected at home, so it is a bit difficult to write :-(
The last week and a half has been amazing. When I last wrote, the long weekend was just starting. That night (Friday) I went to the Mekong with some other AYAD's to watch the candles float down the river (apparently a Buddhist ceremony). I put my own in (which is in the picture above) but it went out as soon as it floated off! It was an incredible sight, watching thousands of candles float off down to Cambodia - something that is just impossible to capture on film. We went to a party on the Mekong but it was fairly dull and expensive, so I ended up going home at midnight (stopping along the way to do some shopping and eat some amazing banana pastries which are cooked right in front of you).
The next day was the boat racing on the Mekong - so we were back there again. The dragon boats have about 40 people in them so they actually go quite fast. Chris and I found a spot right on the river with some other AYAD's and whiled away the day eating, drinking and watching the boats.
On Sunday I played netball in a team started up by an AYAD from a previous Intake. It was really really hot once I started running around - dehydration just waiting to happen. The team is going to Hanoi to play some Thai teams on Nov 17 - so I am heading over too. My first international trip since I arrived! I can't wait to see Hanoi - it is apparently a beautiful city, with a lot of French influence, if not more choatic than Vientiane :-) On Sunday night our fellow AYAD's threw a little party for Nishan and I at Nishan's new house, because we were going to be away for our birthdays - it was really lovely, we ate pizza and cake (instead of fried rice and noodles!)
On Tuesday morning Nishan and I, as well as Sayyouth and Thongdeuan, our Lao counterparts fron Sunlabob, hopped on the bus to Phonsavan (if you have a look at the map, it's north of Vientiane and sort of in the middle). It took from 8.30am to 5.30pm - winding up through the mountains through amazing scenery. I wasn't suffering from motion sickness like the others, however my fear of heights caused enough suffering as it was :-) At one point we passed a broken down bus and I had to just close my eyes and say a few quick prayers that we would end up safely on the other side and not down a massive cliff.
Our guesthouse in Phonsavan housed not just us, but a massive collection of deactivated bombs, ranging from ones as tall as me (Nishan says they were B52's) to hand grenades. A few facts about the bombings in this area - there were over 2 million tonnes of bombs dropped on Laos from 1964 to 1973, which equates to about a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years. That's as many as Japan and Germany dropped in WWII. And 30% of them are still unexploded. On our way to Nam Kha the next morning (the village with the mini-grid) we could see the hillsides literally covered in bomb craters where nothing grew.
It was also my birthday as we headed up to Nam Kha - Nishan came and sang a rap to me that he wrote in the morning, what an awesome present!! We went for a look at the mini-grid in the morning - which is hydro, PV and diesel - and learnt about how it works. In a few months time Sunlabob will be returning to install another similar mini-grid at a village just a few kms further down the river.
In the afternoon we checked the meters - so I think I went to nearly every villager's house! The village was lovely - lots of cute children running around, pigs, chickens and cows wandering the streets, mist sitting on the mountains. I got extremely dirty from all the mud, and since there was no toilets I had to make a trip outside in the rain a few times...
The next morning we headed on a long walk to check out the next village and the transformers (one of which you can see above - not the safest things ever invented). Our search for the last transformer found us in a village called Na Phi, kms away from anywhere. So we stayed here for a few hours, ate with the villagers, were blessed at their temple, tried to avoid the lao lao, tried to teach the villagers English with our limited Lao (as well as French - I think they probably ended up thinking I was French!) - one of the villagers could only say 'Thank you, happy new year'. It was hilarious :-) Eventually a car came to pick up and we headed back to Phonsavan for the night before getting back on the bus to Vientiane in the morning. The scenery was even more spectacular coming back down the mountains - literally breathtaking. One of the highlights of the trip for sure :-)
It was lovely to get back because we have a house now!! And a motorbike!! So I spent the weekend learning how to ride, buying food, and settling in. Last night we went to meet our village chief (apparently this helps us get on his good side, if we visit as soon as we move in), bearing gifts of whisky. We drank an entire bottle....yuck, whisky is horrible!!!! :-)
I've been doing lots of reading since I started at work yesterday - my boss is due back on Friday, so I am hoping we can discuss in more detail what he would like then.
I will post again soon - trying to cover a week in a post is actually quite hard (although maybe that's just because last week was eventful :-))

Lots of love,
Susan

Long weekend in Vientiane!

2007-10-26T14:04:00.000+10:00

Sa bai dee! Life in Vientiane is going well at the moment. My stomach has settled down (I can now keep my food in and actually have an appetite, so I am stoked) and I am very close to signing a contract for a 3 bedroom, $US300/mth house on the banks of the Mekong around the corner from my office with Chris (of course) and another AYAD, Sam. Very very excited! And of course we have an extra bedroom for all our visitors!!!
It's pretty crazy in Vientiane at the moment - this weekend is the annual boat racing festival, and it is chaotic and loud on the road that follows the Mekong. Tonight Chris and I and some other AYAD's will be going to a place called the Mekong Deck for dinner, drinks and some dancing :) The reason for the party is that tonight thousands of candles are released onto the Mekong and float away. I'm not sure of the significance of the ceremony, but I am told its very beautiful so I'm looking forward to it :-)
This week has been filled with househunting and Lao lessons. I'm happy with how my Lao is coming along - I can order food and buy things at the market, and I'm starting to get my head around sentence structure (basically it's completely backwards to English, but far more straightforward). On Wednesday we also had an excursion to a weaving and dying centre on the outskirts of Vientiane - we all tie dyed our own scarves, and had a go at the weaving looms. It was an incredible experience - weaving is possibly one of the worlds most skilful crafts if you ask me!!
I've been to the markets and been fitted for several Lao sinh skirts - women traditionally wear these in the office. The market is absolutely full of fabric - thousands and thousands of choices. I'll send you a photo of me wearing my first sinh soon :-)
I leave for my field trip on Tuesday (since Monday is a public holiday). Hopefully when I return I will have the internet set up in my new house and I can tell you all about it :-)

Lots of love,
Susan

P.S. If you go to the AYAD website (the link is on the right hand side of this page) and go to "Meet the AYAD's" you will find my profile (under Intake 20) which has just been posted. You can also check out the profiles of the other AYAD's who are here with me :-)

First day in the office

2007-10-22T18:49:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone!! I've had a simultaneously exciting and stressful day. Today was my first day in the office (although I don't officially start work until next week - next Tuesday, because Monday is a public holiday due to the annual boat racing festival here in Vientiane on the weekend).
Interestingly, I met my boss, Andy, at a concert on Saturday night. I was pretty nervous, so when I spotted him in the crowd, I didn't introduce myself -but one of the other AYAD's, Erin, dragged me over to meet him :-)
Nishan, Chris and I got the lowdown on all the projects Sunlabob is running at the moment. They range from solar electrified fences, solar lanterns, village mini grids with solar, hydro and generators, joint ventures with Cambodia (which Andy is keen to get Chris involved with - but he doesn't have any funding at the moment) - all sorts of exciting but scary things. Then...he told me and Nishan that next week we will be heading up to Xieng Khuang Province for the week!! Woohoo!! Some information on the area - it borders Vietnam, takes about 10 hours from Vientiane on bus (since it is in the mountains), Sunlabob has a village mini grid there and it is the most bombed area of Laos (which is also the most bombed country in the world). During the Vietnam War the North Vietnamese were using the area to protect Hanoi, so the US came in and bombed the crap out of it. There are still plenty of UXO's around (unexploded ordinance), however lots of areas have been cleared and are clearly marked. So that means that I will actually be away for my birthday, and most likely Nishan's as well (since his birthday is November 4). I'll take my phone with me, but I don't know if it will work :-(
Then we headed off to lunch with some of the staff. I did some motorbike training on Sunday (in the carpark at the college) but I'm still very unconfident - so naturally I didn't expect my first experience on a motorbike to be hanging off the back of a scooter going 50k/hr, wearing a helmet that didn't fit, with some guy I'd only just met. Anyway :-)
A few other experiences from the past few days:
* On Saturday we went to a baci ceremony at Joy's house, who is one of the staff here at Vientiane College. He has had an appendectomy and dengue fever in the last month, so he wanted to get rid of the bad spirits. That was pretty amazing :-) Although I could have done without the shot of lao lao - which is Lao rice wine, similar in every way to methylated spirits. The drinking culture here in Lao is about 200 million times worse than it is in Australia...
* Yesterday afternoon I spent the whole time in bed, trying to shake nausea and giddiness. I think it was probably due to heat. I'm feeling a lot better now - I think my body is starting to cope with the new bugs in my system :-)
* Friday night the AYAD's were invited to a farewell party for two of the Vientiane College staff (who I hadn't met). Amongst drinking jelly vodka shots (which was very odd), there was also an ice sculpture of a swan which had a hole straight down it's back into its butt. Our hosts proceeded to put vodka down the hole and people drank from the other end. Possibly one of the bizarrest things I've ever seen....naturally there were some very sick people the next morning.
I think that's all I have to tell :-) We still don't have a house and it looks like Chris and I may actually be living by ourselves now, so I will keep you informed.

Lots of love,
Susan

2007-10-18T12:06:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone! It took quite awhile to get these pictures up - hopefully Facebook will be more accomodating :-)
We're at Vientiane College again for more orientation activities today. I've spent a lot of time here - almost to the point where I would really like to get out to do more exploring.
I'll try to remember what I've been up to over the past few days :-)
Tuesday was our first day here at the college (when I put up my first post). Vientiane College is when our in country manager and support staff work - its an college for teaching English to Lao students (who often end up at Australian universities under an AusAID scheme). After some introductory talks we had lunch over the road (which is where I took the picture of the fisherman). We also walked up to the golden stupa (I'm not sure of its name but it's a major attraction here in Vientiane).
Tuesday night we had a huge dinner with AYAD's from previous intakes, and various host organisations. I met several people who have worked for Sunlabob, as well as the guy who was offered the position I initially applied for. It was great to see other people who have been here for longer than me and see how they have adjusted - although I admit it was a bit scary to find out about various illnesses people had had :-)
Yesterday we had heaps of talks here at the college - I didn't leave the building all day. In the evening I went with a group to the Australian Club, which is the Australian Embassy's recreational club, and had a swim. It's an amazing place on the banks of the Mekong, but unfortunately they're closing it down at the end of December :-(
Last night we had dinner across the road from our hotel - there was a UN hosted concert next door to the hotel, but we missed the whole thing because of dinner. A funny story - Keith (an AYAD who is heading to the south of Laos) tried out his Lao on our waiter, and attempted to say I was his friend. However 'friend' and 'pig' are the same word (just pronounced with different tones) so our waiter burst out laughing when he found out I was Keith's pig. Another potential and unfortunate language problem is that 'I' and 'penis' are also the same word said differently (koi).
Today it's been more talks, followed by a yummy lunch by the Mekong. This afternoon is househunting, which should be good - I can't wait to stop living out of a bag. The houses here are ridiculously cheap and very nice. Chris and I will be sharing a house with Deb (who reminds me of my good friend from school, Michelle, so I'm sure we will get on great!) and Nicole, with a spare room for all our visitors :-)
Time to upload some piccies onto Facebook and Flickr - hopefully the next time you hear from me I will have the Internet at my new home and we can Skype!!

*hugs*
Susan

Welcome to Vientiane!

2007-10-16T12:41:00.000+10:00

Chris and I have just spent our first night in Laos. If yesterday was anything to go by, I think I'm going to love living here :)
We left Sydney at 9pm on Sunday night. We stopped over in Brisbane to pick up and drop off passengers, and then were off to Bangkok. It allegedly took 11 hours, but it went pretty quickly for me because I did a lot of sleeping. We met up with the rest of the AYAD's (who had flown from Melbourne) in Bangkok's massive new airport, and then flew onto Vientiane (only one hour). After we arrived we checked into a lovely guesthouse on what is Vientiane's equivalent of the Champs Elysees (there's a replica of the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the street). We'll be staying there for the next two weeks whilst we go about our orientation.
After we had a shower (by the way, the weather has been fantastic - no rain, no humidity, just sunny skies - although I have been fortunate enough to be in a lot of air conditioned environments) we headed off to lunch. The first thing Chris bit into was a chilli (unknown to him) so I think he's a bit worried about the food. I loved it :-)
After lunch we picked up some SIM cards and phones - I'm unlikely to use the phone except while I'm here, but if you'd like the number please let me know :-) Then it was off for a 75 min traditional Lao herbal massage (for $US8!) - which is very similar to Thai massage (I took a course in Thai massage two years ago). Then we headed across the road to have BeerLao and dinner on the side of the Mekong River as the sun set - absolutely beautiful.
It's time to head into our talks by our in country support crew, but I will post again when I am next using the net :-)

Pre departure training

2007-09-23T12:35:00.000+10:00

Sa bai dee! It's been a whole week since pre depature training finished in Canberra, and I think I've just finished recovering.

I arrived in Canberra on Sunday afternoon, having spent most of Sunday morning virtually tearing my hair out from stress (mainly just because I couldn't believe that it was actually happening). We stayed at the Rydges Lakeside, which is in the centre of Canberra (although I didn't find this out until the end of the week, because there's not much there). We had a meet and greet at the hotel on Sunday night, so I met the Lao group (14 of us in total, the second largest country group - there were 120 people there in total) and lots of other people, and spent my first evening (of many) in the hotel's bar.

Monday morning was when it all started. I woke up to the sounds of my roommate (Lisa) getting ready to go for a jog (keen!!) so I introduced myself - and then she says 'Do you have a twin sister?' It turns out Lisa lived in New College with Amy. Small world!!

We had presentations from the AusAID staff and some RAYAD's in the morning (let me explain the acronym - I am an AYAD, which stands for Australian Youth Ambassador for Development, and when I return from Laos, I become a RAYAD, which is a Returned AYAD). We were trucked over to ANU in the afternoon for discussions about cross-cultural awareness and religion (I thought I was supposed to be avoiding uni for the next 18 months!) then came back for some dinner (and in my case, a random two hour trek around Lake Burley Griffin with two girls who wanted to go for a walk!) I was absolutely stuffed at the end of the day - I think because I knew noone there except Nishan, so every conversation started at the same point - 'Where are you going?' 'What are you doing there?' - plus they were packing our schedule really tight.

We spent all day Tuesday at ANU in presentations and discussion groups about development issues and capacity building. We met some Laotians who were studying at ANU, and at the end of the day one of them (unfortunately I can't remember his name) went to each person in the group and tied a white string with some kip (Laotian dollars) attached to it around their wrist. My Lonely Planet tells me that this is called a baci ceremony, which is of animist origin. The tying of money to the wrist bounds our guardian spirits to us. It was pretty special :-)

Tuesday night I caught up with my old uni friend Nick who now lives in Canberra - it was great to catch up and just spend some time with someone I knew!

Wednesday morning consisted of several presentations from some senior AusAID staff about Australia's aid program in general, HIV/AIDS, and media expectations (and some very exciting news - Nishan's assignment got approved!! For those of you who don't know Nishan, we studied together at uni, and now both work at EnergyAustralia as graduates. We applied independently of each other to the program to go to Laos, and now by some remarkable twist of fate we will actually be working for the same company!!) We also spent some time in our Lao group preparing our presentation for Friday afternoon, which was to reflect what we'd learnt during the week - naturally our group decided to do some sort of interpretative dance...

We actually had some free time in the afternoon (yay!) so I went to the war memorial with two of the other Lao girls Michelle and Nicole. It was fantastic - I could have spent days wandering around, but I only had an hour!!! Then it was off to our swish reception at Old Parliament House with the Foreign Minister. It was a nice night - we met the Lao Ambassador and his wife, there was a presentation by Mr Downer, and lots of picture taking. However I was relieved to get back to the hotel and take my shoes off - two hours standing up in heels is never fun!

Thursday was great - in the morning we had presentations from the insurance, medical and security companies that take care of us while on assignment. The security guy was the best - he was ex-SAS and looked like he couldn't wait for some sort of war to break out so he could come and evacuate us. The medical guy, meanwhile, had me terrified that I was going to get rabies/dengue fever/malaria/everything all at once.

In the afternoon it just got better. We went to the Lao embassy (which was actually the Lao ambassador's house). The first thing he did was offer us all a BeerLao (which is apparently the best beer in SE Asia). Then we had this huge BBQ with sticky rice, chicken lap and papaya salad (I think I'll be eating lots of these over the next year!) and then he put on a DVD of the ASEAN conference held in Vientiane so we could all watch Mr Downer dance and sing at the gala night. What an awesome guy! If all Lao people are like him I'm going to have a great time!

Thursday night was the quiz night (which was organised by two of the Loud Lao crowd, Keith and Julie) and then back to the hotel bar (I think the only night I didn't spend any time there was Monday). The only problem was we had drunk them dry. Someone had the smart idea of going to a nightclub called Mooseheads, and so we all ended up following them. It was crap....as soon as I walked in I became very aware of how long ago I was actually 18. So I left pretty quickly :-)

Friday was dominated mostly by the AYAD's filling out various bits of paperwork, and our presentations. It turns out that most people had actually gone for the interpretative dance approach, and the Bangladeshi group had had pretty much every single idea we'd had (and they went first, so we looked pretty lame...except for Nishan's rapping). We got delayed at Canberra airport on the way home, but I was nice and comfortable in the Qantas Frequent Flyer lounge, chomping on camembert and drinking champers (don't ask me how I got there).

The week really helped with my motivation and focus for the trip - before I was just feeling stressed and questioning why I was going, but now I'm really excited again (and just stressed about how on Earth I'm going to get myself organised to go).

Phop gan mai,
Susan

First post

2007-09-07T19:58:00.000+10:00

Welcome to the new blog :-) It's now five weeks until Chris and I head to Vientiane, Laos for a year of challenges and excitement as part of AusAID's youth ambassador program. I'm setting the blog up now so I can report on my pre-departure training in Canberra (starting this Sunday) and just generally freak out before I leave.
I imagine that I'll be posting about once a week when we actually get to Vientiane. I'll also be on Skype so I can chat - for free! (I even have a webcam on my new laptop so you can see me when I talk).

More soon,
Su