Rosie comes to visit!

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