Hong gaan bpai sa nii

Getting post in Laos is a tricky business. 

Controversial new spelling of my name

It’s also been really difficult to get the message across to friends and family at home that I really don’t have a postal address.  I get the impression they think I’m being reclusive and awkward.  So here it is once more for those in the cheap seats, I don’t have a postal address.  Promise.  I would love to get some letters in the post.  I would like few things more.  Despite having limited space, I made sure I brought out my goodbye cards, so I could check some handwritten messages every now and again.  For most things email is fine but you can never quite capture the doodles and idiosyncrasies of something written with a pen.  

It is possible to pay for a PO box and it is apparently possible to use a post restante service at the post office but I don’t really know how it works and it seems like a bit of a long shot that it will go off without a hitch in a town like Pakse.  Who knows, I could well have a year’s worth of post waiting for me at the post office only a few streets away.  One of my friends who lives in a small village has made an excellent arrangement with his local post office so they contact him by phone whenever they have any packages for him.  I suspect that such an informal system relies heavily on the fact that he is a rather noticeable figure in a small community and if I tried the same in the heaving metropolis of Pakse, I might hit a brick wall.

Look how much fun I'm having!

The best way to transport non-emailable items around the country seems to be by bus but this is a far from fool proof method.  I recently had cause to try and receive an envelope sized package from the southern province of Attapeu.  You’ll be disappointed to find out that the package didn’t contain nuclear secrets, stolen jewels from an ancient kingdom or anything remotely interesting but instead a small plastic and paper colour chart for helping to gauge the nitrogen level in a rice crop.  Stifle those yawns because this is fascinating stuff!  Anyway, my friend in Attapeu gave me the bus number, phone number of the company and a rough arrival time.  After trawling all the bus stations and a carrying out more than a few confused conversations, I eventually picked up my letter three days later.  In the mean time, I'd clocked up 68km on my motorbike and the letter had made at least one round trip.

New lab

That’s a combined total of 468 wasted kilometres just to deliver one, first class stamp sized letter.  It was definitely worth it though and I now can rest soundly knowing I topped up with an extra 23kg/ha.

You may have noticed that this blog post is a little later in the month than I normally post them.  That’s because, shock of shocks, I’ve actually been busy for the past few weeks and haven’t had time to squeeze in a page of inane ranting.  The reason is that we’ve just opened a new plant disease diagnostic lab at my office and we’ve been working on the set-up, sample collection and initial training of local staff.  I’m hopeful that it should provide some fruitful work for the next few months, provided we can successfully navigate the delivery pitfalls of getting chemical and glassware supplies from Thailand.

The last time I tried to order chemical supplies, I was working in the UK.  After registering, I got a call back from the supply company about an hour later wanting to check the order details with Professor Horsestrap.

Reluctantly, I had to admit that the eminent professor was in fact me, as I’d been unable to resist the seemingly endless choice of titles from the drop-down box on the website and invented an alter ego.  To be fair, I’d been egged-on by my colleague but he was nowhere to be seen when they called back and so I spent the next ten minutes persuading the chemical company that Prof. Archibald Horsestrap was a suitable person to sell sodium hydroxide and glass beakers to, despite his surprisingly feminine voice.

All the instructions are in Chinese.

Anyway, I’m sure that a Thai company will be a bit more laidback about transvestite professors but I’m a bit concerned that given my previous postal experiences, Prof. Horsestrap may go empty handed.

Just last week I hoped to take delivery of 25 diagnostic manuals sent from Australia.  A single book was brought in to me with great pomp but no explanation as to where its companions might have got to.  After some probing, it turned out that my over eager boss had already got them stamped with the department brand and distributed them.  I explained that I thought there might be more worthy recipients than the statistics department as I’m not entirely sure how often they’re called upon to diagnose plant diseases.  After we rounded them all back up, we were still missing around 15 copies.  Following a good deal of nagging, a search was eventually made and the books finally turned up but it does make you think about how resources are managed, especially as a microwave, a centrifuge and various sundry items have already gone missing. 

Where's Postman Pat when you need him?