Wan pak yu pathet angit

Love the lairy colours.  Photo courtesy of K. Bilby

Goodness me, it seems like a long time since I wrote my last post and looking back at the archive I discover I’ve managed to skip a month, which irks my slightly obsessive compulsive nature.  It’d be quite easy not to bother writing the blog at all and I could think of any number of excuses but actually I think it’s pretty important to keep some kind of record of what I’ve been up to and my thoughts about living in Laos. 

Once you move past the excitement of the new, it’s so easy to forget and to gloss over the differences in culture and lifestyle.  I stopped taking my camera everywhere after the first couple of months and in any case I’m terrible at getting photos taken of myself, so there’s very little record that I’ve actually been in Laos at all. 

I can assure you that it’s not an elaborate ruse and if you don’t believe me, I’ll show you all the credit card bills for all the flights I’ve taken backwards and forwards.

Talking of which, I’ve been once again racking up the air-miles and given that I made two trips to the UK between the middle of June and the middle of August, I think I can forgive myself for missing a single blog entry.

The most recent trip was my longest yet, at two and a half weeks.  I had to be at home so I could be bridesmaid at a wedding and also because the ruddy Olympics were in town.  How blooming exciting!  Not only were they in town but we also had tickets for the women’s handball preliminary rounds, featuring Spain, Denmark, Russia and Croatia.  Oh yes, read it and weep, let your jealousy ooze forth.  It may not be the 100m final but it was a surprisingly good fun and a great experience just to be in the Olympic park.

Having grown up a couple of miles from the site and driven past it almost every day during the first few years of building, it would have been almost perverse to miss out on the ultimate spectacle.  I have some lingering concerns about some of the associated commercialisation and disruption, as well as what will happen to the area after the games but so far, the Olympic thing seems to have worked out better than I expected.   I even got to see the Queen, which was surprisingly exciting.  She wasn’t competing, although given her frankly amazing sky-diving ability, I can only assume she’s a dead cert for Rio.  She was moseying about near her gaff, showing off her motorcycle outriders and the royal standard on her car but she gave a cheery wave as she passed, and the crowd all said ‘oh, that was the Queen’, which is the correct response in the circumstances.

Unintelligible lab instructions

Anyway, before I made it to London, there was the usual hassle of actually getting there.  I hastily drew up some pictorial plans for my colleagues in the lab and had some last minute visitors from another department who wanted some help editing documents.  Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to make a last minute trip to my rice project but was confident everything was ticking over ok, so I left work relatively happy.

I dropped off my bike and collected my luggage from home and headed towards the bus station, hoping to pick up a samlor on the way.  For some reason, none was to be had and so I ended up walking the 3-4 km fully laden and under the full heat of the sun.  In the time it took, I had six different offers to join parties of beer drinkers but not a single offer of a lift, which I think is a neat summary of priorities in Laos.

The next hitch came at Bangkok.  The lady at the check-in desk wanted my credit card and it took me some time to explain that I had a new card number.  We had a short burst of ‘Lost in Translation’ style confusion, which didn’t help matters; I truly hadn’t a clue what she meant when she asked if I had ‘shairn’ my card but sadly she knew no synonyms and ultimately I ended up with the worst seat possible and a filthy mood to go with it.  Still, the flight was packed, as was Heathrow at the other end, despite subsequent claims that they had below average numbers in July.

Wedding make-up trial no. 1
 

All in all, I had a great time at home and I’m really delighted that I managed to make it to the wedding, which was not only a splendid day in itself but a fitting celebration of the marriage of two of my favourite people.  Brilliant as it was, it still managed to convince me that weddings are too much like hard work, so I think I’ll stick to being a guest.  Being a bridesmaid was surprisingly tolerable, probably because my lovely friend was not at all demanding and her husband is one of the most laid back fellas I’ve ever met.  I was a little disappointed I didn’t get my first choice of wedding make-up but there was a smashing ceilidh and a bouncy castle to make up for it, which really was an inspired inclusion.  My precise memories of the evening are a little hazy but I do remember watching Mo Farah win the 5,000m during a perfectly timed break in proceedings.  I also seemed to spend a fair ammount of time trying to stop my dress from falling off.  The dress had nothing to do with Mo Farah, despite his prodigious running skills and if anyone tries to tell me that constantly adjusting my bust in the style of Les Dawson isn’t cool, then they are just plain wrong.

Clearly pissed, dress clearly falling down.

I made two mistakes at the wedding; the first of which was having a lengthy anti-marriage chat with my old housemate’s long term boyfriend, although we did later boss the Orcadian strip the willow together, so I think we made up for it.  The second was to pronounce the next morning that I hadn’t been that drunk.  I now realise with a little bit of back counting and taking into account the two previous nights of merriment I’d enjoyed, that I was really quite tipsy.  The photos confirm it.  As did the bride and groom when I suggested it to them. 


Given the range of excitement, the length of my holiday was far too short but I was reassured once again that I felt quite content when I arrived back in Pakse.  Nothing much has changed and the water levels are much lower than last year, so all seems well.  The constant round of demolition and new building work continues in town and my lab colleagues had somehow managed to decipher the drawings I’d left them and have produced some really fantastic cultures.

End of another exhausting holiday - pic courtesy of K. Bilby

Fingers crossed, the last six months of my placement should prove a fitting end to my time in Laos and I won’t spend too long wishing I was back in the UK.  Although, now my summer holidays are over, my thoughts have shifted to my next set of visitors and the best way to spend my last Christmas away from home, so any suggestions are gratefully received.