Koy bpen aa sasa mak!

The title of this entry is my appalling attempt at some transliteration from Lao into English.  It means, 'I'm a volunteer' and that's pretty much what I am, although up until now it hasn't really felt like it.

I arrived into Vientiane at the end of February on a business class flight from Bangkok.  Who sends a volunteer business class?  Needless to say, I didn't realise and missed out on the amazing Thai Airways facilties in Bangkok.  I also got some very strange looks from the suits sitting around me, as I was wearing all the clothes I couldn't fit in my 23kg lugage allowance.  23kg for 2 years isn't very much and needless to say it was the heavier items (jeans, coat, walking boots) which I chose to arrive in 32 degree heat wearing.

One of my bags didn't make it and although we have subsequently been reunited, the 'orange bag' which contained all of the items that were sorely missing during our first fews days in Laos became something of a celebrity.  Needless to say there was rejoicing all round when I picked it up at Wattay International (about the size of Inverness Airport) and liberated the bike tools, sensible shoes, baby wipes and other essentials from their brief holiday on a Qantas flight to Sydney and Back.

My intial impressions of Laos are amazingly good.  Vientiane is much more vibrant and developed than expected and is immensely laid back for a capital city.  The people are also really friendly and accepting, particularly of our appalling attempts to speak Lao.  The language lessons are a great opportunity but progress is slow and we have only a month left before being thrust into the world of work using a tonal language, written in a crazy script.  The words for 'near' and 'far' are alarmingly similar, so I imagine myself on some interesting journeys.

Vientiane has a great range of restaurants and music venues and the Lao youngsters that you see in the evenings don't seem to fit too closely with the reserved image we've been led to expect.  Tourists seem to be restricted to two key streets in town, which makes for an interesting atmosphere but even there the hawkers and tuk tuk drivers don't hassle aggresively for business.

Playing in the traffic is fun but even here the laid back Lao attitude means that I don't feel too exposed on my dodgy bike.  There's 7 of us living in one house and when we cycle anywhere together we look like a scene from the Goonies.  I think our bikes might actually be the original props from the film.

My biggest cycling mistake so far was heading out on a 50km cycle along the Mekong, at midday with no water and no suncream.  I really will never learn and will have to wear stripey knees and bright red arms for the next week or two as penance.  Then I will shed my skin like some kind of human-snake hybrid and the whole process can begin again.

So anyway, the move down to my placement in Pakse happens in the first few days of May.  In the meantime, I think we've got a few more parties planned; Laos New Year should be fun and I've got a whole laptop full of podcasts to listen to whilst I drink my BeerLao.  For now I'm off to sample one of the culinary delights whipped up by my broad spectrum of international housemates.  Will tonight be Phillipino, Kenyan, Dutch, Indian, Ugandan, Canadian or a whole new take on fusion cooking. 

It's a pretty strange collection of people to find yourself living with but thank goodness we all seem to be getting on ok.  It must be the cross cultural exchange that we've all been told so much about.