Sabaidee Bpii Mai!

I've been in Vientiane two months now and it's looking likely that the move down to Pakse should happen in the next week or two.  Our work agreements still haven't quite been completed but there's much more hope in the air than there was a fortnight ago and meetings are planned for next week.

Anyway, we've got a leaving party planned for this Saturday but then I suppose we can always make it a pre-leaving party if our departure is postponed.  We've also got a new volunteer coming to stay with us until we leave.  His name is Jesus (Phillipino) and he arrives on Saturday, just in time for the party, so if all else fails, we can make it a Christmas party.  Ah, the fun we've had asking each other "When will Jesus arrive?" and "Is Jesus coming soon?" our hilarious jokes were at fever-pitch on Easter Sunday. 

Talking of which, I thought I should make an effort to go to mass for Easter.  It was certainly an interesting experience.  The service started at 8.30am and we pitched up a few minutes late to find a crowd sitting outside and loads of folk still arriving.  We managed to find a seat on one of the pews inside fairly easily, although we were slightly obscured by one of the pillars.  The church itself is from the French colonial period but has very little architectural merit.  The service was in three languages, Lao, French and English but they weren't direct translations and not every reading was repeated.  It lent (geddit) the whole process something of an air of mystery and I couldn't help thinking it might have been a bit clearer if they'd resorted to the traditional Catholic solution of having the service in Latin.  Ah well, I'm told God moves in mysterious ways.

Back to the party.  It's planned along an international theme, with each housemate providing a dish to represent their country.  Our house only has a couple of gas burners and trying to think of a British dish (suitable for a range of international pallets) which doesn't require an oven has been hard work.  I've got something in mind but I'll reserve judgement until after the party.

Most of the previous month has been taken up with language lessons and we've definitely been making progress.  We're still nowhere near the standard needed to comfortably start a job but I'm sure we'll improve quickly once we're isolated from English speakers.  We've also been keeping our steady stream of party attendances and occasionally we've found time for a bit of site seeing and culture.

The most significant parties happened over Lao New Year.  It was amazing and I absolutely loved it.  I don't think I've ever been so consistently soaked to the skin for such a prolonged period but I can't imagine wanting to spend those three days in April anywhere else but Laos.

The rough gist of the celebrations (as you've probably gathered) is that you throw water at each other....for three days...if not longer.  In theory New Year should have been celebrated on the 14th, 15th and 16th but we started with an office party on the 11th and didn't stop.  Not only were we covered in water but diluted paint, talcum powder, soap, shampoo, you name it.  The parties are mainly held spilling out onto the street so even if you're not directly invited, you can't help but take part.  The city pretty much throbs with music from 10am until 10pm - early to bed, early to get up again and chuck stuff at each other.

There's plenty of BeerLao flowing and it's not unusual to be flagged down on the street, have a bucket of water thrown over you and then be given a lovely glass of icy beer to drink before heading off again.  It was also great fun catching people unawares with the high powered water pistol I kept hidden in my bicycle basket.  Strangely, no-one ever seemed to expect me to be packing heat.

There were a couple of stages set up along the Mekong in town and the atmosphere was at its height there.  Traffic over New Year was a nightmare and it was quite common for groups of youngsters to cruise the city on the back of pick-ups hurling paint bombs at each other and pumping music out of their stereos.  It was all brilliant fun and I'd never have though when I volunteered to come to Laos that I'd be moshing to a Thai rock band on the banks of the Mekong with hundreds of Lao, all trying to give me beer while we were saturated by a water cannon from a tanker parked alongside the stage.

There was also a slightly more serious side to New Year.  We've headed into 2554 in the Buddhist calendar and on the 15th, the tradition is that you should attempt to visit a minimum of 7 temples in order to bring good luck.  I only intended to visit That Luang to get an idea of how the celebrations happened but ended up at 11 different Wats in one day.  There was a fantastically warm and welcoming atmosphere and each temple seemed to be quite different from the last.  The water theme is continued inside the temples, with statues of Buddha doused with holy water and flowers.  I even got soaked by a couple of monks, so I must be in for a good year.

In conclusion, New Year is absolutely mad and the people are friendlier, happier and more generous than there is any right for a foreigner or tourist to expect them to be.  I bloody loved it and recommend everyone to come here and experience it.



I thought I'd get that off my chest but I promise to write more serious things about Lao and the culture next month, hopefully from my new place in Pakse. 

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.