The Palace Protects the Meat Cubelets.....

Well, first of all thanks to Chris for last week's blog. It was a real joy to see him labouring and sweating over it...I can always enjoy watching a craftsman at work! Thanks too for the mushy peas, Worcester sauce, cheese, pickle, shortbread and mince pies......

This week, along with sundry other events (National Chiropody Day,Canine Cookery Week, Befriend a Tuk Tuk Driver campaign, The Celebrate a Dead Mother-in-Law Festival, and others too many to mention), we celebrated 15 years of Luang Prabang being a World Heritage City. And a jolly occasion it was too.  It gave the great and the good the opportunity to make endless speeches, some translated into English, but oddly, and happily, none into French. During a brief pause in the oratory we had an excellent procession down the main street, led by a drum corps and completed by a Fire Engine...the first I have seen in Laos. In between ,we had tribal representatives, dancers, Lao Youth Union flag bearers,Lao Women's Union , dancers, the boat racing champions, musicians, and some wonderfully restrained cheer leaders with pom poms.

But of course,the stars of the show, were, as ever the elephants.

As if that were not excitement enough for one week, we took a 3 day trip up to the far north of Laos, guided by my Hmong friend Kamphone. This had the added advantage that I was briefly allowed custody of my camera (since revoked, as he needs it for more photos of Hmong New Year, which is now into Day 11, I think). it was quite a demanding journey, 12 hours by minibus to Phongsali, but well worth it for the scenery and the ethnic villages, if not for the major towns en route.

I could devote this whole blog to tales of Guest Houses and Hotels seen and visited, but I shall keep my Les Routiers guide quite brief. Bearing in mind that the "h" in Lao is silent, who could resist  the "Phoxi Guest House? We saw, but were advised that we would not be allowed to stay at a Hotel built by the Chinese for the exclusive use of Chinese businessman after a dirty weekend. The town of Oudamxai seemed to have few other attractions so we pushed on to Muang Khoua.There we saw a wonderful, again Chinese Hotel, totally bereft of guest, with the staff clearly anxious to keep it in its virginal state by charging a rate about 500% higher than seemed appropriate. No wonder the fabulous teak staircase, that was utterly, utterly beautiful remained wholly unmarked by the tread of human feet. We settled for a more modest but quite adequate affair, which had an unusual artistic feature in each bathroom (see below).

In Phongsali we visited all 7 hotels before settling on the first one that we had been offered. It too was adequate, unlike some of the others that we checked out, but offered no eating or drinking facilities. Indeed the only establishment we found offering dinner was a Chinese one ( Being a border town, Phongsali is at least as Chinese in its culture as Lao). I attach the menu, from which I have taken the title of this week's blog. Pathetically, I ordered spare ribs,which I mostly fed to the owner's dog, who no doubt was herself destined to be on the menu later in the week, though under what title I am not sure, but possbly the Lephora Speculation?

But, as indicated above, all these minor issues were outweighed by the overall experience. We visited Hmong, Yao, Akha, Mien, Phou Moi and Khamoune villages, in which the women mostly wore tribal costume. I should have liked to have bought some items in the villages, but they had nothing for sale. There seemed to be no cash crop and no crafts for sale. In one larger village the Akha women did offer to sell decorative items from their own costumes, but that felt a little culturally awkward, and we settled for 2 packets of vacuum packed peanuts, clearly bought in bulk from another supplier.

Prepared by Khamphone we did take some gifts of pens and exercise books and he and Chris were mobbed by the various village kids when they produced these. I, heroically withdrew to take photos, rather than risk getting caught up in the melee. Inevitably we had not taken enough  ( I sense that you can never take enough), so sadly many kids were disappointed, but we did try to give preference to those who appeared to be of school age. There was some kind of stand-off between Khamphone and a man in one village as we left, but he would not be drawn on the nature of it; possibly we missed out his kids, or maybe it was a bigger cultural gaffe; I doubt that we shall ever discover.

The scenery  was stunning. Phongsali itself, although a rather sad and ugly little town sits high up in the hills at 1400 metres...higher I think than the highest peak in the UK. The views, however are beautiful, and driving in and out of it, looking down on the clouds in the valley bottoms gave a great spectacle.We had gone prepared for arctic conditions, but it was chilly in the mornings, though no more than that.

Morning in Phongsali starts at 5.30, when huge loudspeakers blast out the news in 3 languages, and patriotic songs in an indeterminate number. I was  content to blame the Chinese influence for this gross intrusion into our aural senses, although I am assured that it is a legacy of the Patet-Lao.

As I write this I have been informed that Khammoune New Year has been postponed by a few days ! I am now told that it will take place on 25 December, which somehow sounds familiar. My contact has advised me that it will be a 2 hour motorbike ride, at which point Chris has turned a rather odd shade of green. I suspect that he will soon be rustling through his diary searching for another appointment on that day.In fact, we have been invited to have Christmas Day lunch with a Lao-Australian family, and the sound of roast pork and apple sauce does have certain attractions.

The other night, Chris, tiring maybe of my life of quiet domesticity, suggested we went out on the town. We did. We had a beer, a sauna, an Indian meal; we declined some weed, listened to Lao music from the Roots and Leaves  cabaret show (10 paying customers at $25 a head ) and then went to find a lively bar. The Hive was loud but empty apart from 3 elderly ladies discussing knitting patterns. The LaoLao Garden bar was empty and given over entirely to a huge screen showing a UK football match, The House appeared to have 2 customers, which was more then the bar opposite or the restaurant a little further down the road. We settled for the relatively new Ice Bar, which was clearly having a benefit gig for retired members of the Lao Navy. Apart from ourselves and the owner, there were 2 customers inside, 4 playing cards outside and 4 eager and very attentive waiters. We had a  beer and munched on the complimentary peanuts, and then it being 10.15 we made made our way home.

Checklist....
1. Goat; none
2. Water; none
3. Pork pie none
4. Weather....rainy, and rather dull. Maybe top temperatures of about 28 degrees
5. Crime report; none.
6. Conversation overheard, "Yeah, it's cool. He writes this amazing weekly blog;it's spiritually changing". I think we can assume that the speaker was not referring to this blog......

By the time of my next blog you will have had  your Christmas Dinners, listened to the Queen, and watched that re-Run of "Only Fools and Horses: so this seems the time to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a prosperous Khammoune New Year.

                                                                                                                CHEERS !

Alan