Since this is a letter from Laos, and not from Leighton Buzzard or Islington I will not account for the last 4 weeks which were spent in UK and Thailand, except to thank all those who gave me such warm hospitality on my travels.
Back here things have not changed hugely in my absence. The new house on the plot behind me has moved forward a bit, though not as much as I would have expected given that the builders are a Vietnamese team living on site. The Education Minister’s new house down the lane is similarly inching forward. Land prices here have gone crazy, with land in my village being offered at $200 a square metre.
Yesterday I saw some signs of the much vaunted China to Malaysia railway line having been started. There still seems to be confusion about the route through Luang Prabang, the most favoured one running the newly opened golf course. I guess the train will be regarded as a natural hazard and the track will be deemed to be ‘ground under repair’ and players entitled to a free drop. Is it St Andrews that has the Railway hole? It seems that we shall be able to at least equal, if not surpass that.
However, there have been no signs of potholes being repaired and if anything the man road to Vientiane is worse than ever. I have overcome the problem of my eggs breaking on the way home by buying an egg box in the 99p shop in London. This is much admired in the Vietnamese grocers, who want me to bring lots of them next time for them to sell. Bringing multiple egg boxes will I suppose make a change from the usual, cheap pens, batteries, kitchen equipment, cheese and chocolate that usually fill my bag. I did try to bring a bread maker this time, that my sister kindly, but weighing in at 7 kilos, I had to leave it behind. I was confident that I could by one in Tesco’s in Thailand, but it was not to be and a vacuum cleaner had to be substituted.
The weather is strange...but I guess that is true across the globe. We are now into the hot season, which is also the dry season, but we have lots of rain and several mighty storms (more about one of those later). My tomatoes and chillies survived my absence and I am eating the former. The lemon tree continues to look like a sick child which maybe will not make it to adulthood. The fruit in season right now is principally the watermelon, which are vast. I bought one yesterday and after about 12 of us had all we needed, over half of it, weighing, I guess 3 kilos is left. Pineapples will soon be with us by the look of things.
Insects in great numbers and variety have returned. It sounds improbable but the cicada actually keep me awake at night they are so noisy and numerous. They are much noisier than the dogs! The only other doggie mention this week is of huge and scary looking German shepherd dog, which bounded up to a group of us in the woods, causing general anxiety. In fact he adopted me...I was under pressure from others to adopt him...and on our behalf he saw a off a whole pack of angry looking and sounding dogs. He followed our tuk tuk home for about half a mile, but it was a hot day and eventually he decided that he would have to adopt someone else instead
That seems to be a good note to introduce an account of Saturday’s outing with friends and students to the Khammoune village where I spent Christmas Day. The connection between insects and the outing is that fried insects were on the menu for lunch! We had an extraordinary picnic by the river with salad, fish, rice, noodles, vegetables, spices, the sweetest watermelon I ever tasted, beer and the aforementioned insects. Having eaten them before, I opted to stand back and let other gorge themselves. The journey proved a little challenging for one of our number who decided to close his eyes and wait for the inevitable to occur. But it did not, and the driver managed to keep the car on the bumpy and perilous track against all the odds.
Our student, Sisaveth again organised singing and dancing games for the village children, which as before was charming and amusing to watch. We were followed around the village by a trio of small girls who seemed, on this occasion to be unafraid of the falang invaders. One of them wore a most a beautiful brimmed hat hat, which would not have been out of place at Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot. Goodness, only knows how she came by it.
After the village we set off for the picnic and boat trip. We stopped to fill our bottles from the mountain spring where the water is collected to wash the Buddha figures in Luang Prabang at New Year. It was an idyllic day,until the skies darkened, and from nowhere a ferocious storm hit us. We could not have been wetter had we jumped fully clothes into the river....which, in fact most of the group did later. The warmth of the river water was startling compared to the cold of the driving rain. As we neared the boat jetty steam was coming up off the river as its warmth hit the cold of the rain.
But before then an outbreak of what can only be described as collective hysteria broke out as the hilarity of the situation emerged.;in a thunder storm in a small boat with no cover, drenched to the skin, with one of our number with a metal plate on his head to protect his, admittedly fine head of, hair from the rain. Water fights broke out and continued until we returned to base, with our students taking advantage of the inability of the more senior members of the group to avoid constant drenching from shoes, drink cans, plastic bags and anything else that could contain water.
Our minibus driver, seeing our condition wisely removed the fancy white seat covers which had adorned his vehicle on the way out.
One way or another there is a great deal of water here right now. For apart from the rain we have Pii Mai Lao....Lao New Year. At a religious level this involves the washing of the Buddha referred to above. At a more prosaic level it means kids standing on street corners with buckets and saucepans full of water ready to douse every pedestrian, cyclist or vehicle driver that passes. You can expect to get several drenching a day, so you are never really dry; the wisest people carry phones and wallets in plastic bags. This continues for a week or more, and is alleged to be ‘good fun’! I will have to visit the Immigration office next week with a bottle of whiskey to wish them all Happy New Year and ensure that I remain in their good books.
While I was in London a friend kindly compiled hours and hours of pop and classical music on a USB stick for me. After some initial hiccoughs all works splendidly now and this morning I was able to rebuff Lao pop music at 6.45 am with “Positively 4th Street” and “Monday,Monday”...followed by some Wagner. I feel I might be gaining the upper hand!
I am now embroiled in negations to buy land, on behalf of my charity, for an English school. This should provide hours of entertainment and education, and almost certainly frustration. I have the builders in right now. They are doing what we in UK would call snagging. That is to say finishing off jobs that should have been done a year ago; still, better late than never.
I continue to be in dispute with my (former) bank. Oddly, what eventually seems to have galvanised them into action is my threat to launch a website called Do Not Bank With BCEL. I have the site all ready to launch if they fail to deliver. After 3 months of dispute I have been offered a meeting with the local manager, but I am insisting that he visits me rather than I go to him, as I am the injured party. We will have to see how that stance plays out. It is quite clear that they do know how to deal with an angry client who will not shrug his shoulders and walk away as most Lao people would do.
Well, time to face the day and children with their water...I am sure there will be more to report on Pii Mai Lao next week. But for now...Happy New Year !
Alan
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