Say "Cheese"....

Some friends from UK brought me  a pot of Stilton cheese as a Christmas present. Anxious that if kept it any longer it would either break out of the pot, or my Lao friends/visitors might take it for body scrub and make off with it to the shower, I contributed it  to a small birthday lunch for a friend. Lovely it was too; very creamy, and stank to high heaven. Lao friends did not want to approach within  5 paces of it for some reason.

My return visit on The Ship of Fools was made enjoyable by the presence this time of a crazy German . He insisted, without success, that he sit in his 'rightful'seat, but when German culture comes up against Lao culture there is only ever going to be one winner. Some months back I explained the seating arrangements for the bus to Vientiane; those for the boat are more curious. On 3 out of 4 legs of the return journey, it is simply a case of 'first come, first served'. But on the other leg, numbers are put out on seats. Since you also have a numbered ticket there are those, like Herr Fritz who believe that the two are necessarily  linked. There are 2 other schools of thought; one that there is no connection between the 2 numbers and you sit where you like, and a more interesting view that they are linked but they you just move the numbers onto different seats if you don't like the seat that matches your number. But our friend was adamant that he been been allocated seat 15 and had the duty to sit there, despite the fact that the Australian lady sitting there had no intention of moving. He summoned the boat captain, who cunningly  produced the ticket number 15 and moved it onto a spare seat, but Fritz was having none if it. He even phoned his travel agent...a call I should have love to have heard both sides of. In the end since seat 15 was denied to him he decided on the only policy left open to him. He would sulk and refuse to sit in any of the available seats. The downside to this was that only a few of us noticed his protest and we  found it hugely amusing. After 2 hours he called off the sulk and quietly occupied one of the several empty seats available to him. I can't understand why he did not sneak down to the boat at 5am and place his towel on his favoured seat before returning to bed. Oh well.......

The  next day the boat was subject to a delay absurd even by Lao standards. About 8 different people; boat staff, police, military, party officials and those with nothing better to do (which may include several of the above) kept counting the number of passengers. They each counted us about 8 or maybe even 10 times, clearly with differing results. A meeting of no fewer than 16 people then gathered on their haunches on the landing stage to debate this problem. The passenger list was produced, as were tickets and money collected and compared with the various head counts. Such was the confusion it was reminiscent of a Florida presidential election count. After an hour I took it upon myself to be the tribune on the People and accosted the group, pointed to my non existent watch and then to the direction that we should be travelling. I clapped my hands and said, 'Come on guys, let's get moving to Luang Prabang'. Then a very strange thing occurred, they looked up, grinned, broke up the meeting, the captain got on board, started the engine and we were off.  My air of natural authority??
Shome mishtake shurely.

I avoided telling you much about the so called National Games, which were an irritant, but one of its legacies is the presence of  large flower pots all along the main streets. So far about 15% have been demolished by cars, and the rest have not been watered in a month, so most of the plants have died. However, they do serve as litter bins, which were a facility not previously available. I wonder if London's Olympic legacy will be on the same scale?

No photos again this week. My much abused camera has been stolen yet again, this time with little hope of recovery. It has survived one drowning and 2 thefts already but this feels more terminal even though the suspect has been 'helping the police with their enquiries' for the last 3 days. But he is being held for other offences and not for the theft of my property.  Along with the camera I lost an odd collection of things, few of any value. They included a clock, not valuable but likely to be unique in South East Asia and thus easily recognisable, 2 USBs (annoying) a ceiling fan...(what???), a pair of dreadful cheap loudspeakers, which were an unwise buy from Tesco Lotus in Nong Khai a few weeks back, some ..but not all..cutlery and some clothes. ( A friend anxiously enquired about the well being of my new orange shirt, but for some reason the thief did not include that in his haul); oh, and the vacuum cleaner. For the moment the greatest inconvenience is the loss of cutlery. I am down to 2 spoons, and with friends coming for dinner tomorrow night I shall have to convince them that sharing a spoon to eat the soup is a Lao traditional showing great respect to one's visitors.

Luang Prabang.

It appears to be the height of the wedding season here; there seems to be a wedding party every night in my village with the result that I sleep on my sofa downstairs,( which is quieter than upstairs), until about 3am, by which time the party has finally ground to a halt, although the cockerels are soon to stir, as is the temple drum.

Isabelle is no longer to be seen; RIP Isa.

Alan