Circular

Well here I am, once again magnetised to the bright lights of capital cities. This months turn its lucky Vientiane (again), the capital of Laos. For those closest of followers, you should remember that this is where I had my first stint on the trip, where I met Colm & Debbie. That time around we had no more than 3 days & my abiding memory of the small city (pop. 400,000) is that it permanently felt like a Sunday afternoon, granted one of those days was a Sunday!

This time around I got a different feel for the place, although some of the haunts are much the same as before. I’m staying a bit closer to the action, down by the Mekong River, which forms the boundary between Vientiane & Thailand on the yonder side. What[s been different? Well, the food is just non-stop brilliance here, which I don’t remember so fondly last time I was in V. Papaya Salad is a national dish, but don’t be fooled by such innocuous titles, it[s bloody spicy hot-definitely need a refreshing Beer Lao to wash it down. Its not as hot as the Laap, which is either minced chicken, fish or beef, also in a salad presentation which is tongue bursting. Due to the French occupation of Laos (& Indochina) there are quite a few lasting remnants of French cuisine, comprising baguette stalls & bakeries in the main; far too tempting for this sweet-toother.

(Just so you know & sympathise, I’m having to do a lot of corrections on my otherwise near-perfect prose! - as the Y button gives you Zs with this kezoard and vice versa, if zou see what I mean?!)

I had good fortune to meet a lovely Japanese-Lao lady the other night, who while living in Singapore is currently volunteering in one of the local hospitals here in Vientiane - she is a doctor, but also runs fish & tree farms in Luang Prabang. Always nice to meet nice people of course, but even better if they can teach you about the country you are experiencing... so I can now say nearly as many phrases in Lao as I had picked up in Vietnam - not bad for this semi-retired linguist.

Speaking of retirement, I too may be coming out of my premature retirement! As some may already know, I had hoped that part of this trip would see me knuckle down to do some work or volunteering which would see me based in one spot for a few weeks. Well, I have found an opportunity to do some informal volunteering here in Vientiane. It will be with an NGO, who go by the name of COPE Laos (www.copelaos.org for more of a background). I[all write more about that as & when it goes live, which hopefullz will be in 3 weeks. Meanwhile, I want to squeeze in as much "tourism" as I can. After nearly a week here, I get a bus (VIP, not Chicken-bus!) to Vang Vieng in 2 hours (hence slight hurried style of writing). It is a reputation as a rowdy partay town, which I’m not feeling too in sync with right now, so hopefully some of the outdoor activities that it first became famous for, along with apparently beautiful karst cliffs landscape will mean I find adequate repose. Although a sprucing up of my sociality should be welcomed if that were to happen also. …

Kip is the currency here in Laos and contrary to what I remembered (and belying Laos’ reputations as one of the world’s poorest countries) the bang for my buck isn’t as great as I had thought. 1 million kip (what I withdraw regularly!) is about 55 stg, so I’m going to have to be ‘carefuler’ with me cash & ‘spendthriftness’. The average meal comes in around 60,000 kip, so it’s not exactly daylight robbery either. Accommodation is definitely more expensive here – 12 US dollars a night is typical & that was the most I ever paid in all of Vietnam, which I would have expected to be more expensive…

Speaking of Vietnam, I had a pretty yuck adios to Vietnam! I decided to spend my last days in Vinh, not exactly on the tourist trail. I won’t go into it now, as the memory is thankfully getting fainter, but lots of things went awry & that was just the weather!! I was GLAD to be leaving it behind, even if it meant a 12 hour daytrip in a Chicken Bus across the border. The border crossing which my bus took has a reputation as being DODGE-galore, but thankfully I managed it stress-free. Being the only Westerner on my bus of cross-border smugglers meant I delayed them by 20minutes on the Laos side. Entirely not my fault guv’nor! This was the most disorganized border crossing I’d ever seen. There seemed to be a dearth of electricity, and the poor women officials were working to (1 tiny red) candle-light each. There were the usual four or five different transactions to be done with various missing officials, but I got there in the end, with the help of one of the bus-staff. By the time I got to Vientiane 12 hours after leaving Vinh, I was absolutely ready for bed

And that’s what I am now; I’m needing to go pack up my bag & do some final ‘tidying up my affairs’ in Vientiane. So, I sign off speedily, hoping you can go to your weekend with a sense of what my week has been like….

BEST
AODANx

PS-I have fetched a Laos mobile SIM Card, mainlz because I have been inundated with requests from you guys desperate for a chat with me!!! NOT! But seriously, & if you want to give me a call, then why not ask me by gmail for my number e- i dont think texting works so well mind! I am also on Skype as Aodan1.... regularly using that these days