Getting out of the city

Someone asked if I'd gotten out of Vientiane, so here's a flash back to orientation where Rob took us out to a waterfall. The top...

And the bottom...

Making baskets...(continued)

The crude bamboo frypans that I made at the village last week got put to good use...

... Bandith fries up some Lao pancakes for the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides at PADETC's farm.

Making baskets

Just back from my first trip to visit two of the villages that work with Saoban.
Amazing how many people make help make one basket! Think twice before you haggle on the price of a basket, this album shows four people working on a blue basket but misses at least three of the stages/people.

See more...

Home sweet home

Jess and I moved into our new home one week ago and today Mary, our new housemate, moved in too. So now we are three, living in our humble little home...

 My room...

The view from my window...

Saoban makes it into the paper

Saoban featured in a two page spread in the Vientiane Times this week. Amazing!

Let me know if you would like me to email you a PDF of the full article. (I can't seem to attach a file here)

Learning Lao in Laos

Hi all,

I’m working away at learning lao. There are five tones (some say six)... which means when you attempt to say ‘colour’ you could be saying ‘F$%&’, or when say ‘I'm really tired’ you could be saying ‘I have a lot of pubic hair’. My teacher giggles a lot. I guess that isn’t a good sign.

There is also an excellent vowel sound that you make by trying to say ‘oo’ while smiling widely with gritted teeth. It ends up sounding like you’ve just stepped in something. So I’m going to take you all along with me as I learn...

Unlike Trashy Zeit mit LL, this blog will be much more PC. Now that I am a comrade living in the Lao People's Democratic Republic I find that is pays to smile sweetly and say bor hoo (don't know).

Some highlights from the first three weeks...

My picture has been on page five of the Vientiane Times twice since I’ve arrived!

Jess, Sam and I took a Lao cooking lesson. We chopped up garlic, lemongrass, thai basil, king (ginger), ka (galangal), etc., and put them in the kok suk (mortar & pestle). In the end we made: fish steamed in banana leaf, beef stew, chicken laap, green papaya salad and sweet bananas in coconut milk.

That Luang Festival - dressed in my off the rack sinh (traditional lao skirt), I walked three times around the golden Stupa with candles, flowers and incense. 

Later I got to wear my fancy silk sinh to our official welcome dinner. (See the slideshow)

Saoban had five(!) stalls at this years Women’s International Group Bazaar.

The Australian Embassy had a sausage sizzle and lamingtons on offer. I went for the German Embassy’s bratwurst.

See more photos from the Bazaar...