The news in brief

Claire spends a relaxing week cruising around Vientiane on a sweet red scooter and playing nurse to me while I got my wisdom teeth out.

Noy and I go to Bangkok. First time for me and Noy (one of the women who works at Saoban) to visit Bangkok. It was also Noy's first time in a plane and the furthest she's been from Laos. It was a lot of fun, and completely exhausting, to explore the city together. I managed to fit in three harp concerts (including Catrin Finch!), tango, shopping and two movies. About Bangkok Noy said "it is SO fast... I love it!". For me, I'd happily never see a shopping mall again.

Success! The Happy Laos film fundraising campaign comes to an end. We collected more than our target $4000. Thanks to everyone who contributed, it was a great feeling to have so many people support me and the project.

Kickboxing, as I've just discovered, is the perfect therapeutic companion to yoga and meditation. I'm very happy to have found a gem of a teacher living in Vientiane and to discover the joy of being punched in the head.

Mum & Dad go local (loco!). If you are not on facebook then you won't have seen highlights from mum and dad's visit in June/July. They loved the cooking class and the food (is anyone surprised?)...
More photos from their visit here.

That's all for now. I'm so far behind on this blog that it is tempting to give up. The frequency and quality of the baby updates from the cousins puts me to shame. So above are some headlines from the past couple of months in an attempt to get back up to date and continue sharing my news from Laos.

Happy Laos :)

This year Vientiane is hosting the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Asia Europe People's Forum.. . so everyone is talking about poverty reduction, solidarity, development, economic growth, etc., etc. I've been working with a group of people who are trying to get happiness on that list and ask some different questions: what are we all developing towards? Happiness? So what is happiness for Lao people?

To get the conversation started we're making a film and we need your support...

... thanks Dain for being our first supporter!!!

a fair share of ukulele

Me n Mike. Busting out some ukulele at Vientiane College's Fair Share, a fair to raise funds for schools in Laos. I think the crowd were hoping for some pop songs or at least some Disney numbers but we stuck to our guns/ukuleles and played songs by The Band, Beirut and an original by Mike's old band The Dads. As I put the 500gm uke in it's soft case and shoved it into my backpack I thought (compared to lugging a 35kg+ harp around and getting into a station wagon) - I could get used to this.

Happy Birthday Saoban!

Saoban's first birthday Baci ceremony...

Natalya was my special guest for the day and was looking lovely 'n Lao in her Sinh and frills...

See more photos from Natalya's visit...

Motorbikes and Face Detection

Jani just came to visit for a week. He arrived on the evening of Dain's birthday - the last one out of customs because his old US dollar notes were rejected. The next day we were on the bus to Thakek and the following day we hired motorbikes, had a quick lesson in the driveway, and rode off towards Nakai with Karlee...

See more photos from his trip here.

During the trip he discovered the face detection setting on his camera. Once the camera detects a face it starts flashing and then takes three pictures. It took a while to get it right...

 See more photos from his trip here.

Lunch time

Picnic on banana leaves with Bandith and people from our bamboo weaving village

Sticky rice basket and puppy (this photo is for you Alice) 

Grilled fish and soup cooking inside a piece of bamboo

Dessert!!
...actually we chewed on sugar cane (at least I think that was what I was eating)

Sok Dee Pi Mai Lao!! (Happy New Year!!)

There are ceremonies and rituals at the temples, at work and at home, blessings and good wishes for the new year, but there is also a lot of beer Lao and a huge water fight. Officially the new year lasts three days, unofficially Vientiane will be a huge water fight/party for nearly a week. For me it started today (two days early) at the first of PADETC's (my host NGO) parties...

Musical chairs + water

Bandith the MC of course

Last chair...

Winner!

Victory dance :)

Books and Buddhas

I just wanted to share some pictures from Lelde's trip to Laos. It included a lot of books and Buddhas of course.

Buddha Park...

 Kiss on the cheek

Arrow in the head

Weddings photos at a temple. More photos here.

I'll add some photos of the book parties we did in Muuang Met. In the mean you can see some photos on Saoban's facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/saobancrafts

Ang Nam Ngum

After the excitement of having Lelde to visit I went to sit by the man made reservoir (created after the damming of the Nam Ngum river) about an hour and a half north of Vientiane.

Looking around the islands in the reservoir...

Jess, Mary and Maja heading back to the boat after looking around the prison guard's island. Just next door were the two prison islands (Mr and Mrs as they called them at reception).

 The view across the infinity pool to the reservoir...

Wedding Season

Sam was a favourite with all the girls and boys!

L to R: Sam, the bride, me, random

better than tennis...

...mozzie hunting!

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...