It's official - Jo really DOES know everyone in Vientiane!

We've spent the last week back in Vientiane, capital of Laos, much of the time with Cynthia's daughter, Jo.   And, just as before, everywhere we go, people are calling "Sabaidee (hello) Jo" and stopping her for a chat - street vendors, tuk-tuk drivers, monks, beggars, restaurant/bar owners and their customers, fellow-teachers, pupils/students and their families, the whole gamut!   It's been great,though, meeting up and chatting with so many locals and ex-pat friends of hers.

We arrived here in time for the weekend celebrations for the 450th founding of Vientiane as the capital of Laos, which coincided with the annual Buddhist festival of That Luang, and so many of the streets are busy and full of people who came here for these celebrations.   At Jo's suggestion, Andy and I got up VERY early on Sunday morning (21 Nov), leaving the hotel by tuk-tuk at 4.30 am(!) to go up to the temple of That Luang to watch the tens of thousands of monks gathering all around the temple and its surrounding streets to seek alms, the hundreds of thousands of worshippers who'd come to make offerings, and the thousands of street vendors who'd set up food stalls to feed the gathering throng.   As the dawn broke, the scene was just a mass of saffron-coloured robes, cauldrons of bubbling, steaming, sizzling food, and the constant, ant-like march of thousands upon thousands of families in their 'Sunday-best' clothes, many carrying gaudy, glittery, plastic, conical-shaped, marigold-covered flower arrangements, as well as offerings of money, fruit, chocolate bars, or sticky-rice.   Many of these families brought along large mats, or even newspapers, to place in the middle of the road facing the monks standing behind their tablefuls of begging bowls who lined the many streets.   Here, the families sat or kneeled, careful to keep their feet pointing away from the monks, and talked to each other in hushed tones or listened to the commentary, and later the chanting, coming over the loudspeakers.   After maybe two hours of this, they started the process of quietly queuing along the row upon row of begging bowls, putting a few of their offerings into bowl after bowl, often having to stop still for ages because of the sheer numbers in front of them.

Monks and Crowd at That Luang Temple

Monks and Alms Pots at That Luang

That Luang Temple

Part of the Alms-Giving Crowds

More of the Crowds

And Yet More!

 

Andy and I had both marvelled at how this massive event had been so well 'self-policed' - we'd seen no evidence of the kind of crowd control measures we would expect of such a huge event in the UK - only one set of temporary barriers at the main entrance to the temple, and a few police officers, whose focus was solely upon managing the road traffic, rather than shepherding the throngs of people.      Little did we know that, only a few hours previously, on the Saturday afternoon, one of Jo's friends, Sheila, had had a real fright and made her escape when that day's procession had become dangerously crushed.   Ironically, too, the next day we learnt of the tragedy which had befallen the crowds at the water festival in Phnom Penh this same weekend (and which we'd very nearly stayed there for!), when a stampede had killed well over 300 people, many of whom had fallen into the river and drowned.   Terrible.

On our way back from That Luang, though, we had a typical 'Laos moment'.   Driving in and out of the four lanes of oncoming traffic (thankfully, mainly going at snail's pace), our tuk-tuk driver's wing-mirror hit and smashed the wing-mirror of a stationary tuk-tuk.   With hardly a word spoken between the two drivers, our driver lifted up his own seat cushion - we thought perhaps to get out his wallet to pay for the damage.   Instead, he pulled out a spanner, un-bolted his own unscathed wing-mirror, bolted it on to replace the other tuk-tuk's damaged mirror, and we continued on our way with no further ado!  

That afternoon, we had a really lazy time with Jo around the open-air swimming pool of a French hotel just out of the city centre (temperatures here much lower than in Cambodia last week - perhaps only high 20s rather than high 30s - very comfortable indeed).   Our own hotel here is fine, but pretty basic and unremarkable - except, of course, for the demolition-about-to-be-construction site right outside our hotel bedroom.   We were woken up at 6.00 am the other day by the sound of a HUGE digger/grabber which had been driven onto the site, and we watched in fascination, bordering on terror, as the vast grabber-bucket picked up soil, debris, bits of rusty metal, etc, and swung around to deposit its load in a waiting lorry, the huge bucket swinging swiftly and threateningly just inches away from our single-brick-thin hotel wall on our side of the site, and about a foot away from where an elderly woman was crouched over her cooking pot outside the front door of her housel just across the roughly 40-feet wide patch of ground between our hotel and her house.   To our amazement, she didn't turn a hair!

On Monday, Andy hired a motor-bike, and followed me and Jo, on her motorbike, out about 25k from the city centre to a wonderful eco-resort situated in a lovely rural area right by a riverside.   An eco-resort is one which does everything it can to minimise its impact on the environment, in terms of aesthetics, use of sustainable materials, energy-generation and use, support of local traders and villagers, etc.   It was just wonderful and a lovely tranquil way to spend the day.   Jo's friend, Barnaby, who runs the place, sat and talked with us over an absolutely gorgeous fish lunch (which Andy caught for us!), and then treated us to a gorgeous trip up-river on his 'boat'.   This boat is a huge raft, complete with palm-thatched roof supported by four poles, strapped to the hulls of two long canoes, and powered by a 'long-tailed' outboard motor.   Jo, us, Barnaby and his Laotian fiancee, and a driver, putted upstream for maybe half and hour, before the driver turned off the outboard motor and started drifting on the current back down to the eco-resort.   At this point, Barnaby produced two huge inflated inner-tubes, which Andy and I used to 'tube' back down alongside the boat, while Barnaby, his fiancee and the driver, swam and floated alongside.

We learned from Barnaby that he is hoping to marry this local village girl some time, but there's about a 14-stage, strictly sequential, approvals process a fa-lang (foriegner) must go through first.   He's apparently over the first hurdle: the approval - or, at least, acquiescence - of the girl's mother (she, apparently, didn't even bother to look up from her washing-up as Barnaby's putative fiancee explained their wishes to her!).   Next, if I've got this right, there's the village chief/head of the local Communist Party (usually the same person); then the regional committee, the President, the General Assembly of the United Nations, old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all!   Our good wishes go to him and his fiancee - just hope they're not too old to 'get to the church on time' by the time the process is over!

On Tuesday, Andy and I visited the COPE Centre here, to see the amazing work they're doing in providing prosthetic limbs and orthotics to the many, many, amputees and victims of the thousands of tonnes of ammunition still wreaking havoc on this peaceful, agrarian country (dead and maimed victims still number, on average, one every day), and which didn't even possess an army to defend itself against the so-called 'Secret War' I talked about in an earlier blog.   Another sobering, but enlightening and truly heart-warming experience, despite the dark subject matter.   The work they do here is amazing.   It's another NGO, heavily reliant on donors to keep its work going - the cost of producing one prosthetic leg tailor-made for a person's particular injury is around $50, and that's not taking into account the cost of transporting people here from rural areas, their stay and treatment in the hospital/clinic, occupational or physio-therapy, etc.   As well as bomb victims, COPE also support polio-victims, people with leprosy and genetic defects such as club-foot - and continue to campaign to get countries to sign up to the Convention against cluster-bombs: it's perhaps thought-provoking to see which countries have still to sign up!

We've had more wonderful food here in Vientiane too.   We've been back to Makphet (Chilli), the restaurant run by former street-kids, a wonderful Japanese restaurant (Yululu), with not a sushi in sight, just lovely Japanese 'home-cooking', a fantastic French restaurant overlooking a lovely square in the centre of town, as well as some more street-food.   On one evening, we went to a restaurant owned and run by Jo's Australian friend, Sophie, and her Laos husband Joe.   He had recently won first-prize in an international cookery competition - in Singapore, I seem to recall - for his insect-based dishes.   So ..... no, you won't guess what we tried:  silk-worms and crickets (yes, the jumpy thingies), all the crunchy bits removed, served in tacos, with a creamy garlic sauce and side salad.   Hmmmmm!   Nothing too horrible-tasting, though we noted that neither Jo nor Martin, her locquacious acquaintance (blimey, try saying that out loud), were prepared to try them.   But not particularly unmissable either.

Yesterday, we went out on our motor-bikes again (actually, the nice lady from whom we'd rented earlier, went out and bought a new motorbike in the market for Andy that morning, as the one we'd used earlier in the week was already hired out - another truly Laos moment!).   We travelled for about 25k along a red dusty road alongside the river, to visit some spookily empty, seemingly abandoned, very bizarrely decorated temples, and one abandoned former spa.   By the time we got back, we were all covered head to toe in red dust.    Today (Thursday, our last full day in Vientiane), we headed back to a wonderful herbal sauna which Jo introduced us to earlier in the week, set in the grounds of a forested temple just a few kilometres from the city centre.   It's set up in a rickety, wooden stilt-house, with a huge wood-burning stove underneath, which gobbles up whole tree-trunks rather than logs, to heat the water which sends the steam to us upstairs.  Oh yes, and Jo seemed to know not only all the staff there, but also half the customers!   She got chatting to the owner, Noy, who speaks fairly good, if heavily accented English.   Noy made us all burst out laughing when she stopped her conversation with us just long enough to tell a new rather tall Western male customer that "You muss hah a longer sa-long;  otherwise you show arse".   She seemed a little puzzled at our reaction!

We've had a great week here - thank you, Jo.   Tomorrow, we're off by bus to Vang Vieng, staying at the Elephant Crossing hotel, owned and run by yet another of Jo's friends, Rachel.   Looking forward to that enormously.   A bientot, all.

Eco-Resort

Eco-Resort Again

Raft-Boat for Tubing Trip at Eco-Resort

A Tuber!

Another Tuber

Sunset at Eco-Resort

Barbara at the Cope Centre

Sauna and Massage in the Forest

Another of the Sauna in the Forest

Another of Cope Centre

Digger by Our Hotel



Khouy

Khouy is a tiny boy, with stick-thin, but not emaciated, arms and legs and a smooth, olive-brown face with the inscrutable expression of an old man.   He lives here in the New Futures Orphanage in the town of Takeo, 60k south of Phnom Penh, where we're currently doing some voluntary work.  He rarely makes eye-contact, or shows any emotion on his passive face, least of all a smile.   He rarely talks, and only occasionally plays with any of the other 51 children between the ages of 5 and 20 who live here.   If he does play with them, it's not long before he walks off, arms crossed across his chest, to continue a form of solo play of some kind - kicking a balloon, playing chess or dominoes against himself, or drawing pictures in the newly-tidied up art-room.   No-one knows his age, but they've guesstimated it as around 5-7 years old, even though physically he looks much smaller.   He was found, two years ago, wandering alone in the jungle nearby, with a huge distended belly, scavanging for food.   Somehow, the people who run the orphanage have learned that his mother had died, and that his father was 'crazy' - though we don't know in what way.   When found, the little boy had some kind of parasite in his stomach, and the Orphanage paid for him to go into hospital, where they managed to heal his physical illness at least.   Khouy (we've given him a false name, in line with the Orphanage's Child Protection Policy) does play occasionally though, albeit in a very serious way, with the many volunteers who come here to help out - certainly he beat me at chess and dominoes a couple of times, but showed no sense of joy or pleasure when winning, or disappontment on losing.   (Actually, most of the children are whizz-kids at chess - in fact, one 8-year-old girl whom Andy was playing, so took pity on his efforts that, towards the end of the game, she was giving him back pieces that she had taken earlier!!).   Today, however, Andy managed to make Khouy smile and even giggle when the two of them played a kind of hide-and-seek game whilst batting a balloon between the two of them.   Khouy hates it when other children try to muscle in on anything he's doing one-to-one with an adult volunteer, and Andy was at pains to play this game with Khouy away from where the majority of the children were playing hakky-sak or volley-ball in the sandy playground.

To watch Khouy for any length of time could easily break your heart - but I have to say that he is certainly not typical of the chldren here in New Futures.   And the Orphanage itself is as far as can be from the Romanian horrors most of us probably think about now when we hear about orphanages in the developing world.   Just about all of the children here are sociable, confident, happy, playful, intelligent, quick-witted, mischievous and - thanks to New Futures - well-fed and well-educated.   Not all of them are parent-less - some have families, particularly single-parent families, who can just no longer afford or are too sick to feed or educate them themselves, or who have abused, neglected or rejected the children, or where new step-fathers won't acccept them.   In appropriate cases, the children are encouraged/supported to maintain contact with their families - weekly, monthly or yearly, depending on distances and circumstances, whilst living here.   Materially, socially and culturally speaking at least, the children here have a much better deal than most of the village children in the area.   They all get free education, have access to books, toys and games, as well as to vocational skills training (they have a hairdressing and beauty, and bicycle repair workshop here, as well as a library and art-room, and a small 'farm' with pigs, chickens and a fish-pond).   The children are also involved almost continuously with lots of adult volunteers from just about every country in the world  (390 altogether in the last two years), though the majority from England, and many receive individual sponsorship to go on to University on leaving here.   New Futures is a fantastic, ethical, caring organisation - check out their website - which is now run by a really good man originally from Nottingham, Neville O'Grady.  Neville was working at the original orphanage here as a volunteer two years ago when it ran into serious problems after the Cambodian manager at that time embezzled huge amounts of money from the organisation, and they were forced to leave the premises they were in at the time.   Garnering support from local families, local charities, and several international NGOs, Neville has re-located and re-founded the orphanage under the New Futures Organisation banner, and has also been successful in gaining funds from all over the world to open up several free village schools in the neighbourhood as well.   Working here is a real inspiration!   As well as lots of interaction with these amazing kids - playing games with them, helping them with their English or Maths homework, or talking to them about theirs and our lives and families - we've spent much of the week painting some metal bunk-bed frames which New Futures has recently been able to buy, much to the joy of the children who've been sleeping on mattresses on the floor until now.

Today, we've also helped out with Christmas preparations!   Apparently, they intend to celebrate Christmas Day here (which this predominantly Buddhist country is happy to enjoy anyway), by hosting a party for over 100 volunteers from a number of different countries, as well as some of the children's families and local people.   Shepherded by a volunteer from Norfolk, who is herself a cub-scout 'Akela', we've been making Santa Claus serviette holders with some of the children, after they'd they finished school and homework.   Before then, six of us volunteers (four from UK, 1 from Singapore, 1 from Holland) were taken by Tuk-tuk to one of the New Futures village primary schools about an hour away.   There, we were treated to beautiful renditions of 'London Bridge is Falling Down', 'Incey-Wincey Spider' and 'Row Row Row the Boat' by the 80+ children (there are usually double this number here, but today is a festival of some kind - all taught by ONE highly energised, amazingly motivated young male teacher who lives in their village - yet another inspiration in a truly inspiring week!),.  We were also invited to help out with pronunciation lessons on some English words which had been written on the once-black-now-grey-board at the front of the class.   Quite an amazing experience hearing 80+ 5-8 year-old children reciting our words in unison, each word preceded by a kind of clapping-game designed to keep both the rhythm and the children's attention to the task.   Utterly spell-binding and truly humbling!

Tomorrow (Thursday 18th) Andy and I will go with the Tuk-Tuk driver to the market, to buy some 50 kilo sacks of rice to leave behind.   One sack, which costs around $20, lasts for two or three days, and is an absolutely essential part of their 'food-security' here at the orphanage.   Neville has explained that, not surprisingly, many donors prefer to have their money spent on something more tangible and enduring (like the library, or the bunk-beds, or some toys), and yet the cost of providing food for the children is a constant necessity, getting the money for which is a full-time effort of his.   He tends to deal with the fund-raising and project-work nowadays, as he has a local Cambodian family (Bunsang, his wife and 2-year-old daughter)  living on-site and managing the orphanage day-to-day, with the help of two mature women kitchen workers/cooks, and one odd-job-man/farmer.

One thing we have noticed, though, is an almost complete lack of dolls of any kind, and we were wondeing about how the children will develop their nurturing skills.   This, we've learned, is a culutrally-bound issue:  it was explained that the village children locally would be expected, from the age of 3 upwards, to stay at home and be responsible for looking after the younger toddlers/babies whilst the parent are out in the fields all day.   As they have their own 'live' dolls to play with, there's just no culture of playing with toy dolls at all, and even when dolls have been brought into the orphanage previously, there has apparently been no interest whatever from any of the girls or boys in here.   Nevertheless, given the circumstances of the orphanage children, they have no problem with us trying again - so, if you, Cameron, Dylan, Lucca or Rui, know of any dolls you or your friends no longer want (particularly, but not only, if they have dark hair or olive skin), start collecting them up now!!   With your help, when we get back home, we can get them sent here for the children in the orphanage to play with......

Right, off to bed now.   Night, night all.

PS: Not having posted this yesterday after all, it's now the end of our final day here at New Futures Orphanage - and what a send-off we've had!   After collecting some bags of rice in the tuk-tuk this morning, we managed finally to finish and assemble 6 of the bunk-beds in the girls' dorm- to great celebrations by the lucky 6 and their friends.   Then, we were treated to a wonderful dance show by several of the children, who were practising one traditional 'Apsara' folk-dance, and one Michael-Jackson/pop-video-influenced routine put together by a young 12-year-old boy who desperately wants to be a professional dancer - and he's brilliant!   At dusk, just as we were leaving and the children were about to have dinner, Bunsang called all the children together for a 'photo-call', after which every single one of the children clamoured around us, hugging us, shaking our hands, wishing as "goo luck for you", and begging us to return some time soon.   Several of them gave us friendship bracelets which they had made, and then they all ran along the lane beside the tuk-tuk which was taking us back to our accommodation, shouting their goodbyes and good lucks until they could no longer keep up.   What a wonderful display of affection and love.   For any one of you looking for a really heart-warming volunteering opportunity, we can certainly recommend New Futures!




Village Primary School

 

'Miss'

Part of Welcoming Routine

Our Accommodation - Annex to Orphanage

Welcome to the Orhanage (by children and volunteers)

'Khouy'

Orphanage Football Team



'Pheewww!'



Us Two with the Children







Happy Faces at School - and Everywhere Else!





Farewell Photo-Call







Salt and Pepper (Kam)pot

... with apologies to Brian and Sara for plagiarising the title they gave to their visit here earlier this year!  

Kampot is a quaint, fairly run-down in parts, riverside town overlooking the Elephant Mountains (well, hills really, but we won't make a molehill out of that)..   It's famous for its salt production, as well as boasting the world's highest quality pepper.   We spent today (Friday 12th) having a look at a pepper plantation, as well as visiting the tiny seaside town of Kep - a round trip of about 70km on a Tuk-tuk on red dirt/clay/boulder-strewn roads.   Hmmm!   Our hotel room in Kampot is absolutely wonderful!   We're staying in 'The Green Room' at the Moliden guesthouse overlooking the river and the mountains.   The Green Room itself is newly opened in this wonderful old building, which features lots of lovely, stylishly-done, old, dark wood - very colonial indeed.   We have a double-aspect room, in which there is also a double-aspect bathroom - it's a large room in one corner of the bedroom, complete with modern corner bath and bathroom fittings - though we can't work out how to drain the water from the washbasin - the walls of which are, however, floor-to-ceiling windows.   For modesty's sake, though, there are long, lime-green, organza curtains which can be pulled across - and which beautifully complement the lime-green window-curtains and lime-green bedding.   It's an absolutely gorgeous room, with our own balcony looking over the river and the downstairs pavement restaurant area - and we have our own hammock and outdoor wooden staircase entrance here too!   In fact, I'm sitting in the hammock typing this while Andy roams around below, taking pictures of the wonderful sunset here this evening.   Just before he left, though, I'd had a little bit of a spook:   I'd gone into our posh bathroom for a luxurious soak in the bath, only to discover a mouse (yes, a mouse!) swimming/drowning in the washbasin whose water we hadn't managed to drain away.   Quite a shock really, which made me go all 'girlie' - I shrieked, ran out, and demanded that Andy do something about it!   He, aided and abetted by one of the staff members, managed to both to rescue the mouse - just alive, I think - and work out how to drain the basin.   Phew!  

We'd arrived here yesterday by bus from Sihanoukville.   I think I've already said that our pace will be slower from here on, and the two-and-a-half days by the beach there have certainly started that predicted slower pace.    Our hotel in Sihanoukville (recommended to us by the incredibly friendly and helpful staff at the Phnom Penh hotel) was right on the beach-front in the Occheutal beach area.   On arrival, we were greeted like long-lost friends - turns out the young front-of-house manager here is a cousin of the people in Phnom Penh.   We'd left Phnom Penh by bus, but only thanks to talking, in the midst of the mayhem which counts as a 'bus station' there, to a pair of 20-something English girls who are identical twins - Rachel and Robyn (or was it Robyn and Rachel?).   Somehow they'd discovered which of the many un-numbered, un-identified buses was going to Sihanoukville, and we spent an interesting 4 hours chatting to them whilst watching the comings and goings of passengers at every bus-stop in the towns and toll-booths along the way.   Several times we stopped in roadside towns and took on board (well, in the separate luggage compartment accessed from outside of the coach, really) bags of rice, cages of live chickens, boxes of electrical equipment, and an ice-box full of crabs.   And we noticed that, on at least three occasions at the road-tolls, no money changed hands, but baskets of bread or bags of other foodstuffs did.  We're still not sure if this was the toll-fee being paid 'in kind', or whether the bus driver had simply been 'running errands' for the toll-booth workers.

Anyway, back to Sihanoukville.   We spent two days there on or around the currently unspoilt Otres beach, meeting up again with Rachael and Robyn for a long chat.   It's a few kilometres from where we were actually staying but, as yet anyway, Otres has no modern hotels or neon lights - only palm-thatched, rudimentary bungalows and a few very laid-back local bars/restaurants.   It overlooks a number of the lovely islands off the coast here, three of which we visited on a boat-trip on one of the days.   The pair of us, together with two fun-loving New Zealand women, Lucy and Angie, were given breakfast on the beach and then taken to the first of the three islands, where we swam and snorkeled for a while.   We then went off to a second beach, on Bamboo Island, where the two boat-crew boys set up a barbecue and cooked us a wonderful barracuda lunch, while we swam and sun-bathed - and heard Lucy and Angie's horrific story of having been rescued from one of the Thai islands the week before, in the midst of a horrendous storm.   Apparently, several Thai islands were seriously affected by the storm, and the Thai navy had been mobilised to mount an emergency rescue/evacuation - SO glad we decided to come to Cambodia instead!    After lunch, and a walk around Bamboo Island (which has NO bamboo as far as we could see!), we went on to a third island for more swimming/snorkeling, before heading back to Otres beach for a seafood dinner and a couple (or more) cocktails with the two Kiwis.   Then we were taken back to our hotel on the back of the moto which had collected us early that morning - the three of us jiggling and weaving around on the red-dirt, heavily riveted, 4km-long track back to the Occheutal beach area.   Really good for the digestion!

Well, the sun has now set here in Kampot, and it's time to go out to dinner.   Tomorrow we leave for Takeo, where we hope to do some volunteering in the New Futures Orphanage.   More anon....

Otres Beach

Otres Beach Again

Beach on Bamboo Island

Sunset on Otres Beach from Bamboo Shack (Cocktail Bar)

'The Green Room'

Balcony at Green Room

A Typical Street in Kampot

Tuk-Tuk at Pepper Plantation

Pepper Plantation with Guide

Crab-Fishing Village at Kep

Sunset Over River at Kampot - Opposite our Room!

Our Boat to the Islands

Green Room Bathroom - In Use! 

Petrol Filling Station for Tuk-Tuks

Random Pictures.

Many Women Carry Goods Like These Chicken

Boarding the Ferry Across the Mekong

Local People Living on the Mekong's Banks

Pigs on Bike

The Long and Dusty Road



Many Attractive Market Stalls Like This One



One Half of Crazy Itinerant Folk Band in Phnom Penh

Old Lady Guarding Fish Farm
(ie, collecting money!)

View from Temple on Hilltop

Strange Things to Eat in Market
(inc. crickets, cockroaches, ants!)

Small Boy on Dad's Bowser

Lady Silversmith - with Well-Known Pants!

A Funeral Celebration, Opposite our Hotel in Phnom Penh

It Rains in Cambodia, Too.  Really Hard!