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