Sent 11th December 2008
Dear All,
This is my last day in Bun Tai this year, as I drive down the 450 miles
tomorrow and Saturday to Vientiane. I’m leaving for the UK on Wednesday,
back to a land flowing with milk and honey and bankrupt banks.
I’m exhausted, this year has caught up with me. About the only […]
Sent 6th December 2008
Dear All,
The last few days have been some of my more unusual in my rather odd life
up here in Laos, I know that must sound strange but let me explain…
The focus of my work here in Phongsaly in recent days has been to try and
stop a major horrid Buffalo disease from wiping […]
Sent 28th November 2008
Dear All,
This past week has been a rather annoying week even by the lofty standards
of Phongsaly life, having spent most of it unwell but recovering from
nasty cold/stomach bug/’flu (pick any 3) that I picked up in an Akha
village the previous week.
It is lead to some soul searching, and uncomfortable realisations; it
seems quite […]
Sent 22nd November 2008
Dear All,
Just got back from a few nights in a couple of our villages, am tired
after a lot of time in the villages recently.
We have an outbreak of a very nasty Buffalo and Cow disease called
Hemorrhagic Septicemia, mortality is 100% if the animal isn’t treated with
antibiotics and it comes very quickly through […]
Sent 3rd October 2008
Dear All,
It has been a long 7 days, got back yesterday from the villages.
I was warned last Thursday that severe weather was heading straight for us
here in Phongsaly, Dave Kruse in Vientiane insistently warned me. Well
sure enough it struck, a typhoon from Vietnam.
Last Saturday morning at about 4am I heard a lot […]
Sent 13th November 2008
Dear All,
I’m back up here in Bun Tai again, up in Phongsaly province, and am
getting verry horribly cold. The whole idea of Laos being a warm country
seems to have bypassed the Phongsaly province world but seeing people
harvest rice in 15 C weather seems odd to me (it gets much colder than
that at […]
Sent 25th September 2008
Dear All,
I’ve just got back from staying in 2 hill tribe villages in rural Phongsaly, I left on Monday with the team and just got back today.
Staying in hill tribe villages is a strange experience, and basically darned uncomfortable as they have yet to discover the sprung mattress, or glass windows, […]
Sent 21st September 2008
Dear All,
It is hard to believe that I’ve only been up here a week and a half, and yet so much has already happened.
This past week I went back to the village again that I mentioned in my last bulletin, we need the villages to participate in helping us help them […]
Sent 17th September 2008
Dear All,
I’m writing this on a now rare quiet day for me, since being up here in Bun Tai life has been so awfully busy. But as I write this the din of families, children and all, breaking stones is quite amazing. The main business at this time of year for residents […]
Sent 14th September 2008
Dear All,
I’m here, here at last in the town of Bun Tai in Phongsaly; the northernmost province of Laos. I’m up in the mountains, now living up at about 2000ft, and only about 15km from the Chinese border.
I left Vientiane on Wednesday morning early in the morning, after a short […]