Dear All,
Contrary to most general impressions, I don’t actually live alone. I
live with a large family of lizards, and I know they are Lao lizards
because they seem to all have 6 children. Almost every time I open a
door, I get a dirty dismissive look from one of them as I disturb then,
and even though I’m in the right this is Laos so it is my fault. Unlike Read More »
Dear All,
As most of you know, I’ve got a soft spot for anything with round eyes and warm blood. Something my landlord’s 3 dogs are exploiting to an impressive degree. I live on the same plot as my landlord and go through their gate. Their 3 rather cute dogs usually greet me enthusiatically, because they have learnt to extort a doggie biscuit off me everytime I come and go. Whereas some who live in Laos go shopping in Thailand for corn flakes, I go for Sleeky Brand Lamb Flavoured doggie biscuits. I can’t quite work out whether Read More »
Dear All,
I have a toad problem, the problem I have is that toads, just like cats, seem to rather like me. Whereas some in Vientiane have to shepherd out big insects from their houses, I have to shepherd out toads. Unfortunately like so many in so many places, the local toads are struggling to understand the difference between a visitor’s visa, and a residency permit.
It all came to a head last Saturday when I found 8 toads in a pair of Doc Marten shoes on a rack outside my house. We had a stand off, a face off really, and the toads won. Come Monday my Meiban was having none of it, and briskly evicted them. I think her exact words to me were as she evicted them were: “these are nasty dangerous animals, and yes some Lao people eat them”.
Read More »
Dear All,
It has been another very calm and serene week and a breathing space to get my house more in order, sort out a whole load of slightly overdue things, and even try and get some rest. I’m on a new blood pressure drug, and that is leaving me feeling sick and tired, but normally the new drug side-effects wear off after a week or so with me. Even the good weeks with the arthritis are somewhat uncomfortable, but giving up has never been an option for me. It gets a bit frustrating that I really don’t seem to have Read More »
Dear All,
For the first time in about 4 years I now own a Gold Card again, though sadly not from a fancy airline, but from the Khon Kaen Ram Hospital. I’m glad of the 10% discount, though gently alarmed that I’m such a valued customer there that I get such a card. Since the end of September I’ve been to hospital about 16 or 17 times, and today I came away from there with 770 pills (10 different drugs) which is enough for the next 45 days. But it was perhaps the best medical trip I’ve had in the past 9 months.
My Consultant was last time brave enough to try a drug that isn’t really licensed for my disease (Ankylosing Spondylitis) and the result was that my back measurements were the best they’ve been for a long time, my blood tests were all wonderful, and there has Read More »
Dear All,
Last week was an incredibly Lao week: 1 car crash, 1 computer crash, and my meiban (housekeeper) was eating all my food.
The car crash wasn’t really a crash, but more a collision. I made a turn across traffic and a women riding a motorbike and sidecar with about 150 kg (300 lbs) of fruit in it crashed into me. The woman had a sore wrist, but mercifully nothing worse and the Lao police had a perfect view of the whole incident. We wandered over to the police post and they told the women it was all her fault, which really shows how badly my driving has got; that the Lao police now think I’m driving well. Indeed as the good book warns us: remember the height to which one has fallen… I gave the women my profuse apologies and a very decent amount of money for her sore wrist. I didn’t worry about the dents she put into my truck as frankly it has so many dents already that it looks like it is made out of corrugated iron (for the record: most of those dents were caused by trees impolitely being in the wrong place).
My laptop screen broke too, so I took it into a computer shop and they told me it it needs a new screen and will take 2 or 3 days for them to get a new screen. So I went to another shop and they told me it will take 2 or 3 days for them for them to work out what is wrong with my computer (the screen was broken). So I took my computer home, finished my overdue report, and the next day took it to the official Samsung repair centre, who told me it will take 2 or 3 days to work out what is wrong with it. After 3 days they’ve told me it will need a new screen which will take 10 or 15 days to come, but I’m going with them because they seemed nice. (:I’ve become very very Lao now).
Dealing with my housekeeper was hard, but over 6 days she polished off 2 big bags of potato crisps (chips), 2 mangoes, 2 bags of banana chips and a bag of sweetened bananas; it was all getting expensive. So when she got back from lunch one day, I asked her if Read More »
Dear All,
It has been a big week, a really big week. I went into a meeting on Monday morning, still weary after my previous week’s travels, and expected to be offered some kind of nice consultancy job. And sure enough I was, though not one of the two jobs I was thinking I might be offered. Actually I was offered to run the biofuels program for an influential organisation called Lao Institute of Renewable Energy (LIRE) who have a big donor funded research study coming up soon and are listened to by the Lao government about energy Read More »
Dear All,
I’m just back from the coffee fields of Sekong province, from the Bolavens plateau in the far South of Laos. It is a long way, about 500 miles (800km) from Vientiane, but the roads were straight, I managed to dispatch the trip coming back in about 9hrs. When I arrived back into Vientiane I dropped a couple of people off and headed straight to the pool and steam room to loosen up my stiffened body. My tendons are always inexorably stiffening up, daily I try and stretch them back.
Sekong is a beautiful part of the world and a refreshing change from Vientiane. I was down there trying to help a swiss NGO identify some of the problems they have with a silk production project and try and identify some of the solutions and opportunities that might Read More »
Dear All,
It has been a good week, a week in which in which I finally got better. I’m amazed to be writing those words, only about 3 times in the past 7 months have I been able to truthfully say that. But I’m more flexible, walking and living better.
A week ago I almost bought a stick, I was finding it so hard to even walk. Now I’m walking a lot better. And now I have a stable diagnosis, medically there is clarity; that I have arthritis of the spine and that medically all we can do is slow its progression down and Read More »
Dear All,
This bulletin I’m left struggling to find new words for “change”, I know I’ve written a lot recently about how my life seems to be changing very quickly indeed. It isnt all bad, but change always feels weird.
Anyway I am safely in my new house, a house with no apparent kitchen, only 1 sink but two bathrooms, and heaps of bedrooms; a fine example of a contemporary batchelor pad in the modernist/minimalist style.
It is perfect for me, the location is immediately opposite both the World Food Program HQ and ironically enough a good body shop (the good Lord provideth…). It is exactly the area Read More »