Life in Vientiane

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Hello again!

So...I would say nothing exciting has happened in my first few weeks as I have actually been working quite a bit...but...as predicted strange things do happen to me. More on that later I guess. Finally you can see some of the photos from my previous blog after I arrived and there are a few others as well.....

I headed up to Luang Prabang for my first weekend here. Geraldine (CARE Laos) and I took Robert (CARE Aust) for a trip to see a project site where CARE is implementing an HIV/AIDS prevention project targeting youg people from a few ethnic groups in the area. Luang Prabang is amazingly beautiful. It is a town nestled in the middle of the mountains, and was the ancient capital of Laos. I was actually there about 7 years ago on my way back from studying in Vietnam. Although Luang Prabang is still a quiet and beautiful town, it is definitley a lot more touristy now, but not overly so yet. There are a lot more cafes and guest houses than ever before but they will always be outnumbered by the temples and shops displaying amazing woven scarves and wall hangings. It is hard to capture the atmosphere of Luang prabang in photos, but hopefully some of those i have here give you an idea. There were so many moments when I felt I could just sit in one place watching life go by, completely at peace with myself.

I will be in Luang Prabang again this week for a workshop presenting the findings of some research the CARE has just completed. The research was conducted as part of a design for HIV/AIDS prevention project targeting young people from several of the ethnic groups in the area.

Vientiane is an intereting place as well. I have been wandering around looking for a place to live, and although I am still in the city there are times that I turn a corner and find myself completely surrounded by rice paddy fields. There are more than a few times that it feels like I am actually in a rural village, but actually am only 10 mins from the centre of town.

The 2 December was the 30th anniversary of the revolution here in Laos, and there were fireworks, lighting up the sky for almost an hour that night. Red banners and colourful lights decorated the street and a new museum has been constructed for the occasion.

Last week I headed out to locate the food that is availbale in every place people are to be found...chinese dumplings... they were good, and not the point of the story actually. I finished dinner and discovered that my 'Dream' scooter had decided it no longer wanted to start. I was about a kilometre from the hotel and so I began to walk it home.

As I got closer to the hotel I noticed there appeared to be a fire coming from that direction. The moer I walked, the closer the fire seemed to be to where the hotel was....fire trucks started screaming down the roads, police came out of everywhere, the city was moving in to check out the scene. When I got to abotu 2-3 blocks away I was pretty concerned, everyone was oohing and aahhing at the 3 storey high flames. Then all the electricity went off. At this point I realised it wasn't my hotel, but it was pretty close. So I did the thing that any normal person would do, (or maybe not) I kept walking the dead motorbike to my hotel. When I got there the Koreans who had checked in that morning had grabbed all their luggage, thrown it in a big 4WD and were jumping in the car to get out of there. The fire was right next door. I decided getting out was a good idea, and called someone to come and pick me up.

Apparently it was a house that caught fire, and everyone was able to get out before the whole thing got out of control. At about midnight the electricity must have come back on and i figured it was safe enough to sleep there again. Although I am pretty sure the Koreans never returned.

So...anyway.....life generally has been made up of work, trialing the massages Vientiane has to offer, deciding whether or not to get a vespa, or a retro VW ute (they might break down all the time but look very cool...is there any other reason to buy a car? :-)...) catching up on years without sticky rice, and gradually working my way through the products in the Scandanavian, French and Canadian bakeries.....

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