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Published: February 19th 2006
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Back in Vientiane
The That Luang stupa I can't believe I have been in Laos for almost a month
The time has gone quickly and I have been enjoying my stay despite the long hours of work. Since I am again working with Digital Divide Data (
click for more info) I was able to start working right away. Since I spent two weeks last July in this office I already knew most of the people so I was able to eliminate the time spent meeting colleagues and learning about the company that most new jobs require.
Within my first 24 hours I was able to find an apartment and I moved in after only two nights in a hotel. (In)conveniently the new apartment is next door to the office. As one can imagine, this is a blessing and a curse. The Finance Manager works part-time in the evenings and since one of my main tasks is to work with her, I work most evenings. As there are plenty of other fires to put out, I usually come into the office between 8 and 10 am so my typical day has been about 11-12 hours. This should slow down in March when the Finance Manager is better trained
My Apartment
I have the end unit on the right side. and begins working full-time.
The Crib
My apartment will not be featured on MTV any time soon as it is quite barren and will probably remain so until my future beyond March is determined. I only have a bed (on loan from DDD), an armoire (no closets), a kitchen table and hutch (to keep the dust off my dishes and the critters out of my food). I don't even have a refrigerator yet but have been keeping perishables in the office fridge. We made a three month commitment to the landlord in order to get AC installed in my bedroom, so I have that current limitation. If I end up staying longer I will probably look for a smaller, quieter and less-dusty place closer to the action and farther from the office.
The apartment itself is newly constructed. In fact, it is still in the process of being constructed and many of the building materials litter the land around the building. As you can see from my pictures, the building consists of four side-by-side, two-story units. The front half of the first story is set up to be a retail outlet, which is a common style of construction
The retail space
Open the door and I am ready for business. here. The only major problem with this is that I have to get into my house by opening the garage door.
The apartment is also located on a fairly busy and dusty street. Since Lao houses really aren't built to seal out the elements, my house is constantly inundated with dust. I have given up on keeping the front room upstairs and the retail area clean. I try to keep my bedroom and the kitchen (which is on the first floor) dust-free.
Getting Around
My main dilemma right now is transportation. In Cambodia, there is a problem because all the young people are moving to the cities without good prospects for employment. The upside of this (if you can really call it that) is that all the young men with motor bikes try to earn money as moto taxis. Setting aside the safety implications, this makes it easy and cheap to get around Phnom Penh by just hopping on the back of a motor bike. Vientiane, on the other hand, does not have this movement of people from rural to urban, thus transportation is more of an issue. There are a good number of tuk-tuks (see picture) but
the wait time for one is unpredictable, they are difficult to find at night and they cost much more than moto taxis. The foreigner premium in Vientiane is much higher too.
The first time I was in Vientiane, last July, I asked a colleague how much it should cost to get from my hotel to the office. She said that 5,000 kip ($1=10,400k) should be more than enough. So the next morning I approach the tuk-tuk drivers near the hotel and show them the map to my office. The looked it over and generously offered to take me for 40,000k. I bargained a bit and they would not lower the price so I moved on. After several similar encounters I finally found someone willing to take me for 8,000k. My experience has not been much different since that first morning. I often walk to the downtown area which takes about 30 minutes.
With no cheap and reliable alternative, I need to decide between a bicycle and a motor bike (yes, I will wear a helmet--I need to protect that highly-mortgaged investment called grad school). I can get a cheap one-gear bike which will be sufficient to get around
Mosquito zapper
I can practice my swing with it, too. or I can spend more money on a nicer multi-speed mountain bike but risk theft. There is also the impending heat--it has been really nice since I arrived, but it is starting to get hotter. The issue with the motor bike is my lack of significant experience riding one, which coupled with my unease with them since my accident in Mali, isn't making me run out and buy one immediately. A colleague has offered to teach me to ride on her motor bike so I think we will do that next weekend in a rural setting where I would likely only injure myself and not any innocent bystanders. I am sure this event will get future coverage in the blog.
Odd and Ends
There are a lot of things I want to write about, but this is starting to get long. I will leave you with a couple of random pieces of info and stories and try to catch up on my first month activities over the first few blogs.
* Laos, like most of the developing world, has been pushed to start privatizing its industries and allow for market competition. In the telecommunications arena this has played out quite humorously. There are several mobile phone and traditional land line providers but my two favorite are Lao Telecom and Telecom Lao. The stories I have gotten about this vary moderately, but it seems that the Lao government sold Lao telecom to some investors from Thailand a few years ago. Unfortunately, a significant amount of those assets had actually been given to the government by the Japanese government and they didn't like the sale. Eager to save the relationship with one of Laos' biggest donor nations (if not the biggest), the government decided to take back those assets (with proper remuneration, I am sure) and started using the name Telecom Lao.
*My best purchase by far has been the badminton-racquet mosquito zapper. It recharges by plugging the handle into the wall outlet and is magnificent at clearing the room of mosquitoes by zapping them when they hit the "strings". I was thinking that this sort of thing would have been great in Mali, but lack of electricity would have been a severe limitation. I wonder if there is a battery-operated version...
That is enough for now. I will try to write future installments more often (and shorter). Please email me with any questions and I will answer them in the blog.
Take care,
David
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Kellie
non-member comment
What a racquet!
Hey... love the mosquito racquet. Maybe you should look to import to the US? Glad to hear you are doing well! - kk