Blogs from Vientiane, West, Laos, Asia - page 2

After a very stressful time of job hunting with some jobs being successful but not being able to work out and some just not to my desire at all, I finally landed myself a teaching position at a new school in Vientiane, Laos. After suggesting you need probably a day or two maximum in Vientiane in a previous blog, I now find myself living here. Funnily enough, while living here, I have also come to discover there's a bit more to this city than I originally gave it credit for. Luckily for me, as I am working here, I have landed myself, from day one knocking on my neighbours house and meeting my flatmate, with four amazing humans in my life who I now consider my Laos family. It is with these fantastic girls I have ... read more

Woolly says – Having made our way to the central bus station we stood looking around for the number 14 bus, having checked the stands and realised that either our information was incorrect, or we were missing something, in our case a bus! A young man came towards us and thinking that he was a tuk tuk driver touting for business I turned away and continued to peer at the available signage. He was a driver but having asked for the location of our bus, not only did he point to the opposite side of the road but lead us across, stopping the traffic as we went, the people of Laos are some of the friendliest and most helpful you could wish to meet. Woolly says – Having found some seats and having no ... read more

Woolly says – We’d had a slightly later start to the day, our huge breakfast needed to be walked off and feeling that we had got to grips with Vientiane I set off with confidence. Passing many of the places that we had seen yesterday it didn’t take long to arrive at the Cope Visitor centre, not maybe your usual touristy type of thing but one that we had all wanted to go to. Set up in 1996, COPE’s work has helped thousands of people with mobility related disabilities, including UXO survivors which now have access to prosthetic and orthotic services, allowing them to regain mobility and dignity. A very nice young lady greeted us at the door and told us to ask anything we wanted to before directing us into the cinema room. The video ... read more

Getting to Vientiane I had a lazy morning in Phonsavan. After eating the hotel breakfast, I wandered around the nearby market. Phonsavan’s market is huge - way out of proportion to the size of the town. My guess is that this market serves a large hinterland. There were Hmong in traditional attire too. After packing, I checked out at 11am. My flight to Vientiane wasn‘t until 1.20pm. I considered forcing some lunch down before heading to the airport because I wouldn’t get to eat before 3pm otherwise, but I decided against it as I wasn't hungry. I reasoned that there might be a snack bar at the airport, but I bought a stuffed bread roll just in case. I woke up a snoozing sawngthaew driver and hired him to take me to the airport. En route, ... read more

It's been almost three weeks since I first arrived in Laos and already my perspective on the country has changed immensely. For the first two weeks, I stayed entirely within the confines of Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. While this area is full of cafes, coffee shops, and other places that the falang (i.e. foreigners) like to frequent, the landscape and quality of life change drastically once you enter the provinces outside Vientiane. For my first "field" experience, I joined the communications team from the local World Health Organization (WHO) office and a crew from the Ministry of Health's media production unit (called the Center for Information Education for Health, or CIEH) in order to film a short educational documentary about viral hepatitis for World Hepatitis Day, which takes place every year on July 28. ... read more