Settling in

“Instead of bringing back 1,500 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small, unfeted but life-enhancing thoughts.”
-Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, 2002

My friend Emma Caine gave me her own, well-travelled copy just before I left Melbourne, and I started reading it on the plane. I’ve been dipping into it every day since then, in between all the other things I’ve been doing.

It’s full of gems, such as this: “My body and mind were to prove temperamental accomplices in the mission of appreciating my destination. The body found it hard to sleep, it complained of heat, flies and difficulties digesting hotel meals. The mind meanwhile revealed a commitment to anxiety, boredom, free-floating sadness and financial alarm.”

Anyone who knows me would think I had written that paragraph myself, but no. It’s Alain de Botton, a writer in Britain ten years my senior. Such a comfort to read, though, and to realise I’m not the only one living under an angst-ridden, Sylvia Plath-style bell jar (though not quite as dramatic or depressing), even when staying in an exotic locale like Barbados, or Laos for that matter.

On that note, I’m happy to report that I have not yet succumbed to the everyday me. Aside from a couple of weird, work-related (and probably guilt-related) dreams, I’m having a ball. Cristy’s prophecy has not yet fulfilled itself, and I am still enamoured of everything I see.

You would be too! This place is so dirty and sleepy and fascinating. Not like anything I have seen before. I’m still taken by surprise at the way people break into a huge, spontaneous smile each time I smile at them, and at how good-looking the boys are. Not to mention too cool for school.

Am also heart-broken when I see lonely street vendors peddling along late at night, half-heartedly trying to sell pancakes, or ice-cream. Or when a mangy dog flinches when you go near.

One drawback of having Cristy and Paul as my tour guides has been that I have completely failed to pay any attention to actual directions throughout my entire first week here. I am directionally challenged enough as it is. Aside from dozens of tuk tuk rides, I have ridden behind Paul on a pushbike several times, and still I just follow, and forget to orient myself each time.

All that will change next week, when I move into Kate and Tom’s house- more of a big, weird mansion, actually, and Pristy leaves, and I have to strike out…alone.

Anyway, I shan’t worry about that just now. Aside from Alain de Botton, the best advice I have received this week has been from Paul himself, as one would hope, given that I am taking over his job.

As always happens for me in jobs, I end up liking the people more than the work, and I have no doubt that is already happening to me at KPL news. The ladies have adopted me as their food and beverage protégé, which means they take me out for lunch whenever they can, ostensibly to encourage me to sample the local food, but secretly, I think, to fatten me up. I am a novelty after Paul, who is a) very very thin and b) a vegan. I, on the other hand, will eat almost anything they put in front of me. It can only be a matter of time before my first bout of illness strikes.

This week I have eaten laap (a spicey salad with minced meat), papaya salad, nem on the banks of the Mekong (check out the picture above: I thought it would be a roaring, raging river too, but no, not in the dry season), barbequed fish and sweet basil. I’ve drunk a great deal of sweet Lao coffee (comes in a bag!), and sampled this bizarre Lao dessert that everyone seems to love- it’s a bowl of coconut milk, sugar syrup, barley, weird lumps of green jelly, and ice cubes. But dammit, I ate it. When in Rome…

Anyway, the boys at work have taken a liking to me as well. A few of the lads are quite a bit younger than the ladies, and two of them approached me shyly during the week and asked me to translate some song lyrics for them. It was Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, from the film Titanic.

I think I did a good job. “It’s a love song,” said one of them when I had finished explaining. “It means she is always there- near, far, wherever,” said the other, ardently.

Since then, they have gone out of their way to be nice, telling me I am "beautiful today" and buying me snacks on the street.

The work itself, though, is much, much harder than I expected. It’s also much simpler. (One of the photos above is the view from my office.) The editor keeps telling me not to work too hard- he won’t hear of it. But I doubt he knows the extent of what needs to be done, not really.

Paul said that I shouldn’t try to focus on trying to make the paper better and that it’s not my job to fix it. My job is to help the journalists with their writing, so that they can go on to bigger and better things.

It’s the best thing he could have said, because now I feel like I have a focus, that I can actually do something useful.

On a lighter note, check out the photo of "Dude fixing (my) Fully Sick Bike". Could that bike get any cooler? Could this place get any cooler?