Am I a Writer?

Time will tell. Note: Quite often, I write about people I know. If any of you object to anything I have written, let me know and I will remove it.

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Wannabe. Living in Vientiane, Laos. Has blog to avoid sending lengthy emails.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Dogs, gibbons and military coups...and no photos!

All about Eve
Sophie’s sister Eve has been staying this week with her friend Yasmin. In the course of the dinner conversation on their first night, it transpired that Eve and I lived next door to each other for at least a year. Last year, in fact, on the city end of Napier St in Fitzroy. And not only were we living next door, but our rooms, both at the back, directly faced each other, and I saw her probably every second day. When I say saw, what I really mean is that a lot of the time, she would be naked or half-dressed, and I would turn away, irritable at having a nude stranger practically in my room.
Although I didn’t, of course, recognise her in person, as it were, I now remember a surprising number of things. She put her sneakers on the sill every morning and strung up her sports bra across the window. She had a red blanket. She sometimes had a boy in her bed, although I could only ever see feet.
One of her housemates, the one in the bottom front room, was always there, in the front room every morning, on her laptop. Not, as it turned out, writing a book, as I always jealously speculated, but doing uni essays.
I also remember a particularly massive party there one night, to which we weren’t invited, and which kept me up. The next morning, sitting in the sun in the kitchen doorway, I heard her on the phone. “But would you say that was the best party, Patrick, would you say that?” Even in my morning grumpiness, I thought it was funny, and wished I had just gatecrashed.
And now here she was, in our house in Vientiane, Laos, of all places, the same husky voice, the same face (and of course) body, which I knew so well but actually never knew at all.
And of course she is just DYING of embarrassment over all this, especially as the most pervading memory she has of me is that I had an orange sarong on the window, and the fact that I was never, ever there, a thought that occurred to her every time she caught herself walking around naked. Of course, I had always turned away by then.
Thankfully, though, she was not the girl who had loud sex while playing Tori Amos (see one of my posts from last year). In fact, that was another girl, a drama student who lived downstairs.

Melbs
Do I even need to point out what a small bloody world it is? It all got me thinking about Melbourne, more than usual, and about how lonely I was there, in retrospect- single, eating alone, living with strangers. I make it sound more desperate than it really was, but life is just so different now.
I’ve said this a million times before, and I’ll say it again: moving to Vientiane was a thousand times easier than moving to Melbourne.

Jumping ship
I had such a crap week that on Friday, I took the day off and skipped town, catching a songteow 40 minutes out of town to the Vaysana Resort in Ban Keun.
Really, it was the best thing I could have done. We lay by the pool facing the river for literally hours, just reading and, as Eve put it, “picking up some colour”.
It also occurred to us to wonder if we would be lying side-by-side reading if we were boys. We doubted it, somehow.
Anyway, “colour” indeed. I really overdid it in my quest for brown legs. I’m bright red all over, and in grave pain. I don’t expect any of you to have any sympathy, but it really does kill.

Hot and steamy
My delicate lobster legs have meant I have had to forego the sauna this week- a real shame. It’s my latest discovery, even though herbal saunas are a pretty regular part of life here. Ladies and gents alike strip off, put on a sarong and sit in the steam for many minutes at a time.
I just love it. I love sitting still and watching beads of perspiration pop out on my arms. I love feeling like all the crap is being steamed out of my system. I like getting all dehydrated and replenishing with hot tea. I love coming out and the air feeling so cool, even though it’s never cool here.
It’s the best cure for a hangover.

The 'necessary evil'
So anyway, it was a pretty big week last week, not least because of the coup.
It came at a bad time, as most people from my intake were due to go back to Australia, and many people, not including me, were planning a Bangkok shopping extravaganza on the weekend, which had to be cancelled.
Amusingly, many Lao people have been scoffing at the whole thing. We’re supposed to be 20 years behind them, they say, and yet look at us! There’s peace here, no need for tanks in the streets or military intervention. It’s backward, they say, and a bit pathetic.
AT LEAST THEY’RE DOING SOMETHING!!! I feel like screaming back. At least people there are not being forced into apathy and submission, but rather finding practical, if extreme, solutions to the all-round dissatisfaction pervading society.
But no, I would never say that, for fear of getting into another minor argument with someone, which always ends pretty fast when I realise how blinkered those in power are.

Snoopy
The other night, we were awoken by a crashing sound followed by the most tremendous shrieking. I looked out the window and saw that Snoopy, the landlady’s dog next door, had jumped the fence and landed on our washing line. He was completely stuck. It really must have hurt, to land on that piece of wire.
Tom hates that dog, on the basis that when he and Kate first moved into this house, the dog was on Death’s Door and could hardly even wag his tail.
But he’s better now, and a good protector, even if the washing line does serve him right because he has this strange habit of walking up and down the top of the narrow wall each night. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
I wish I’d managed to get a photo that night. He was flailing around and screaming like a girl, but he stopped when he heard us come rounding the corner of the house, and when we arrived on the scene, he was trying to look as dignified and nonchalant as he could, given that his hind legs were strung up on a piece of wire.
Stupid dog. Sophie went round a couple of days later to ask if we could get our washing line fixed, and was met with a knowing, weary nod.
Anyway, it brought to mind our friend Alex, who has been living up in the northern province of Luang Namtha, and loves animals a great deal. At one stage, one of his neighbours acquired a dog, which Alex befriended, and was gratified when other villages started to treat it like a pet as well. The Lao don’t really treat dogs as pets the way we do. Anyway, the dog sort of became part of the family. Then Alex went away for a couple of weeks, and when he came back, the dog had gone. “Where’s the dog?” he asked the owner. “Oh, we ate him the other night,” the owner replied.
Now, we’ve had many discussions about this, in the context of vegetarianism, and in theory, it seems silly to be grossed out by this. Cow, chicken, dog, what diff?
There is a difference, but it’s difficult to pin down what it is.
Anyway, needless to say, I dreamed of dogs after we freed Snoopy ('We saved his life!' said Sophie with a more than a touch of pride). Dreaming of animals is supposed to be good luck, and you're supposed to then go out and buy a lottery ticket.

Monkeys
Speaking of animals, every morning, around 8am, we hear a noise from over at the former President’s compound. It sounds like a house alarm. Sophie always assumed it was the guards diligently checking to make sure the alarm worked every morning. Mean little me always assumed that the guards were accidentally setting it off every morning. Anyway, we had Alex staying with us last week who finally explained what the noise was.
It’s gibbons. Caged gibbons.
Not, as it turns out, a house alarm.

Staying in touch
This is currently my favourite website. I find it comforting, for some reason, to find that so many people are crazy and stupid and obsessed with small things and have filthy mouths and talk about sex a lot.
Also, a friend sent me this link a few weeks ago, which made me laugh, and wonder whether the Prime Minister actually ever does read public submissions, and what he thinks when he sees something like this. I mean, he must agree, surely. He must just thank his lucky stars that most of the population is too dumb, or apathetic, to realise how obvious it all is.
Also, Calvin Trillon, yay! This is his latest piece in last week's New Yorker. So inspiring- makes me realise that almost anything is worth writing about, given the right touch
Get into it...

Monday, September 18, 2006

Hola, khoy llamo xeu Sally



Last night, 4000 Islands asked me how to say something in Spanish. I learnt a bit of Spanish in high school, and I still remember bits and pieces. But last night, I discovered that every single Spanish word I have ever known had been replaced by the Lao equivalent.
But will I ever conquer this language?

Kate left a week ago, and the house has been dead quiet without her. I even feel kinda lonely- she was always around when I finished work, and always up for something. Anyway, one thing she said she would miss most about Laos was being able to perve on guys, and the abundance of perve-worthy material around.
Because, plain and simply, Lao boys are hott. And it’s not just the brown skin and black hair and white teeth. The thing is that Lao boys are just so unselfconscious- they tend to be casual and fun-loving, and when they grin at you from the back of a motorcycle and say sabaidee, they’re just happy, just joking around, ‘just kitting’ as the Island would say.
Also, boys here seem so often to be engaged in practical manual tasks that involve rolling up their jeans, shoving their sleeves up past their shoulders, getting down and dirty and generally looking hott.
Who can blame Kate for dreading going back to the land of suits, distressed denim and lame, graphic-print t-shirts?
Kate, if you’re reading this, I’m sure it won’t be so bad. At least half the boys in Aus you meet won’t be a) married or b) shorter than you.
Glass half full, right?

Just…run, I guess.
A very surreal thing happened last Saturday night, when we had a big one for Kate’s going-away. We ended up at the most dastardly night-spot in town, Don Chan (‘the Donny-C’), which is usually the only thing open at 3am and really just an awful place of ill repute. It’s not just the fact that it is inside Don Chan Palace hotel, a massive monstrosity on an island smack bang in the Mekong in the middle of town that is as out-of-place as you would expect for a tall, white thing sticking up out of the water.
It’s also reportedly sinking, which couldn’t happen soon enough for me, although it’s unlikely to happen during my time here, unfortunately.
Anyway, ill repute. It’s got a strange crowd of mainly locals. An expensive cover charge. A strange voucher system for drinks. Lots of ‘lady boys’ (gay boys), not to be confused with ‘lady nights’ (prostitutes) or ‘the boy that want to be the girl but is look like a girl’ (trannies), although there are often quite a few of those too. Oh, and shocking music, although you can opt out of it to stand on the terrace.
Which is where we all were at around 3am when a sudden brawl erupted, followed about ten minutes later by strange popping sounds that made everyone run. Or rather, sort of flail about looking for people, and stagger down the stairs and wonder what the fuck was going on. There were more shots in the carpark as we were riding off, and I realised, even in my drunken state, that, this being Laos, we would not be reading about this in the newspaper the next morning. Or ever, actually.
We will never know what actually happened, whether there really were guns, whether anyone was hurt, what happened when the cops showed up…did they even show up? Probably not.
No amount of gossip will ever unravel that one.

My flat-footed dream
I quite like to look around me as I ride my motorbike, or especially when I’m being dinked by someone else. There’s always so many little things that you probably miss when driving. One thing I love about Lao people, or probably people in this region just generally, is how they can squat on flat feet for hours with their bottoms not even touching the ground. It’s especially adorable seeing children doing it (see pic), but adults just look so cosy and casual as well.
It’s one of the first things I noticed here, and I realise now that it’s quite tied in with the fact that the Lao are actually obsessed with cleanliness. It’s unheard of to sit directly on the ground, or even, heaven forbid, put your bag on the floor. I took me ages to work out why everyone at work was constantly picking up my bag and putting it on a shelf, or a chair.
Anyway, the point is, I am quite incapable of squatting flat-footed for even a millisecond for the simple reason that I lack the physical ability. But I dream of learning to do it some day. Actually, I can’t even touch my toes, but let me dream, orright?

Mass-produced awesomeness
I also pondered, the other day, while in our brand new local supermarket, the ‘Dee Dee Pharmacy and Mart’, on the apparent Lao aversion to what we would call ‘storage’. Basically, a shop will receive, say, a box of 100 bottles of shampoo. The shop owner will then proceed to put every last bottle on the shelf at once.
It’s crazy! Two of the Island’s sisters run a market store, one that sells, you know, general stuff (soap, cigarettes, perfume, fish sauce), and I’ve watched them unpacking new stock and finding room for it all, wondering why the hell they don’t just put it out the back.
Of course, related to that is the age-old question I’ve always had about what to do when you see two shops side-by-side selling identical merchandise. You see it everywhere, even in the touristy areas of Paris and Rome, for god’s sake, but it’s especially pervasive here. The sisters have a shop that is exactly the same as the 3 or 4 on either side of them. Every stall in the Morning market sells almost the same fabric or jewellery. The lady selling bagfuls of quail’s eggs near my work chats all day to the lady at the next table selling…bagfuls of quail’s eggs. It’s bizarre. What’s even more bizarre is that there’s very little competitive retail spirit here:
Tuk tuk driver: ‘Tuk tuk, miss?’
Me: ‘No thanks.’
Tuk tuk driver: (shrugs)
Quite a blessing, actually. But I still can’t work out why I would go to this stall selling Buddhist offerings rather than, say, the next stall, which has exactly the same stock.

Also, the multitudes of things work against them. So many jewellery stores have piles of identical gold and silver chains and rings and bracelets, all the same, all obviously tipped from a box into the display cabinet. To us, it looks tacky. Get one chain, give it pride of place on a velvet cushion (or something), and you got yourself something special. Put a great big pile there, and you got yourself a great big pile of mass-produced junk.
But exactly, the Lao would probably answer. Hundreds and hundreds of them! So much stuff! From a factory! Enough for everyone! It’s…a miracle!
It’s all part of the weird discrepancy you see everywhere in Laos, between a creaky, pathetic old government with absolutely no money and a culture of consumption creeping in from all sides. You need only witness the hoards of Lao people crossing the border into Nong Khai, Thailand, on any given Saturday, to go and shop at the massive Tescos in town, as I shudder to admit I did with the Island last weekend.

And on that note, I will just finish with a recent news update, reported in our very own Vientiane Times last week: a foreign-owned company gave the Prime Minister a Mercedes. I guess it’s better that outright bribery be, you know, transparent, right? Best get a photographer and reporter on the ground quick-smart to capture downright corruption in progress!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

"Not crazy...diligent."

That's what The Island said to me other morning when I suggested he was crazy for going to work so early.

Surprise!
It’s me again! I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf and post something every week, so it doesn’t into such a chore- something that sits on my To-Do list for weeks on end, along with “Plan finances, read Katherine Graham’s Personal History, learn to speak Lao better”.
I think because my posts are so disjointed, I give a false impression of life here- that it seems to just swing between messy drunk expat parties and workday frustration. There’s plenty more in between, obviously, so maybe if I post more, I can more accurately record the ebb and flow of this fascinating life I lead.
Shit, other people do it and their lives are way more mundane.

Cocka-doodle-fuckoff
First thing’s first: to the left is a photo of a rooster. It looks very similar to the one that wakes me up every morning, and quite often several times throughout the night, with its psychotic crowing.
It’s like a sick joke- I live in a household of the kind of people who can close their eyes and fall into a deep sleep the second their head hits the pillow. I am not one of those people; among the various traits I have inherited from my father- along with his nose, his tendency to frown when concentrating, and his predisposition to worry about things which, in the middle of the night, a clearly beyond his control (but not, of course, his artistic abilities, another sick joke)- is of course terrible sleeping patterns. I’m what he describes as a ‘fragile sleeper’. I have to read before I turn out the light, I take ages to nod off, I wake up frequently during the night, and I rarely get up in the morning feeling like I’ve had a good night’s sleep.
So isn’t it hilarious that I’ve got my very own rooster to enhance my problem, and one that doesn’t even sound like a bird, but more like some kind of grotesque bird/dog hybrid.
4000 Islands tells me that in the provinces, the really rural, poor parts of the country, where no one has a clock to tell the time, roosters perform that function. Because I’m sure everyone really needs to know that it is 3am, 4am, 5am, and then the passing of every five minutes thereafter.
Anyway, I’ve posted this photo, which I actually took in Luang Prabang, in an effort to dispel the notion anyone might have that roosters are a charming feature of rural life.
They’re not. They’re pure evil. Just look at those beady eyes and withered claws.

Imagine all the people
Here’s something weird that I’d bet you’d never considered: explaining the Beatles to someone who has no idea who they are.
Having dinner a few weeks ago with the Island and my parents at a moderately posh French restaurant in town, an old favourite came on- Let It Be, I think it was. Anyway, Island had never heard of them. Turns out the cool t-shirt I bought for him in Thailand with a line drawing of the fab-four in their hippy days across the front- was just that: a cool t-shirt and nothing more.
We really had to start from the beginning- they started in the ‘60s, they had the same haircuts and wore the same clothes and made girls scream- to the middle years: long hair, lots of drugs, Yellow Submarine and Sergeant Pepper- to the later years: Yoko Ono, the band’s split- to what happened after: one was shot dead by a crazy man for no reason outside his apartment in New York, one was a narrator for a kid’s show about a train called Thomas, one made more music, died of cancer not long ago, one made very bad music with his wife who also died of cancer not long ago- to the latter years: then he married a lady with one leg, and now they are divorcing and hate each other very much.
The narrative really spiralled out of control- there was a lot of ground to cover, and the Island’s eyes had glazed over by the time John Lennon was shot.
These kids have just missed out on so much…

Sa-er
This morning I had the hiccups, or ‘sa-er’ in Lao. I get them quite a lot here. The Island is convinced that his grandmother’s failsafe method is just that: failsafe. [His grandmother is very old and blind- her eyeballs are white and completely clouded over. Every time we visit, she asks the Island to make sure I know that she’s blind.]
Her method involves taking nine (9) sips of water quickly without breathing in between.
What crapola, I always tell him. Bor maen, it’s not true, it doesn’t work, I scoff.
What I will never, ever tell him is that it does work, every time.

The life of an expat
Ok, on that I’m off to the Australia Club to lounge by the pool and start reading Katherine Graham’s Personal History. And, as my friend Chris puts it, ‘watch the peasants farm while I sip G&T’.
The Australia club is located on the banks of the Mekong, and has a smashing pool. And, most charmingly of all, in the strip of land between the pool and the Mekong are several market gardens. You know, crops and things. So you literally can sit by the pool sipping cocktails while the locals do things that are actually useful.
It’s a great place to recover from a hangover, which I course I have.
As an aside, last Sunday, also recovering from a particularly rageful hangover, sifting through the weird and varied reading matter on offer at the Aus club, I came across an old New Yorker- always a pleasure- and inside was a memoir written by awesome American journo Calvin Trillin, about his wife, Alice, who died in 2001.
It was so beautifully written, and so moving, and so inspiring. I am only now learning to accept that to be a writer, you don’t have to be able to write fiction, which has always been my weak point. I wanted to write something while I was over here, and have been racking my brains trying to come up with a good story- not a good sign. But Calvin and Alice were both writers of mainly non-fiction stuff- and so, so good at it.
Time to get cracking.

P.S. Did everyone notice how tall and amazon-like I appear in the photo in the previous post? I know, I’m loving it- I’m usually a midgey, but I tower over many people here!
Even 4000 Islands is only about an inch taller than me.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Honey, honey, it's her!




Last night we played cards at our landlady’s house next door, until 11pm. For the past five days, their front yard has been filled with people and laughter and music. The driveway is lined with incredibly bright fluorescent lights and people are coming and going all day long.
It wasn’t until we saw the big wedding cake of a coffin being carried out on the back of a truck on Sunday that we realised it was a funeral.
No matter how many times I hear it, I forget that death here is always associated with celebrations- togetherness and new beginnings.
Late on Sunday night, Kate and I were peering out of the kitchen window into their backyard, at the boys playing cards, trying to spot a familiar face, when we realised the shaved head with his back to us was Tom, the astonishingly handsome older son, whose hair I have always admired- one of those cool quiffy ‘dos. Gone. The younger son had done the same thing. This meant a close family member had died- all the male relatives shave their heads when that happens.
We went over straight away- Tom was playing cards with his friends, drinking copious amounts of Pepsi and watching DVDs on the TV set up in the yard. He hadn’t slept for two nights, he told, as his role was to keep vigil over the coffin, and make sure the incense never burned out. It was his uncle who had died- a 38-year-old with a wife and baby adopted just two days before his death- from a nasty case of alcoholism.
So this post is dedicated, firstly, to Tom next door, who has lost his hair and hasn’t slept in four nights. He has also lost a lot of money playing cards.

Okay, okay, I'll do it
This post is also dedicated to Michel and Christine, the French-Canadian couple who accosted me at Sengdara yesterday and basically shamed me into updating this blog quick-smart.
It seems that, six weeks ago, when they were getting ready to move here, the only ‘useful’ material about Vientiane that turned up on their Google searches was yours truly- me and my blog. So helpful, they said, and we worried about you when you had your fall.
They even saw me on the street not long ago and debated whether or not to approach me.
I’m a celebrity! Hilarious. Also, I must look the same as that silly photo I’ve put up on the front page- the one where I discover the camera in my phone for the first time.
Mortifying.

I’m writing this post from the office today, for the simple reason that I can’t seem to achieve anything when I’m at home. There’s always too much going on.
For one thing, I spend my precious hours before work in exactly the same way I have for years: going to the gym, drinking coffee, reading the news. It’s amazing, I just haven’t changed a bit.
And really, as if I could possibly come home and go straight to my laptop and start talking about my day, which has usually been tiresome enough. AS IF I’m not going to do all sorts of other things, like eat dinner, go to a bar, watch DVDs or read.
Basically, what I’m saying is that the reason I haven’t updated in a couple of months is because life is just falling around too fast to gather it all up, like a box of paperclips, the contents of which you’ll find lodged in the carpet or between the floorboards for weeks to come.
So I’ll just gather up a few paperclips for you.

I’ve finished work early today, as I have every day in the past week. I decided that if I can’t teach the staff a single thing, the least I can make them do is write a story each before lunch. Innovative, no? Everyone seems to be happier, although I’m not sure about the new desk arrangements. We are all facing each other at the moment, which means I have to keep my facial expressions under control- not easy when I come across sentences like this:

“Furthermore two sides have exchanged the range issue concerning about the jointly of establishing the various festivals such as the advertisement to disseminate the natural and historical tourism sites of two nations for visitor from domestic and foreign countries.”

Anyway, this new ‘actual work before lunch’ policy came about during a meeting last Tuesday morning. I learnt early on that it is considered offensive and sloppy not to be speak when asked during a meeting, never mind that the meetings are almost always in Lao, and I can’t understand a single word. Or that when it is my turn to speak, I literally say the same thing every time.
But I have learnt, also, that this is the Lao way. That it is perfectly natural to have to tell people the same thing day in day out, to no effect. Make sure you use a person’s surname. Explain an abbreviation the first time around. Convert money into US dollars. Simple things. Easy things. Aren’t they tired of my voice saying the same thing, over and over again?
Apparently not.

[Here’s another good example of the strange way people have here of processing information.
At least a dozen times a day, the phone in my office rings. I can’t answer it because my Lao isn’t good enough, so usually someone else saunters over to pick it up. Here is exactly what happens each time: the phone will ring three times, and then stop. The person moving to answer it will reach the phone about half a second after the last ring. The phone falls silent. The person frowns, looks around, elects to pick up the phone. “’allo? ‘allo? ‘allo?” they will say, puzzled but unfussed. Then they will replace the phone in the receiver and announce, to nobody in particular “I think it’s fax”.
Yes, but you see, exactly. Because the phone is also a fax machine. And the fax picks up after three rings. Always.
ALWAYS you morons!! If you don’t answer before the third ring, it will switch over! It happens at least 12 times a day! Why can’t you get used to this? We never even get faxes anymore! Just emails! Don’t you think that’s weird? DON’T YOU???]

So now, it’s Sally’s turn to speak. Again. To tell them again.
Not about the phone. I tried that, and just couldn’t bring myself to say it again.

The worst of the lot
A woman from the Indochina Memorial Media Foundation in Bangkok named Sarah McLean contacted me last week. Among other things, the organisation runs a training course each year, and she was concerned that none of the KPL journos are ever successful in their applications. She said they know nothing and their English is crap.
I met with her at a coffee shop to talk about what I’m doing, and she brought me a copy of the IMMF training manual. A really good, simple, comprehensive, well-written book that I wish I’d read some time ago, or at least when I first arrived here. I told her this, and she was puzzled. The editor of KPL has a copy, she said, and he has completed the training course.
She also told me that about three years ago, the American Embassy organised to have the book translated into Lao, and planned to launch it to coincide with the opening of the new America Centre in Vientiane. It was all printed and ready to go, but the Ministry of Information and Culture got wind of it and stopped the launch, as the Embassy had failed to get a licence to translate the book into Lao.
Copies of the book have been sitting in boxes at the America Centre ever since, and no one seems remotely concerned about it, least of all my editor.

I asked him why he had never given me the manual. It’s a really useful resource, I said, written specifically for Asian journalists. I could have really used it to help your staff.
Well, it’s at home, he said, with all my other journalism textbooks and training resources from the dozens of workshops and courses I have done all over the world.
Well, why don’t you bring all these books into the office for the other journalists to use? I asked.
Oh, no, they would pick them up and read them and use them, he said.

It’s simple: knowledge here is power, and something you don’t ever share. You just rack up your ‘qualifications’ so as to get a promotion, while exploiting the aid programs of countries like Australia to bring in people like me to deal with the mess.

Anyway, that’s just a hint of what I’m dealing with.
I admit to feeling very sheepish after speaking with this woman, and not just because she reminded me heaps of Penelope Keith from The Good Life. She told me all sorts of things about Vientiane that I should have found out myself by now, had I not been so consumed with frustration and panic that my work is going nowhere.
She also assured me that Laos is by far the worst of the lot when it comes to apathy and persistent, ingrained self-censorship. In Burma, for example, not only are the people educated of mind and fiery of spirit, but journalists actively fight censorship every day. They write, and then get censored.
Here, no one seems aware that journalism has any role beyond reprinting the government’s propaganda. Or rather, they see no point in trying to do it any other way.

It’s things like this that just make the frustration flare up, like a nasty infection.

Most of the time, I feel happy and privileged to be living in this culture, to have adjusted to it as well as I can. My language is picking up, and I’m starting to understand the way people think. I love our neighbours and their crappy taste in music. I love seeing monks everywhere, and that everyone, even young people, have Buddhist philosophies ingrained in them (see Tom-Next-Door, above). I love the fact that we called the kitchen gas supplier at 8pm the other night and he came straight over with a refill. And that when I ran out of petrol on the way to work this morning, the guy at the nearest mechanic siphoned some petrol out of his own bike for me so I wouldn’t have to push my bike to the nearest station.

But putting it all into a political and developmental context is when it all becomes bitter. And people like my editor who should know better, criticise me for not understanding the benefits of the communist political system, accusing me of ignoring the fact that the country is at peace, and the newspapers are not filled with people complaining about their government, the way they are in Australia.
It’s all too complex.

So anyway, apart from actual work, things are pretty good. Like a real Vientiane lady, I’m wearing my sinhs and clacky kitten heels ($3.50 from Lao ITECC, that bastion of glittering commerce) to work every day.
I’m going out too much and spending too much money. It poured with rain this afternoon and flooded the road outside work, right up to the front door.
Tonight, I’m enjoying a relatively low-profile evening after a week or two of constant socialising. People are coming and going, celebrating birthdays, moving house. New bands are playing. For the first time in my life, I am rarely bored.
The trouble is, the very nature of place like Vientiane very almost defeats the purpose of going out in the first place. I remember, back in Melbs, which seems so long ago now, I used to go out usually to a) meet new people, or b) catch up with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. Both are rarely possible here. Sophie says this must be what it’s like to live in a country town. And, like Tom said, we go to parties where the same food is served up, the same band plays, and you leave at the same time as the last one. It’s settled: we have officially become Lao.

I do get sad about people leaving, but you get used to that as well. Everything is so small and sped up here, it’s easy to form intense friendships, lasting several months, where you spend inordinate amounts of time with the same few people. Then suddenly, one or two or all of them are gone.

I’m gonna have to get used to it, because I’ve just signed on to stay another year. I’m defecting to the Other Paper across the street, and I no longer feel guilty about it, even. The project is for two years, ostensibly, but god knows how long I’ll *actually* last.

Jobs keep coming up, too- English-speaking journos are so hot right now. In Asia, that is. In Melbourne I just didn’t cut it. But, fun and love and parties aside, I really do feel like giving it another shot. I’m only just getting used to the language, and I think I’ll be more productive across the road. I just have a feeling this is where it’s meant to be for me, right now.

I didn’t feel like that by the time I left Canberra, nor when I left Melbourne at the end of last year. I felt I was being pushed out. Here, I feel compelled to stay awhile.

The Holiday














My parents appeared, magically and surreally, in Vientiane last month, and stayed for three weeks- quite a long time, actually. We went on an odyssey, up north and down south, to see all the things I've been wanting to see since I arrived.

A new acquaintance was surprised recently by my blunt admission that I have never and will never move across any vast distances carrying a backpack- on my back! Like, no way. It’s so heavy, and uncomfortable, and what about when it’s hot and I’m wearing a singlet and the backpack straps rub uncomfortably?
And what if I need something that’s right on the bottom of the pack? What, I have to unpack it then? What a drag!
It’s just not going to happen.
And furthermore, it’s not like I’m the only person in the world to admit this.
And also, why is it that so many backpackers dress so badly and seem to have forsaken showers in the name of- what? Enlightenment?

Now, you won’t see MY parents carrying around backpacks. Oh no- it’s all cocktails before dinner, hired drivers and nice hotels. With my own room, too. My parents were every bit as averse to sharing a room with me as I was with them- hooray!

Giving alms
Mum was completely entranced when she woke up early one morning in time to witness the monks taking alms from the ladies on the street. It’s true, it is quite an enchantment the first time you see it. Older ladies (and sometimes men) kneel on the road with their sticky rice baskets and bowls of soup, and a row of monks file past, their bare feet padding silently on the pavement. Occasionally they will chant, if one of the ladies needs a blessing, but usually the whole thing is completely silent. This happens all over the country every morning, including outside our house. [It even shows up quite regularly as a plot device on the Thai soap operas.] The other morning, Kate and I left the house for an early-morning walk, and busted one of the young novices slouching for a chat with one of the ladies. He straightened up and began chanting as soon as he saw us.

Bombsites
Xienghouang province was good, but the town of Phonesavanh is a dive. But it is still half-built, and it did rain a lot.
We hired a driver to take us there through the mountains. On the way we stopped for lunch and a group of very young, very poor children hovered shyly. One of them couldn’t have been more than 8, and was carrying an infant in a sling on his hip. He flinched when I tried to speak to him- it took me a while to work out that he was Hmong and didn’t speak Lao. I bought him a packet of chips, which he snatched and ran off. But he came back a few minutes later, and I realised he didn’t know how to open them.

This is the most heavily-bombed area of Laos. While Mum was busy wondering about women who weave, and where the monks get their food (I told her it was the ladies on the street, and she didn’t believe me until a monk actually told her), Dad was completely caught up by all the war history everywhere we looked. Empty bombshells propping up houses or used as flowerpots. A guy making spoons out of discarded casings. Bullet holes and massive bomb craters in the Plain of Jars. Lots of them are fishponds now.

I was really creeped out by the Hmong villagers, who live in windowless wooden houses. They are animists, and believe in different spirits. Our tour guide took us to one of the villages, one of the poorest, quietest, strangest places I’ve ever seen. The Hmong dress differently, have a different language, and live in darkness. They have fires inside their houses, which smokes their food and blackens the walls. They also grow opium and pot in vast quantities.

Our guide sure came up with the goods, telling us all about the CIA and the Secret War, and about Madeleine Colani, the French archaeologist who spent three years studying the Plain of Jars in the 1930s. She walked there from Vietnam, with the help of 50 slaves a day, who kept running away. He also showed us how to distinguish between the different ethnic groups. The Lao carry their goods across their shoulders on a stick. The Kamu hang baskets from a strap on their heads. The Hmong have bamboo backpacks.

Down south
Paxse: I dig it. A city on the brink- you heard it here first. Good markets, nice riverside restaurants. Plus, I really like the Pakxe Hotel, where we ended up staying for four nights. Large and stately- I’ve always had a thing for faded glory: there are four clocks in the lobby, showing the time in London, New York, Tokyo and Pakxe. I found this touching.

Wat Phou, Siphandone, Boliven Plateau, the coffee plantations, ancient temples, rain. And back to the Pakxe Hotel each night. It was ace. Our tour guide spoke no English, giving me a chance to really put my lame Lao to the test. I didn’t fail. In fact, I’d give myself a Credit, true to form. Dad drew a picture of the guide near the Boliven Plateau, and he was so pleased he didn’t know what to say.

We visited more villages- completely different to those we saw up north. Here, the Katung arrange their houses in a rough circle, with a raised hut in the centre for the sacrificial killing of a buffalo each year- also not Buddhist.

Majestic, magnificent, breathtaking, etc etc etc
We flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia for three days, and were shocked by the rampant tourism- hundreds of massive, MASSIVE hotels in a relatively small city. And children everywhere with frightenly good English demanding that tourists buy their postcards and bracelets.
I’m not going to go into describing Angkor Wat and its surrounds. Any good guidebook will describe it well enough, and it meets all expectations. Mum lucked out with the new Aussie-run guesthouse she chose over the Internet. The owners of the Villa Siem Reap (it's purple!), Fiona and Anthony, know exactly how to deal with people like us who are only in town for a couple of days and don’t know where to start. They give you a driver, a guide and a packed lunch, and send you off with strict instructions.
They advised us to get to a certain temple by 6am the next morning, so as to avoid the tourist hoards. But we weren’t too early for an upscale fashion shoot, featuring one of the oddest-looking woman I’ve ever seen in the flesh- a model, of course. Really, it did look strange.
Our guide, as a child in the '70s, had been forced into hard labour by the Khmer Rouge, away from his family in the jungle. He told us all about it. In fact, he couldn't talking about it, and inserted side stories into all his commentary on the ruins we were looking at.
He said that his children don't believe what he tells them about what the Khmer Rouge did. He said he remembers it like it was last week. I think he was worried that if he didn't talk about it to everyone he met, everyone would forget what had happened, especially when surrounded by all that rampant commercialism and all those five-star hotels.

I had forgotten what it was like to me in a major tourist destination, and it was pretty gruesome. It wasn’t even the high season, but there were so many people. And so many idiot-looking girls in mini-skirts and heels, clambering over the ruins like tools. Can you tell me why they would do this? I mean, I know I'm not always the most practical person when it comes to clothes- I don't, for example, own anything made of polar-fleece- but there are signs, in several languages, at the main gates to Angkor Wat advising people that bare shoulders and knees are inappropriate for what is clearly a sacred site. And yet there were girls in hotpants. I blame that slapper Victoria Beckham for getting 'snapped' by the paparrazzi walking around in hotpants on the street.

Thanks, parentals
Anyway, the holiday was ace, and much needed, and renewed my love of Laos, which had been flagging somewhat. It’s always good to see something you’re used to through new eyes, and mum and dad were in fine form. Mum found out lots more about people than I usually do- because she does love to bond. Dad grappled with the currency, and took some great photos. Most of these are his.