Vientiane Day 74. Another night in Vientiane
7.10  : Get off work
7.20  : Arrive at home
7.35  : Showered and changed
7.50  : Arrived at Makphet for dinner
8.30  : Everyone took turn taking picture with Deenu's pink helmet.
9.10  : Salsa class.

I'm gonna miss Vientiane.

The proud helmet owner (L) and the poser (R)



More posers L-R: Sarah,Maud and Tim

The stairs of Luang Prabang

I never had to climb so many stairs in a weekend.Though it was worth every step.

I had to climb these....

to see the sunset from the top of Phousi Temple,which overlooks the town of Luang Prabang

I went up and down the hill to explore the town.
If Indonesian children would greet the tourists with "Hello mister,how are you?",these kids greeted me "Bonjour mademoiselle" before setting off on their bike.

I have to climb my way up to see a cave

Dotted with these.....

Climbed down and up these steps

To go on a slow cruise in of these...



So yeah...it's worth it.

Vientiane Day 64. The wedding crashers.
All of our friends have been invited to a Lao wedding. Including those who were here for only 3 weeks. They all said it's a cultural experience. It's fun and can get really wild sometimes. Well, all my colleagues are married and those who have not, show no sign of getting married by 22 April. Our days are numbered to get ourselves invited.

L-R:Self-appointed ambassador of Vanuatu & flatmate

So when someone at Frederic's office got married, guess who voluntary dressed 
up to crash the wedding: the two Madame Ambassadors.


With ang pao in hand, we sheepishly greeted the entire family of the groom and bride who waited by the entrance. Each arriving guest was offered a shot of Jack D. What a way to start the evening. After remarks by the family members, the newly wed went around the tables offering more Jack D shots.




As the temperature getting hotter, so was the night at the wedding. Guests attacked the buffet spread while the wedding singers came on. Tight sin(the traditional Lao skirt) did not stop the ladies, and yours trully, from hitting the dance floor, which happen to be a basketball court in a high school ground.

And it is not a Lao party if you don't dance to Too Much So Much Very Much by Birdthongchai. 

Two out of three people in this pix don't work for AFESIP

Vientiane Day 59. The Day an ugly gadget saved my phone

Everytime I looked at my old Motorola phone, it reminded me that somewhere in the 'effin Malaysia someone is using my stolen Samsung Galaxy that I originally bought to replace the Motorola. I use the Motorola phone for my Lao number and BB for Singapore number.

And for the past 1 week the Motorola phone was dead.The charger just decided to stop charging and left my battery flat. I searched for new charger in phone shops which still open after office hours. A fancy phone shop even promised to search for the charger during his trip to Bangkok last weekend. Well,talk only.No action.

I went to the great "Talat Sao" today. An equivalent to Jakarta's ITC Ambassador but much smaller. In one small non-pretentious phone stall, among kitchen appliances, a lady offered me an electric mouse trap-like gadget, with instructions written in Chinese.

She took out my battery and place it on the mouse trap. It has transparent clip with double thin pins. The lady placed my battery so the two pins touched the small copper surface where battery power is transmitted. The mouse trap then connected to electrical power point. And poof, my battery which was diagnosed dead in a fancy shop, came back from its long sleep.  

I love the Chinese mind behind this universal charger. They realized that charging was really transferring electrical power through the copper surface - so that's all you need. Screw the fancy, expensive charger with different point shapes, sizes, color. With this mouse trap, you can recharge all your battery for the price of $3.

Vientiane Day 58.The day my leg got burnt

Today started out as lovely as others.Get ready to work,put on my helmet and went to get my bike.Changed my mind, so I walked to work instead,with the helmet still on. Passed the dogs doing their morning sunbathing, passed the market and the rows of tuk-tuk waiting for passengers, passed the bus station and the pedestrian-friendly fortune tellers.

Pedestrian-friendly fortune teller

At the office, work is busy as usual.Frederic picked me up in his motorbike for lunch and we had everyone's favorite Vietnamese sandwich at PVO. Bought some stamps and mail postcards to Indonesia and Singapore.

The dreadful 2 (maybe 3) seconds happened in front of UN building. As I hopped off Fred's motorbike, I pressed the inner right leg against the steaming exhaust pipe. STING LIKE A BEE,as Ricky Martin once said, but it's just that.It stings. About 2 minutes later IT HURTS LIKE HELL. All 7 layers of my skin and the nerve system in between screamed "What the heck??".
Limping my way to see the doctor on the first floor, I thanked God for the in-house clinic. Without blister nor open wound, the doctor advised me to ice-compress the burned area.

Emergency mobile ice pack

I made a complete mess in the office as my packs of icecubes melted and I need to keep topping up the cubes the entire afternoon.   

Lunch has never been this painful




Spot the spot

Vientiane Day 56. Fulfilling last wishes
3 friends left Vientiane this week. So there was a band of people who dedicated their evenings following them around to fulfill their last wishes before leaving. Me included.

The bonus is getting to do all the things I haven't done in a long time.or never been done at all.

1. Sunset-viewing dinner. One of them asked me once, where do I go to see sunset in Jakarta or Singapore? My answer was "the only thing I care about during sunset is whether I've completed my deadlines for the day so I can go home in decent hour". Sunset viewing be damned.    

So being able to appreciate this 10 mins of nature "shift change", with the people that I like, is a luxury that I treasure.

2. Weekdays night out. Ladies night is not a concept here. With hardly no cover charge and cheap drinks, you don't need incentive to wait for ladies night to go out. And there's enough room for everyone,everywhere. I just need to put on my helmet and off we go...

3. Farewell dance. We forgot to get a present for a really good friend, which speaks volume of how good of friends we are. As replacement, I performed two 3-mins-piece of Balinese dances :Tari Oleg Tamulilingan and Tari Manukrawa. They are the the easiest - because I have the music downloaded on my laptop. He looked really happy with the gift.

With these shortage of group members, we've decided that we need to actively recruiting good looking people who will look good in our outing photos. Apparently one is coming in the next 2 weeks.

Nauli's kitchen

Helping my friend Yuri publicizing her blog here. Nauli's kitchen is a compilation of Indonesian recipes - modified, modernized, made with ingredients available in Yuri's current location - Germany.

Check it out.  http://nauliskitchen.com/

Vientiane Day 53. The thing called gender equality.
When world's economy was booming, men made up the majority of the decision makers. Most systems, laws, infrastructures, longterm plans were created from men's point of views, often without considering that women and girls have different needs to men and boys.

As results, some schools were not built close enough to the villages. Too far for young girls to travel on their own that they have to drop out for safety reasons. Working hours and policy were not made to accommodate working mothers that bright women had to give up careers that they like. Laws were made without women's point of view that in some countries when a woman is abused by their husband, it is still not considered as a crime. 

Women made up half of the world's population. So our world should be made comfortable enough for each half of the population and work both ways. It should be comfortable for the men AND comfortable for the ladies.

The world is a little behind on this. Until then, everyone should be given a good reminder every 8th March that we need to work on that balance.

Happy International Women's Day!

Here's our attempt to contribute to that balance:  http://www.5minutestochangetheworld.org/

50 Days of Vientiane.
5 is my favorite number. When I was in second grade and had to memorize multiplications, group "5" was the easiest. And I loved it ever since.

So after 50 days living in Vientiane, I thought I make this day a little bit more special by doing a review of my 5 fave and memorable things in the city.

1. Favorite Lao food
Sticky rice + beef lap + tomato jaew. These are the first set of Lao food that I tried. It was love at first bite.
I love eating them all at once by making lettuce wraps filled with sticky rice, beef lap (salad), and spicy tomato jaew (dip). It's heaven in a leaf.

2. Favorite public spot.
The bank of mekong river. I can watch the sun disappear and creates red horizon along the river. I can take part in high-octane aeorobic sessions every 6pm ( I swear the instructor make up movements to her heart content and 100 people will follow). It's a great spot for morning reading before the sun becomes merciless after 10am.

3. Favorite landmark
That Dam. Legend has it that the stupa was once covered by gold before the Siamese carted it off in the 18th century. It just amazed me everytime I turned my bike to this street to avoid the traffick and pollution, and wham! you see a 400 years old monument with, allegedly, a dragon lurking beneath. And then I pedal faster.

4. Favourite sight.
I ride Franco along Khou Vieng boulevard every morning and turn to Lane Xang avenue where the UN House is located. Two traffick lights before I reach the office, Vientiane's Arch de Triumph standing mighty to greet the hustle and bustle of the capital. I took this pix while I was waiting for the light to turn green. It was a cold, grey morning and I was late for work.

Le Patuxay.According to the French language,which was formed way before the monument, Patuxay ia a masculin word.Beat them.

5. The Pork of Laos
It's not my favorite thing but definitely memorable. I have to work my way around this creature. Unless I said "Bo Kin Sin Muu" (No pork), there's a good chance a piece of its meat will land on my plate. It's even harder for my vegetarian friends who mainly work with Laotians. Many don't even grasp the concept of living without meat. Equipped with broken Laos and incorrect tones, asking for 'no meat' sometimes led them to extra sliced pork in their soup. SLURRRP.

Mon petit cochon.

Vietiane Day 48. I'm living someone else's dream.

Well, not really. I met Fred at a birthday party. A Parisian who landed in VTE one week after me. He saw a picture of Marina Bay Sands' infinity pool once and fell in love with the country, without having visited it. Fred's goal right now is to live in Singapore. He envied me living there for 7 years with permanent resident status. He said I'm living his dream. Except that he doesn't want to be a woman. 
I remembered feeling the same thing as Fred 7 years ago. Stuck in a city that didn't seem to get me far. Moving was my goal and Singapore seemed to be the most viable option. Enrollment in NTU started it all.   
Talking to Fred reminded me of that. Good luck to him. He said he'll look for me when he arrives in SIN city.

The scene that made up Fred's goal.