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Lao People's Democratic Republic/Don Không Round the world trip 2008
2-17-2008
Still in Vientiane. Sometime the days move so slowly with so little to do, but we also meet many people who live and work here, people who have spent years in foreign placements: government, business, NGO’s, military. It is always a delight and surprise to hear the world perspective expressed by those who have truly lived in some of the most exotic or some of the more base places. The restaurants in Zimbabwe are as familiar as those in Goa, India or Pakistan or Israel or Georgia in the former USSR. Politics are discussed or dismissed, local customs analyzed with great joviality. We are novices to this global community but are growing more confident. We are given many suggestions as to good routes by these folks who have been there before.
Art’s anecdotes from a life of leisure in Vientiane, Laos:
A shout of expletives from the one butt kitchen followed by more jabbering and the sound of water pouring on the floor! I arrive to find Judee standing at the sink with the metal drain strainer in hand looking down at the floor where the sink has disgorged its contents. It seems that Judee has pulled the strainer out and all the plumbing with. What a mess of dirty dish water she is standing in. Easy to clean up but what are we going to tell our Laos landlady? How long will it take to get it fixed? Guess we’ll go out tomorrow for breakfast. All’s well. We shared our plumbing snafu and it was repaired when we returned after lunch.
A bush run with the Hashers found us riding out of Vientiane in the bed of a pick up truck one late Saturday afternoon. Twenty kilometers and we were into dry rice paddies sprinkled with knots of dense brush and forest patches dotted with small family huts. For the next hour and a half we took off following the “hash hare” who laid a trail of pink toilet paper sheets marking the route we were to follow. Through open rice fields hard as rock but very bumpy; into the dense over growth on narrow paths with vines reaching out to snag skin and clothing; on through slash and burn with downed hundred-year-old trees going into charcoal making mud ovens popping up now and then. We find our way back to the trucks with the red fire ball of the setting sun slowly dropping to the smoky haze behind the city. Soon we formed a circle to toast and roast the new and old runners/walkers and I was introduced to a new for me Hasher tradition of sitting bare assed on crushed ice in the midst of the group while I am roasted for not wearing a Hash shirt. Now we are both proud owners of new shirts!
Hashing with the Hash House Harriers was part of Vientiane experience. A great group of expats, others who work here and Laos get together twice a week to run/walk, eat and drink – not necessarily in that order. The food was always ample and great tasting local Lao dishes, the drink was mostly Beer Lao and the company was chatty, fun and knowledgeable about local places and attractions, so we really benefited from much local expertise. Not only did we learn the best restaurants, but on the bush walks, locals picked vegetation used to cure different maladies. One such stick was used by the locals as a medicine for Malaria, obviously necessary knowledge in this part of the world. (J)
Vientiane is a hub of north/south traffic and we have come across many touring cyclists here: one couple Damian and Judi from Toronto, Canada had emailed us with questions regarding riding conditions and routes in South East Asia since they were arriving in January for an eight week touring vacation. We were parking our bike down town and this couple said “You must be the Wickershams!” Yes. Damiane and Judi had caught up with us so we adjourned for dinner to exchange stories and our plans.
Two days later while riding from our favorite breakfast spot JoMa (hot coffee with refills and a very good bakery including bagels and croissants) we ran into a Korean couple on a Burley tandem. They had ridden through China, Vietnam and into Laos. Over lunch we found out they too had a round the world bicycle plans. They shared their knowledge of China and Vietnam and we of Thailand and Malaysia. We invited them over for lunch and an afternoon at poolside. Wonderfully young, twenty-somethings, we saw them off as they were leaving town. Wow, what a load with trailer and all!
February 28 Lao People's Democratic >
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February 05 Lao People's Democratic
Still in Vientiane. Sometime the days move so slowly with so little to do, but we also meet many people who live and work here, people who have spent years in foreign placements: government, business, NGO’s, military. It is always a delight and surprise to hear the world perspective expressed by those who have truly lived in some of the most exotic or some of the more base places. The restaurants in Zimbabwe are as familiar as those in Goa, India or Pakistan or Israel or Georgia in the former USSR. Politics are discussed or dismissed, local customs analyzed with great joviality. We are novices to this global community but are growing more confident. We are given many suggestions as to good routes by these folks who have been there before.
Art’s anecdotes from a life of leisure in Vientiane, Laos:
A shout of expletives from the one butt kitchen followed by more jabbering and the sound of water pouring on the floor! I arrive to find Judee standing at the sink with the metal drain strainer in hand looking down at the floor where the sink has disgorged its contents. It seems that Judee has pulled the strainer out and all the plumbing with. What a mess of dirty dish water she is standing in. Easy to clean up but what are we going to tell our Laos landlady? How long will it take to get it fixed? Guess we’ll go out tomorrow for breakfast. All’s well. We shared our plumbing snafu and it was repaired when we returned after lunch.
A bush run with the Hashers found us riding out of Vientiane in the bed of a pick up truck one late Saturday afternoon. Twenty kilometers and we were into dry rice paddies sprinkled with knots of dense brush and forest patches dotted with small family huts. For the next hour and a half we took off following the “hash hare” who laid a trail of pink toilet paper sheets marking the route we were to follow. Through open rice fields hard as rock but very bumpy; into the dense over growth on narrow paths with vines reaching out to snag skin and clothing; on through slash and burn with downed hundred-year-old trees going into charcoal making mud ovens popping up now and then. We find our way back to the trucks with the red fire ball of the setting sun slowly dropping to the smoky haze behind the city. Soon we formed a circle to toast and roast the new and old runners/walkers and I was introduced to a new for me Hasher tradition of sitting bare assed on crushed ice in the midst of the group while I am roasted for not wearing a Hash shirt. Now we are both proud owners of new shirts!
Hashing with the Hash House Harriers was part of Vientiane experience. A great group of expats, others who work here and Laos get together twice a week to run/walk, eat and drink – not necessarily in that order. The food was always ample and great tasting local Lao dishes, the drink was mostly Beer Lao and the company was chatty, fun and knowledgeable about local places and attractions, so we really benefited from much local expertise. Not only did we learn the best restaurants, but on the bush walks, locals picked vegetation used to cure different maladies. One such stick was used by the locals as a medicine for Malaria, obviously necessary knowledge in this part of the world. (J)
Vientiane is a hub of north/south traffic and we have come across many touring cyclists here: one couple Damian and Judi from Toronto, Canada had emailed us with questions regarding riding conditions and routes in South East Asia since they were arriving in January for an eight week touring vacation. We were parking our bike down town and this couple said “You must be the Wickershams!” Yes. Damiane and Judi had caught up with us so we adjourned for dinner to exchange stories and our plans.
Two days later while riding from our favorite breakfast spot JoMa (hot coffee with refills and a very good bakery including bagels and croissants) we ran into a Korean couple on a Burley tandem. They had ridden through China, Vietnam and into Laos. Over lunch we found out they too had a round the world bicycle plans. They shared their knowledge of China and Vietnam and we of Thailand and Malaysia. We invited them over for lunch and an afternoon at poolside. Wonderfully young, twenty-somethings, we saw them off as they were leaving town. Wow, what a load with trailer and all!
