Travels

We’ve just come back from dinner at the Casablanca Restaurant. Nin had said that they served western as well as Lao food and, with a name like Casablanca, we thought they might even have some north-African or middle-eastern dishes. Turns out the menu was all Lao food, and we settled on chicken fried rice, fish steamed in lime juice and, of course, Beer Lao. And very tasty it was, especially given that dinner, plus mineral water and two large bottles of beer, came to US$7.00 including the tip.

While we were eating, the heavens opened up, and we had a tremendous downpour for a few minutes. The people sitting in the patio area raced to get under cover before they got drenched. We appear to have entered the rainy season, as we now get some rain almost every day. Typically it rains like crazy for 15 or 20 minutes, and then stops and the sun comes out for a while. When it is raining it comes down in buckets—no “mauzy’ weather for days at a time like in Newfoundland.

With the rain, we’ve discovered one problem with our house or, rather, its location. To get to our gate from the street, we have to walk about 100 feet down a driveway flanked on both sides by concrete walls. Unfortunately, there isn’t much in the way of drainage so, after a period of heavy rain, our house appears to sit at the far end of a minor inland sea that stretches from one wall to the other. Luckily it isn’t too deep, but who knows what kinds of nasty bits are floating around in there? As she splashed by on her motorcycle the other morning, Nin laughed at me while I gingerly sloshed through the water, pulling up my pant legs, and trying to keep the water from running over the tops of my shoes.

Now that the rains have started, the temperatures have dropped a bit, but the humidity seems to have increased. When I say, “dropped a bit”, I mean to the low 30’s during the day. With the heat and humidity, I don’t have to work very hard to get dripping wet. Yesterday, on my way to Vientiane College, I made a short detour and dropped into the UNDP office to get some reports for my report writing class. I decided to try taking another route back to the College, not knowing if it was shorter or longer than the way I had come. It turned out the route was considerably longer, and it took me 20 or 25 minutes to get to the school. I was more than a little embarrassed when I walked into the school dripping in sweat, and wearing my now-soaking-wet shirt. In order to cool down, and to give my shirt had a chance to dry, I went and worked in the computer lab for a while where I expected to have minimal contact with anyone else. I could have gone home and changed, but then that shirt would have been soaked by the time I got back to school.

I did change my shirt the other night before we went to see Nin and Kesone dance in the “Lao-Vietnamese Friendship Show” at the National University. As it turned out, that was pretty pointless to.

I wanted to get to the hall fairly early so I could get a good spot near the stage to take some photographs. We first realized that things weren’t going to go exactly as advertised when we walked into the arena-sized hall at 6:20, for a show that was supposed to start at 7:00, and there were only a dozen or so people getting things organized, and not a single person sitting in the two thousand chairs that had been set up for the audience. At least we had our choice of seats, and we sat right in the middle behind the first three rows of tables and chairs that had been set up for invited guests. The stage was raised, and I figured I’d be able to shoot over the heads of the people in front of us.

As the people started to drift in around 7:15, the temperature started to rise. By 7:45, when three workmen came out and wrestled the bronze bust of Kaysone, the first post-1975 Lao president, off the stage (why!?), it felt like we were sitting in the world’s largest sauna. Everyone sat fanning themselves with anything they could find as they chatted noisily with their friends and neighbours, or talked on their cell phones. I tried to keep from dripping too much on my camera. The clean shirt I had put on was now soggy.

I would like to say that a hush fell over the crowd as the University President mounted the podium at 7:55 to deliver his speech about Lao-Vietnamese friendship but, if anything, the noise level rose as everyone now had to make themselves heard over the PA system. There was a smattering of applause a few minutes later when the President finished his comments, but whether it was because of his comments, or because he finally left the stage was hard to tell. Next came the Vietnamese ambassador, who gamely presented his seemingly-endless speech to the dozen or so people in the crowd who were actually listening. By the time the Vietnamese ambassador finished his comments, and the obligatory plaques had been exchanged and the photographs taken, it was already 8:30, and most of the oxygen in the room had been exhausted.

Nin and Kesone were supposed to be in the first dance so I readied my camera. We had sat there for two hours in the sweltering heat, but at least we had an excellent position from which to take photos, and I was ready. As the curtain began to go up, three TV crews, and a couple of dozen shutterbugs, raced to the front of the crowd and lined up shoulder to shoulder in front of the stage, shooting madly and blocking everyone else’s view. After they had taken their shots of the dancers, they turned around and shot the audience straining to see over, around, and through them. Unbelievable! Cathy and I looked at each other and laughed. How Canadian were we to think that everyone would sit politely in their seats so everyone could see!? As soon as they had a few shots, most of the photographers lost interest in the performance, and they wandered off. I had the last half of the dance to take my photos.

Kesone dancing at the Lao-Vietnamese friendship show.

Nin dancing at the Lao-Vietnamese show.

The process was repeated as the next couple of dance troupes, and then a couple of singers took the stage. And while each performance was going on, people in the audience chatted, walked to the washrooms, and wandered around. I was impressed by the performer’s concentration in the face of the audience’s seemingly limited interest.

By now it was time for us to go and, unlike most everyone else, we at least waited until the end of one of the numbers before we made our exit. As we walked down the aisle from the front of the auditorium to the back, we felt a little conspicuous—as far as we could see, we were the only “foreigners” there.

I’ve been reading Maximum City, a book about Mumbai (Bombay), a city that we’re planning to visit next February, but I haven’t made much progress since I found the chess program on our laptop. Since I discovered the game, I’ve been trying, mostly in vain, to beat the computer. I didn’t check the skill-level setting until after the computer had beaten me several times in a row. It was then that I discovered that it was set near the “Master Difficulty Level”. But by then, I was determined to beat it at that level, and nothing lower.

It’s annoying enough that the game never seems to make any foolish mistakes, and that it almost always beats me, but what’s really annoying are the messages it sends if you do something stupid. As you see your Queen disappear in a puff of computer smoke because you overlooked a Pawn sitting there, the machine really rubs salt into your wound by saying, “You play like a monkey.” followed by, “Wait, you are a monkey!” Or, as the Bishop you didn’t notice lurking all the way across the board takes your Rook, the machine taunts you with, “For a sun god [the players are sun and moon], you’re not too bright!” I know it’s irrational, but I want to beat “Moon”, and all her annoying sarcastic messages! So I keep playing and losing. But at least it’s taking me longer to lose now.

Gord

Well, as usual, Gord has got the blog entry done and I still have not related my adventures in living in Vientiane. I find it amazing we have already been here six weeks! I am not even sure what I have been doing.

My days start out relatively early with coffee and breakfast with Gord, and sometimes Nin. They take off to work, and then I do my ant-reduction program of sweeping, mopping, and checking the cupboards and counter for any telltale ant lines. After cleaning and yes, killing the creatures, I am satisfied and head out.

“So where do you go?”, you might ask. I have been walking to areas that I do not know and checking them out. As you may have gathered, I am interested in the foods and markets here. I love finding a new market and roaming it, trying to figure out what all the foods are. I also love trying the street food. (Which is harder when Gord is around as he is more careful then me). The barbequed meats, cooked like a kebob and served with chili sauce (unknown type), fried rice balls rolled in fragrant spices, and small packs of spiced vegetables in banana leaves are just great. I also seem to stumble onto stores called mini-marts which cater to foreigners, and have stuff like peanut butter, pasta, cheese, crackers and the like. I recently found one with flour tortillas and I was very excited to make an Asian Burrito out of black beans, cilantro, Thai basil and homemade salsa.

I really like making Lao food with its fresh herbs and combinations of lemongrass, kafir lime leaves, and basil, but I cannot seem to help making an equal amount of Italian food. There are literally tons of fresh tomatoes, flat-leafed parsley, basils of different types, chilies, and greens. Those and my mini-mart pasta make it easy to make all sorts of stuff. I am still struggling in the meat department, however. I have a hard time buying chunks of meat sitting out in the market…too much parasitology at med school I guess.

One of the most interesting things we have had was a soup made with pig lung. It was a typical fragrant concoction with lime, lime leaves, lemongrass, and noodles, but I noticed some flowery substance floating in it. Then I realized it was the actual bronchial tubes and arteries. I ate the broth, but just could not eat the meat. The alveolar tissue apparently expands in your mouth as you eat it. Luckily, Peter was beside me, and liked the elastic arteries and bronchi in particular, so I passed them off to him. Sometimes it is a handicap being a doctor when eating here!

Gord’s description of the dance show and cultural exchange was pretty accurate except for one thing. Coupled with the heat and the late start, was the hatch of some kind of damselfly-like winged insect. They seemed to hatch, fly around, and then lose their wings, to become a worm-like creature. (I have had to literally sweep layers of wings off our porch; it looked like a skiff of snow). Well of course the hatch occurred the night of the show, and so I spent my time swatting these insects away, while fanning Peter and myself. As we waited for his sisters to dance Peter, in true little-brother fashion, was letting the creatures land on his arms and then “helping them” lose their wings. Just to get my reaction he also mimed eating them, but I would not let him actually do it. It is a source of protein that a lot of people here like, but they are supposed to be cooked!

The other thing I am doing is teaching a chemistry tutorial for four students who are planning to go to Monash University in Australia next year. It is three hours per week and I try to help them with both the English of chemistry, and some of the calculations and problems. I have enjoyed reviewing the chemistry. The benefit of being away from it for twenty years is that you get an appreciation for the elegance of chemical bonding and quantum theory. When you stop and think about it, photosynthesis is really an amazing thing—binding energy from the sun into chemical bonds. I do not think I really appreciated it the first time around. Not surprisingly, I don’t think that the students appreciate it either…. they just want to get through!

Well we are off to take some photos of the neighbourhood. It is interesting how quickly you become used to the sights that originally were so foreign. The ornate temples, the noodle shops, and the brightly-coloured tuk-tuks look commonplace now, but I am still horrified to see four people on a motorcycle with no helmets! It is that doctor thing again.

Cathy

P.S. I have to comment on Gord’s ongoing battle with the computer chess game. He really is annoyed with the cartoon that flips her hair, and says he plays like a monkey! What annoys me more is the spell-check that keeps trying to change Gord to God.

Take care,
Cathy