ABC Wednesday: B for Bricks

There always seems to be construction going on around Vientiane. Even when people have finished building their houses, they rip out a wall to make a porch or an open air kitchen. The people next to my office just tore down a dilapidated building and are putting something else up. The bricks, which are made from local clay, are wood fired and are interesting structures when stacked up.

This is my contribution for ABC Wednesday, a bit late this week!

PS After looking at Photodito's entry, I realized that a few banana shots would go down well. The fruit that we buy in SE Asia is amazing compared to the bland relatives in US or Europe.



My landlady gave me these bananas, freshly cut off the tree.

Real bananas look like this:



The soil in southern Laos is excellent for growing delicious fruit, so the bananas are transported all over the region. These bananas are going to Vientiane.

The Morning Market in my World

In December, Laos is hosting the SE Asian games, with a variety of sports being offered all around the country. This clock is at the corner by the Morning Market in downtown Vientiane, counting off the days until the start of the games.

Just showing off a part of my world. For other places, go to That's My World!

Camera Critters

Thought I'd add a picture to this group. I took this picture at the end of December, while I was in Phonsavanh, Xieng Khouang Province. I cracked up when I saw the dog sleeping among the fishing nets, and on top of a fishing net. These nets are made of nylon and hand woven; people will work on the nets while sitting near the fire after dinner while telling stories.

For pictures of other critters around the world, check out Camera Critters.

Shadow Shot Sunday

This flower is growing out of the wall of an abandoned building, and the shadow seems to grow out of the surface as well. This is my contribution to Shadow Shot Sunday, which beautiful view of interesting shadows around the world.

SWF - 23 Jan 09

On Wednesday morning, we drove from Salavan to Pakse. It's the dry and cool season now - most rice fields in Salavan province look like this - brown with stubby shafts of the old rice. There are a few areas which have irrigation systems but not in most of the more remote areas.

This was the view this morning as I went off for my morning run - Champa Palace Hotel. It used to be the residence of a Lao prince but now is a beautiful old hotel. It looks very mysterious in the morning mist.

On Thursday afternoon, I walked to the Chinese temple on the other side of the Xedon River. It has an amazing view up and down the Mekong River.

This morning, I took the picture below, which shows the temple on the other side of the river.

This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

Monks

I think this is my favorite picture of the day. I walked to the Chinese temple, crossing over the Xedon River on this bridge. Many groups of monks were returning from school where they have been studying English. I showed these monks their picture and had a few strained moments of trying to communicate in English before we started to speak Lao.

ABC Wednesday: Another Round starting with A's

I travel a lot by plane to Xieng Khouang. So these two pictures illustrate 'airborne':

Airborne:


When the wheels descend, that means that we're getting close to landing.

View of rice fields, Sept 2008:

Accident:


I'm always amazed by the way Lao people drive. When I see accidents like this, I wonder how they managed to collide. Did the driver of the truck turn in front of the motorcyclist? And if so, how did the back of the motorcycle end up stuck on the back fender of the truck? No one seemed to be seriously injured - I saw a group of people at the street corner, one of them with his motorcycle helmet under his arm, arguing and making big arm motions. I hoped the police got there on time.



Aquapark:
This was taken behind a Chinese shopping center. Both Lao kids and the children of Chinese vendors in the shopping center seem to have a good time.



This Round #4 of ABC Wednesday. This round I intend to get all the way through to Z. I think I stopped around H last time around.

Change 20 - no change

After a long debate about whether we would continue to keep our office and staff house at the same location, we check available houses for rent. Nothing much out there, so we're staying in the same place for now. I don't like it much, but I don't have to live there so I'm going along with what my staff want to do.

It does have a few positive points - a nice yard and strange fish pond.

This is my contribution to That's My World - a site of great pictures from all over the place!

Mellow Yellow Monday #1

There are ceremonies in January/ February for Pra Thawaet, the last incarnation of the Buddha before he was born in Lumphini Park, Nepal to become the Buddha. The day is spent in making merit, going to the temple with members of the community, and enjoyment. So a company sets up a bouncy castle so the kids are entertained.

Unfortunately, I couldn't attend the actual ceremonies but I did take pictures of the temple fair at my local temple.

This is the bouncy castle at night:



This is my contribution to Mellow Yellow Monday. There's an icon on the sidebar for viewing other forms of yellow around the world.

Mystery object

I'm learning how to use my camera - by reading the instruction book (radical idea, isn't it?). This illustrates the use of the digital zoom. Can anyone guess what this is?

Highlights from our trip

It usually takes about 11 hours to drive to Salavan, and we got off late this morning (sad reason - had to stop by a funeral first)

So there was no time to stop for photos, even though the sky and light were so beautiful. I did what I could by snapping photos through the window. These are some of the best.



Temples in the south of Laos are very much open air. The mountains are the western reaches of the Annamites, which form the border between Lao and Vietnam.



I loved the way people lie the grasses they collected on their front yards so the grass can dry before the seeds are pounded out of them so they can be made into brooms.



Where we stopped for dinner. The town of Khongxedon is famous for grilled chicken and homemade rice whiskey. Well, we enjoyed the chicken but skipped the whiskey.

This week has been too labor intensive. I'm running out of the house right now to go to a funeral before we hit the road to drive down to Pakse for a week of work planning.

My SWF pix from this week will show up eventually. Stay tuned!

Addendum on 19 Jan - I've posted other entries and although they are stored on the site and I can view them, they're not showing up on the blog. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the cache or what (I checked the date, and it's 2009). I'm not on my regular computer right now, so I guess I'll see if they appear.

Change 10

I found my old camera (and equally as important, the charger). I took this picture while on a long run this morning:



I love these flowers, which start to bloom in January. The seasons are such a change from the other side of the world, where everyone is getting snowed in. Just look at these flowers and know that there is spring elsewhere in the world!

Sky Watch Friday and Change 9

Change of plans: We originally planned to fly back to Vientiane but the airline called me and said that the flight had been canceled. I guess not enough people on the plane.

It's easy enough to drive to Vientiane now, though it takes eight hours. However, it's eight hours through incredible scenery, especially during this time of the year when the skies and clear and the late afternoon light is so beautiful.

The tall grasses glow in the sunlight. People cut these grasses and pound the seeds out of them before tying them up to make brooms.

Closeup with moon.

Grass in the sunlight.

Mountains in the distance.

Last view of the plum tree before we left for Vientiane. I imagine that by the time I return to Xieng Khouang, I will have missed the final stage of the blossoms - when they fall off and cover the ground with pink. I tell my friends that this is Xieng Khouang pink snow.

This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

Change 8

One thing which is not changing fast enough is the clearance of unexploded ordnance left over from the war. During the Vietnam War, fighting spilled over into Laos. Although there were ground battles in Xieng Khouang and Huaphan, as a result of a civil war between the Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government, Lao was supposed to be neutral, not a part of the US vs. Vietnam effort. However, the US provided support to the Royalist side and to the Hmong supporting them, in air support.

Bombing raids also targeted the 'Ho Chi Minh Trail' in the south of the country. Most people have the image of a superhighway running along the eastern side of the country, but in fact, the supply chain ran along already existing roads and footpaths. Carpet bombing did little to cut the route because people would use detours. While some supplies were transported by trucks during the night, most of the supplies were carried on bicycle pushed along the road. I have seen an example of one of these bicycles - with extensions on the handlebars so it could be steered, loaded up with 300 kgs. of rice, medical supplies, weapons and artillery shells.

Altogether, between two to three million tons of ordnance was dropped on Laos. 10 - 30% didn't explode at the time, and we often see displays like this around Phonsavanh:



There are many more examples of unexploded ordnance under the ground throughout the country.

Change 7

I've been in Laos for 12 years, and have seen a lot of changes here. The roads in Phonsavanh, the capital city of Xieng Khouang, are all paved now. We have 24 hour electricity, and a municipal water system which pipes water into houses.

There's also a different mindset. Laos is more in the world, while at the same time, preserving its cultural base. More children are going to school, especially girls. This will have a big impact on the country in the future.

I cracked up when I saw these heavily leaden tuk-tuk. Inside, there were ten young women, all high school students on their way home at the end of the day. It's difficult to see in the photo, but the four girls in the back were eating sour fruits dipped in a mixture of sugar and chile peppers.

Change 6

My change for today - no camera. As I get older, I get more easily distracted and forgetful when stressed. Yesterday, as I was preparing to run off to the airport, my staff besieged me with problems and questions. As I sat down in the plane, I suddenly realized I had no camera case. With the engines starting to rev up, there was no way I could run off the plane to look for it.

When I got on the ground, I called them. The camera is not in the office and they looked around the airport too. There are worse things to happen - but I find myself seeing an image I want to capture and reaching for my camera. I finally borrowed our project camera from one of the staff. It will do for now!



We accompanied a TV crew making a documentary on UXO survivors, to the house of one of the people we've helped. This is the cow pen, with a beautifully blooming plum tree in front of it.

Change 5

The change in weather between Xieng Khouang and Vientiane is always surprising. Phonsavanh, the capital city in the province, sits at an elevation of 4,000 feet. Rice fields surround the city, and mountains stand around it so it's a mountain zone rather than a tropical rain forest.

Even though I warned the people who went up with me, they still gave a gasp of surprise at the temperature and the wind as we got off the plane.

Change 4

Today's change was very sad. I went over to my landlady's house and found her daughter-in-law and another relative helping her to sit in a chair. Mae Thao's face was blank and slack and she couldn't move her legs. What happened?

Mae Thao has always been an active person, talking to herself while she sweeps the yard in the morning, and riding off to the market on her clanky one-gear bicycle. In the early mornings, she goes early to the Wat by our compound of houses. When she returns, she pours water, which has been blessed by the Buddhist chanting in the Wat, on one of the flower bushes in the yard. She always hassles me about my cats, but she takes good care of them, feeding them while she sits in the sun at a table.

So this isn't the Mae Thao I know. Mae Waew explained that she had a tooth ache so they brought her to the dentist. He injected medicine before pulling the tooth and they're convinced that the medicine traveled through her nerves throughout her whole body, paralyzing her. The place where the tooth was also got infected and she developed a big abscess in her jaw; after ten days in the hospital where they gave her IV antibiotics, they released her home. Now, she's very week and can't walk. Poor woman.

I'm not sure about the sequences of events so I'm not sure if the dentist might have injected the lidocaine into a vein, which can cause heart problems. Or whether she had some reaction to the medicine or the time in bed made her week. She's so old, about 80 now, and a serious illness can really affect older people.

I've had this dread of some day returning from the field and not finding her at her home - well, it's happened before where I was afraid to ask... and turned out she was sleeping in her fruit garden so she could plant new trees and prune the old ones.

Change 3 and wisdom

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there., Richard Feynman

A humble quote from a famous physicist and educator.

I was listening to BBC, which had an interview with Andrew Zuckerman who has put together a book and exhibit entitled "Wisdom." The web site is amazing. The fifty people interviewed share their wisdom on wisdom, which is, as one person puts it, is more of a question rather than an answer.

Skywatch Friday - 2 January 2009 - a season of change

The skies are so changeable. In one day, so clear and a moment later, cold and overcast.

I told this on my walk and jog this morning.

Peaking at the sky through the branches of my plum tree:

This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

Change 1

2009. Like most people, I can't believe it. Change seems to come faster and faster, one year blurring into the next.

Up here in Xieng Khouang, there's always change in the wind. We say that there are three seasons during the day - the mornings are often misty or drizzly, the afternoons warm up and the nights are freezing. There's often a strong wind during the cold season that makes the clouds race over the landscape.

I took this picture while I was walking this afternoon. I had to walk fast because it was so cold but decided to climb a nearby hill. The sight of the clouds and hills glowing in the sunset was exciting.

TBR challenge for 2009

Here's my list of minimum books to read in 2009, as part of the To Be Read Challenge. I didn't get through the entire list and alternate list in 2008, so I'm carrying some books over from 2008.

List One:
1. Baghdad Burning by Riverbend
2. The War of the Nerves by Ben Sheppard
3. Brasyl by Ian MacDonald
4. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen
5. Shriek: an Afterword by Jeff Vandermeer
6. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes Vte
7. Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury - currently reading
8. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
9. Wandering through Vietnamese Culture by Huu Ngoc Vte
10. Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith
11. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
12. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen

Alternate List:
1. Echo House by Ward Just
2. A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
3. A Mercy by Toni Morrison
4. Indignation by Philip Roth
5. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
6. Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku
7. 2666: A Novel by Roberto Bolano
8. The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker
9. Sly Mongoose by Tobia Buckell
10. Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick
11. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
12. A Grand Delusion by Robert Mann

My TBR challenge - still to be reading

I made this list of books to read for the TBR challenge - and I seemed to read everything else, except what I had on this list. Well, just have to carry the unread books over to next year.

My list of twelve books is:
1. The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk read in Feb
2. The Pakistani Bride by Bapsi Sidhwa - April
3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott - still carrying it around with me.
4. Mortals by Norman Rush read in Jan
5. Carnival by Elizabeth Bear Vte
6. The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi - April
7. Was by Geoff Ryman January
8. The Biographer's Moustache by Kingsley Amis March
9. Brasyl by Ian MacDonald Vte
10. The War of the Nerves by Ben Sheppard SLV
11. Baghdad Burning II by Riverbend SLV
12. A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski read in Feb SLV


Alternative Books:
1. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen
2. The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
3. Shriek: an Afterword by Jeff Vandermeer - XK
4. Ammonite by Nicola Griffith SLV
5. The King of Torts by John Grisham XK
6. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes Vte
7. Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury - currently reading
8. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West XK - starting to read; it's a big book about different times!
9. The Terrorist by John Updike
10. Farthing by Jo Walton - read in March
11. Wandering through Vietnamese Culture by Huu Ngoc Vte
12. Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith SLV

My World - Xieng Khouang

The weather has been cold, clear and windy. The flowers on the plum tree are blossoming.

Path

After the first day of our animal raising/ veterinary workshop, I took a long walk in the hills outside Phonsavanh. The weather has been cold, misty and drizzly but this afternoon, the clouds opened up and let the sky shine through. I followed this path as the sun set, always wanting to go around the next curve to see what's beyond. I turned back just beyond this point, before the next curve, so I could get home before dark.

Skywatch Friday for 26 December

Work has been labor intensive the past few months, so I've been neglecting my blogs.

But I'm still taking lots of photos, so here a few highlights from the past month:

Misty morning on the Mekong River on 11 December. It's cool and dry season now, meaning fog in the early mornings and usually clear afternoons.

People playing football the night of the full moon in December.

The Xaisett River on 14 December - we were driving back from Salavan to Vientiane.

Dry rice fields in Phonsavanh, Xieng Khouang Province.

This picture was taken on Christmas Day. It's along a ridge in the mountains in northern Xieng Khouang province. The family who owns the house is very poor - we helped them after two members were injured in a cluster bomb explosion when they were cooking over a fire which ignited a cluster bomb buried in the ground.

We invited the families to attend an animal raising training that we'll be starting tomorrow. After which, we'll give grants so they can buy animals and slowly but surely generate some more funds to improve their lives.

This is my contribution to Skywatch Friday, whose members post pictures of the skies around the world.

My World - Salavan

Salavan is in the southern part of Laos. This time of the year is the cool and dry season, very misty in the mornings but clear skies in the afternoons. I took the picture above while on a walk near my house in the morning.

This is my contribution to My World, with lots of pictures from all over the place.

Weekend in Bangkok

I haven't been keeping my blogs up and posting pictures. Well, the picture part has been difficult. After my camera was run over by a car, it still worked well enough. But a couple of weeks again, it got lost. I was walking and a small bag I was carrying got lost. I did have some good pictures on it, which I hadn't transferred to my laptop; otherwise, it was the call to get a new camera.

The picture above was taken in the store in Bangkok.

I walked over to another shopping center and took this picture of floor of the Siam Discovery mall:



I guess it's kinda strange that they'll let scruffy people like me into the place.

Strange but true, Thais love Christmas. All the stores are decorated and people are taking pictures in front of the artificial Christmas trees and all.



This is all set against the backdrop of continued problems in Thailand. The People's Alliance for Democracy, the anti-Taksin group, promised the biggest demonstration ever for Sunday. They have been occupying the grounds of the Government House for over two months now. There have been several outbreaks of violence, where police had thrown tear gas which exploded like bombs, killing and injuring people. The pro-Taksin groups getting together as well - they wear red shirts, while the PAD wear yellow (showing their support for the king). The pro-Taksin group has had several rallies, with Taksin addressing the crowds via video feed. In the meantime, his wife has been convicted of fraud, and Taksin faces charges if he returns to Thailand, which may have to be soon since the UK revoked his visa. Somewhere along the line, he said that he plans to re-enter politics.

The whole story would be unbelievable as a novel - and this is real life.

Sky

This is the view around Xieng Khouang, taken during the rice harvest.



A lot of folks are saying that a lot of rice is getting moldy and they won't be able to sell it. Families may keep the moldy rice for their own consumption and sell the rice which hasn't gotten moldy.

Saturday morning

Well, it's 1 November. The weather should be cooling off, and farmers should be working long hours to bring in the rice harvest. Instead, it's been raining heavily the past few days in Vientiane, starting in the early morning and continuing until mid-morning, but today it has rained all morning.

The problem is that this is the harvest season. A morning sprinkle is fine, but the heavy rain makes the rice plants break - the plants knocked down by the rain have to be cut quickly because they can't even dry when when sun comes out. The longer it rains, the more the rice is flattened. And then the rice kernels are wet and the sheaves are full of water so take more labor to carry. They are stacked in sheaves under tarps, or under the houses, with the hope the sun will come out, when people will spread out tarps on the roads and thresh the rice.

Usually, the dried rice stalks are stacked in mounds in the dried fields, with the bottoms of the stalks on the outside and the heads in the center, so they can more fully dried, and any rice kernels that drop off and collected in the middle of the rice haystack. If it rains during the night, it's not a problem; the farmer throws a tarp over the mound - but with this kind of rain, the rice can not be stacked.

What with late rains, rains that rain too much when they rain, floods and now late rains, I think this years rice crops are in trouble. At least around Vientiane.

The life of a rice farmer is not easy.