Ten surprises

A colleague of mine asked me this morning to list 10 things that have surprised me here in these first three weeks. I got a feeling this came in response to my increasing frustration in the office earlier this week, when I started feeling the strain and incompatibility of  my personal efficiency standards and realities of the local working environment. But instead of an idealistic rant I thought there might be something to my colleague’s suggestion – and below are the first ten things that came to mind.

1. Food in restaurants comes quickly. Sometimes you may not get what you ordered (often as a result of language issues) or your first choice may not be available, but it is rare that you must go on hungry for very long.

2. Beer is usually drunk with ice. Strange, when you see it happening around you. Suspicious, when you try it yourself for the first time. And probably very soon oh so normal, as the weather gets warmer and the only way to keep a glass of beer cold is to add some ice. There’s of course the minor threat that your beer will be diluted, but that just means you should keep up your pace. Luckily Beerlao tastes very good and comes quite cheap with 8,000 – 15,000 kip (0,8-1,5 euros) for a large bottle.

3. My immigration paperwork went through amazingly quickly. Normally you hear stories about people who waited for months for their residence permits and long-term visas and who had to pop outside to Thailand once a month only to renew their visas, but I got mine in less than two weeks. Only this is somewhat inaccurate, as I did not need to lift a finger for any of this to happen. With the simple production of my passport and two photos it was all taken care of for me.

4. Coconut can taste good. And I’m not getting allergic reactions from it. Fresh coconut is clearly a different ballgame from the canned, dried and additive-saturated junk that we get back home.

5. Per diems are very, very important. They have a major impact on budgeting and they have the power to make or break the success of meetings. Thus they appear in daily conversations in the office and from time to time cause a lot of problems.

6. It is possible to be in bed by 11pm and wake up without an alarm before 6.30am. Especially the latter has been a great source of surprise for someone who just a month ago had trouble getting both eyes open before lunch. Credit goes to the flock of birds that starts singing right outside my bedroom window at the break of dawn.

7. There is an official letter for every imaginable purpose. They come with signatures, document codes and multiple stamps in bright colours. Unfortunately this seeming affection to organisation and archiving in written documentation does not extend to oral communications. Recording minutes of meetings is hardly established practice, and judging by the nature of meetings this is probably so due to the general chaos of parallel discussions and arguments that appears to take over most meetings.

8. The local people are extremely capable of multitasking when it comes to driving motorbikes. This could mean holding an umbrella, writing an sms or putting on lip gloss in full speed on the crowded roads. Consequent implications for traffic safety are, however, unlikely to surprise anyone.

9. Life without continuous snacking is possible. I eat breakfast at 7am, lunch at noon and dinner at some point in the evening. In addition I may have 1-2 cups of coffee or tea during the day and an afternoon snack if dinner will be late but that’s it.

10. Positive thinking is really powerful. More powerful than I thought, or maybe  I’m just surprised it’s actually working on me. I may be facing a real opportunity to learn to think more positively in this country…

Learning Lao

Yesterday I had my first private lesson in Lao language together with a colleague. He had taken a course in basic spoken Lao some months before, whereas my exposure to formal training in the language was non-existent. Armed with a pen, some paracetamol to numb an increasingly sore throat and bags of curiosity I gave it a go. Here’s what I gathered  about what I’m getting myself in to.

This is what the challenge looks like:

 

Lao consonants, picture from http://wiki.verbix.com/Category/LaoScript

Above are the nearly 30 consonants in Lao, which are combined with almost as many vowels. Depending on the tone (of which there are 6-8 depending on the system you use to learn the language) and the position of a vowel relative to consonants they can take a number of different forms in writing as shown below:

Lao vowels shown here in connection with ‘k’, picture from http://wiki.verbix.com/Category/LaoScript

For someone whose native language is a phonetic language and other previously known languages all belong to Romanic and Germanic languages this is bound to be difficult. For a beginner the tones are almost impossible to separate in listening, let alone recreate in speaking. Yet one word can have up to 8 completely different meanings depending on the tone! Wish me luck…

Visiting rivers – the Mekong and the Nam Song

In a landlocked country like Laos, access to water comes in the form of rivers and lakes. So far I have visited two of its rivers, the Mekong next to Vientiane and the Nam Song  in Vang Vieng north of the capital. Vientiane sits on the eastern bank of the great Mekong river, where during the dry season the water is so low it allows for walking and games of ultimate frisbee on the riverbed. This weekend I headed north of Vientiane to Vand Vieng so I missed out on Saturday’s frisbee fun in the Mekong sand, but lucky for me the rainy season and high waters are still months away. Below are some simple shots of the Mekong at the moment.

Heading down to the Mekong riverbed

What I found at the bottom...

My first weekend trip took me to Vang Vieng, some 160 km north of Vientiane* for the popular activity of tubing i.e. floating down a river on an inflated inner tube of a tractor-tire. Because of the dry season waters were somewhat low in places, which meant that rather than floating we were paddling to make our way downstream. Following the tradition of tubing, such hard work had to be rewarded from time to time with appropriate amounts of Beerlao and occasional shots of lao-lao in riverside bars. My camera didn’t make it to tubing, but below are some views of the river taken from the hotel’s garden the next morning. In addition to tubing, Vang Vieng has a lot to offer in terms of views and activities. Although some people go tubing time after time, I will surely save some time from my next visit for some of the other pastimes on offer: rock climbing, caving, kayaking or trekking!

Downstream view of the river Nam Song

In the background, my next destination - the caves and rock climbing routes of Vang Vieng

*) 160 km with the local roads and traffic takes a minimum of 3-4 hours of driving, preferably with a sturdy vehicle that can handle the potholes, sudden disappearance of asphalt and general bumpiness of the ride. Motion sickness aids recommended for those prone to feeling sick on mountain roads!

Sabaidee!

First things first, the above means hello in the local Lao language. Accompanied with a smile (a somewhat baffled one for now) it has taken me through my first 24h in Vientiane, the capital of Lao PDR and my duty station for the next 18 months as I begin my secondment. I tend to forget first impressions quickly, so here are some of my early encounters.

Traffic. When our plane from Bangkok landed in the middle of rice fields (in fact there was a moment just before landing when I was worried if there even is a decent landing strip), I remembered the stories about calm and quiet in Laos and for a moment thought they were true. It quickly dawned on to me that traffic to the airport is hardly representative of the buzz of central Vientiane where motorbikes, tuktuks, pick-up trucks, cars, buses and bicycles fill the streets. My first experience of sitting in the back of a motorbike after hours of arriving in Vientiane proved safe but in the long term it’s bound to be risky business. Today’s day trip to the local market on foot felt somewhat safer but was certainly slower and sweatier. Come rainy season, alternatives to walking will be required. By then I will hopefully get to grips with the local transport system, in particular with the hierarchy of tuktuks which at the moment is confusing to say the very least.

Food. In short, very different. Other valid decsriptors include unpredictable and occasionally very spicy. In time I will surely develop more sophisticated ways of describing my new staples but for first impressions these are very fitting. Meal #1 consisted of a meatball dish with cucumber, coriander and peanut sauce, chargrilled eggs made of old eggs and thus revealing a half-grown chick inside (a bit too much for a first I thought, but apparently it’s meant to be that way), papaya salad, rolls filled with eggs and vegetables, all eaten with sticky rice and some dips and sauces.

First meal in Vientiane

Second meal in Vientiane

Meal #2 was less adventurous with local noodle soup foe (this one with chicken) followed by a fresh pineapple smoothie. More food related stories are guaranteed as my taste buds adjust and I make my way to the local food markets…

Weather. Currently the best there is in this part of the world (or so I’m told), meaning temperatures around 25 degrees celcius and quite bearable humidity (around 50-60%). That hasn’t stopped me from sweating as I walk in the sun and it certainly hasn’t saved me from swelling and blisters in my feet. But hopefully my body will adjust quickly so I get to enjoy this weather while it lasts.

That’s all for first impressions this time. Overall it’s strage being in an environment where you don’t understand what people are saying beyond hello and thank you, have trouble juggling three currencies and can’t quite understand what the charm with local pop music is. But all that was to be expected.