Go wild in the country!

Everything happens at a slower pace in Laos. There is no rush to do anything or be anywhere. It is far too hot to zip about like a mad Brit for one thing but it is also not the Laos way. The people really are quite gentle in their manner. Even in the tourist spots like Luang Prabang and Ventiane there was nothing like the hard sell of Chinese business. Tuk tuk drivers would make a plea for your custom in an almost apologetic whisper. The word on everyone's lips is 'sabaidee' - Laos for 'hello' and the ubiquitous mantra welcoming tourists everywhere. We loved Laos but we never felt we dug our nails very deep under its surface. After 'Zee Akha Experience' in the north it was difficult to get a true picture of everyday life outside of the tourist areas. It is a very rural and poor country but at the same time has a wealth of resources we might think of as exotic. Take your pick from pineapples, mango trees, banana trees, dragon fruit and daily fruitshakes made with condensed milk - sometimes with lao lao (Laos rice wine) for more of a cocktail kick to you healthy tonic.
I can't actually remember what we did half of the time. In Luang Prabang we had fun on the cookery course at Tum Tum Cheng restaurant. So called because that is the sound of the drum and cymbal from the Buddhist monastries. We visited the market to find produce and then learned how to make things like sticky rice and fish wrapped and steamed in banana leaves.

At night you would sit and listen to the array of noises in the trees and the gawping "gecko" of the gecko lizard. Kathy loves lizards. She has spent a lot of time admiring, chasing and attempting to catch them. There is a fantastic old photo of Kathy aged about 2 or 3 on her mum's bedroom wall. She is sitting next to a bucket and her eyes are wide open and bright with mischief and fun. When Kathy spots a lizard she has exactly the same look. She pauses, eyes lock on to their target and then she is off, darting after the speedy reptile with both hands scooped infront of her. The fact that she is in the middle of the market surrounded by people and turned 30 years of age does not deter her from her mission.
Laos was also where started having funky dreams from our anti-malarial tablets 'larium'. We take them once a week on a Wednesday and every Wednesday evening we strap our minds in, not sure what awaits us on the other side when we close our eyes. They are vivid, technicolour, full screen hollywood productions that range from action/adventure to sweat drenched horror flicks. Once a week is enough.
When we got to the town of Pakse we decided it was time to break free from the relaxation mould. We hired a moped and headed for the Bolaven plateau, home to coffee plantations and stunning waterfalls. Of course, neither of us had ever ridden a motorbike before. We both like to brag about our dads having had motorbikes as young men (when cool biking references are needed to make up for our own lack of experience). When my mum and dad were 'courting', they used to go around on the motorbike together. But our 100cc Honda scooter wasn't anything like the Norton or Royal Enfield of my dad's days. Downhill at over 50km/hr and you began to feel like you were really motoring, just as boys and girls (aged 8) flew past you screaming 'HELLO!'. The real art to riding a motorbike in Laos is in how many people or goods you can fit onto it. It is not unusual to see as many as 5 people (3 adults, 2 children) perched on the saddle. We managed to fall off only once - skiting across a muddy path at 5km/hr it was nothing serious. But it did get us out into the country and away from the fruitshakes of the tourist trail. We saw some amazing waterfalls, tasted some fresh Arabica Laos coffee and spent the night 80km away from Pakse in one of the cheapest but nicest guesthouses of our time in Laos. After 2 days on the bike, we came back refreshed, invigorated, ordering beerlao instead of fruitshakes (the national beer in Laos is very, very good and has a greater monopoly on the national psyche than our own Tenants lager) and seriously thinking about investing in leathers and Iron Maiden t-shirts when we return to Glasgow. Although, Kathy says she would prefer a pink scooter...

Big Brother Mouse - books for Laos kids

ATTENTION ALL EDUBLOGGERS! This post is primarily aimed at teachers but I think many of you might be interested in this. Kathy mentioned Big Brother Mouse before in the previous post. It is a fairly new initiative to publish books and deliver books to Laos children, schools and also to adults. We think there is great potential here for schools, teachers, children getting involved to help raise money to publish a book or even (for ambitious types here) to create their own book. We have seen first hand how much local teachers and the community value this service. Our Akha guide kept diving in to the English / Laos dictionary whenever he could. Please take 5 minutes to look over the website. One to think about for after the summer hols. Thanks. www.bigbrothermouse.com

Lao, leeches and men who wear the blouse in this household!

As we approach the border with Laos, and thus begin to experience increasingly hotter and stickier weather conditions, we notice a distinct increase in the amount of creepie-crawlies inhabiting various parts of our hotel and hostel rooms. In this way, I learn that Athole is a total and utter big girl's blouse when it comes to beasties. We are peacefully reading in our twin beds one night when from my right there is a high-pitched shriek and a flurry of movement. When I look round, Athole has hauled the bedclothes up to his neck and is curled up in a ball, eyes wide with fear and horror. The cause of this is a fairly innocent looking cricket, which has strayed out of the bathroom recess it was previously inhabiting and jumped onto Athole's sheet. I dispatch the cricket with a handy flip-flop; Athole breathes again; then he jumps as a large moth flutters past his ear.

So you can imagine the reaction when I casually mention that, in a few days time, we will probably be meeting a few leeches. We spend 20 minutes looking at pictures of leech bites on the internet, by which point, judging by the colour of Athole's face, he wouldn't make a decent meal for any blood-sucking creature.

We have signed up for a 3 day trek through the northern jungle ares of Laos, on a tour of ethnic minority villages. The project running the trip is an ecotourism organisation which ensures that the villages benefit directly from the profits made on the trek - only companies like this are permitted to run tours here - giving local people a direct incentive to preserve their traditions, culture and environment. The blurb and graph charts of how your cash is used at the office are pretty convincing, but if we needed any further reassurance it comes in the form of a French development worker who is running an assessment of the tours for the company and joins our trek, and a Canadian anthropologist following the same trek, but stopping more frequently to do interviews with the villagers. Both approve heartily of the scheme.

When we start the first climb, up a steep hill towards a temple, we have a not-too tough 6 hour walk ahead of us - or so we thought. Our guide makes a few jokes about leeches - hahaha, we all join in. An hour later, we are literally sprinting through sections of the forest as our guide yells "don't stop: if stop too many come!" Leeches are everywhere. And they're not the black, slug-like creatures we'd imagined. These are like vertical worms that sit on the forest floor, practically invisible against the camouflage of leaves and mulch, and then hook on to you as you walk past. The trick is to spot them and flick them off your boots or trouser leg before they work their way inside your clothing and attach themselves to your skin. By the time we stop for lunch at a mercifully leech-free waterfall, we're getting pretty adept at sucker dispatching. But then I scratch the back of my leg and make a gruesome discovery - one of the little bleeders has made its way up my thigh and is happily feasting away - aargh!

In the end, all I am left with was a round, red hole on the back of my leg - not much of a war wound really. But it's a fairly disgusting experience - leeches put an anti-coagulant into your blood, so the bite keeps bleeding even after your guide has scrabbled up your trouser leg and detached the leech. Oh, and leech fear means we complete the trek in half the given time.

The trek is amazing, though hot and sticky all the way through. That's partially because we are lugging extra baggage in the form of books, pens and pencils as gifts for school children in the villages we are visiting. There is an excellent project that's just started work in the last 2 years in Laos, called Big Brother Mouse. It produces and sells bilingual (English and Lao) books for kids and encourages tourists to buy them as presents for people at home or to give to people here as a tip or a gift. Literacy is a real problem in Laos and many children have never owned a book - some have never read one. So we stock up before we leave the main town, and give a parcel of books to each of the villages we eat and sleep in.

Sleeping in the villages is very comfortable - we are housed in specially built lodges, that are similar in design to the traditional wooden houses: there's an open plan interior with simple mattresses on the floor and a fire in the middle of the hut. However, there's a luxury bit at the back with a proper toilet and hot shower - better than some of the guesthouses we've been in. Eating is a slightly different matter. Sticky rice comes with every meal, which is fine, and there's lots of green vegetables, including one that smells - well, frankly, like an eggy fart - before it's cooked but is surprisingly tasty with spicy chicken soup. So far so good on the first day, and we ask our guide lots of questions about all the food people here eat. He tells us about the rice fields and about going frog catching at night. "I'm going tonight!" he cries. "Hahaha," we all laugh. Haven't we learned yet that he's not really joking?

Sure enough, when breakfast appears the next morning, it's frog and eel soup. Not so bad if you stick to the legs and peel the frog (they're boiled whole) but our guide eates them in one go; head first, spitting out the larger bones. Luckily there's a bit of omelette on the side, though we both manage most of a frog.

We're back in the city now - or at least that 's what people in Laos call it. It's got one main street, a market and lots of guesthouses and restaurants, plus a bus station. What more do you need for a city? Athole is delighted.