(I wrote this a couple days ago... so you can add two days to any time-related statements. I'm too lazy to edit them all and double check for continuity.)
Well, the power went out last night and didn’t come back on, as it looks like our building is wired poorly (wrong) and it’s being fixed this morning. I’m not really surprised, not to say I saw it coming or anything… Anyway, Sharon and I slept downstairs on the couches in the waiting room. It totally felt like a school time slumber party.
Anyway life here’s getting a bit interesting and busy. I don’t want to miss anything, but there’s really no beginning, so… Anyway.
We finally moved from the hotel to the school Wednesday morning. Mike (Dara’s friend, and our new music teacher) arrived Monday. Wednesday I had lunch with Thomas, the secretary of the Cambodian Federation of Rugby, who gave me a lot of contacts. I had e-mailed him about getting involved with Women’s Rugby here, to see if there were any teams to practice with. He asked if I had any experience or interest in coaching as well, and of course I said yes. It looks like I might end up helping out a bit with the women’s national team here, which is EXCITING to say the least. There’s also a gala dinner coming up (good banter was guaranteed to me) plus some matches and tournaments that I may or may not be able to make, given my Saturday teaching schedule.
So last night I went out to a training session for U20s at PSE (a French NGO, Pour un Sourire d’Enfant) with a guy named Sylvere (who Thomas put me in contact with). PSE is a school for disadvantaged Cambodian kids, and I guess it’s just the school team. I watched the training and we had a little chat afterwards about what I can do to help and/or participate. While I was watching several of the girls greeted me with a friendly “Bonsoir” as they rotated through the lines in their drills. I also chatted with a girl sitting out (due to injury, natch) and Rami, whose birthday it was, after practice. Sylvere was friendly and happy to have someone offering to help out. It looks like he has enough help for the PSE practices, especially as he’s trying to train a young Khmer guy as a coach, but I’m welcome to come along to trainings and participate. Which frankly, sounds perfect. The girls seem friendly and it would be pretty cool to be able to have a team to run around with. The only other girls team is Lycée Descartes, and the two sides play each other once in awhile. I don’t think I’ll be playing in any games, as the girls are much younger than me, but rugby is rugby is rugby. It’s always good. (And I really need the exercise.) It will be interesting, though to be running at a practice where all the instruction is given in French and then translated into Khmer.
Sylvere helps coach the women’s national side, and Soaphan, one of the players who was there last night, helps coordinate the side. Since Mondays are my days off, we’re going to try and set up some trainings for then. That will be more coaching. Sylvere is very busy (with work and running lots of trainings for other teams, including the men’s national side and some boys teams), and he said he would definitely appreciate the help.
I figure, rugby got me into this mess (well, not a mess really), I might as well give back.
Not only was Sylvere happy and helpful about the rugby, but he also invited me (and friends) out to dinner with his friends last night. We met up at a pretty good Italian/European place run by a Khmer chef who used to work for the UN and loves cheese, and sat at a long table mostly of French speakers. We ended up chatting to Vincent, a French cabinet-maker who used to live in India and is traveling and living around the world for awhile before going back. Rugby, and the people you end up meeting. Nonetheless, very nice of Sylvere to extend the invitation. It seems like the expat/western community here is generally welcoming and supportive, as we’re all so transient and there are so few established resources here to go off of, other than street knowledge and connections.
The other exciting rugby lead is this guy, Graham, who works in marine environmental impact assessments, for a construction/natural resource development company. Thomas sent a short introductory e-mail and I expected a quick reply of, “Who is this girl? Does she have a resumé? What does she want?” but instead I got a friendly e-mail about his own background in marine biology and the invitation to put me in touch with other people in the company and chat about marine resources sometime. Rugby!
As I was showering this morning I thought back to how, in college, I thought about spending more time studying and less time playing rugby. So very glad I didn’t.
Anyway, the rugby-related meetings have eclipsed slightly what were the bigger news items this week – the arrival of Mike, the move to the school, getting our pictures taken at a portrait studio for the upcoming concert, and planning and preparing for said concert.
The move to the school was smooth, despite the power issues we’re having now – we overloaded the circuit last night when we all came home and turned on our lights and air conditioners at the same time. It’s a much bigger relief to be living here than I thought it would be. Relief? Well, comfortable. It’s really nice to not have to be on everyone else’s schedule, make my own breakfast, and just head out and get a tuk tuk at night without worrying about the hotel staff judging/gossiping about it. Plus, Sacom’s pretty cute and is basically like our little pet. A very active pet who only sort of speaks English, Chinese, Khmer, and holds great destructive potential for our belongings. Wait, that’s almost exactly like a pet.
The experience at the portrait studio was pretty entertaining. We had always made fun of this one poster in the elevator at the hotel, with cheesy, super-photoshopped pictures advertising a FujiFilm-connected studio. Guess where we ended up getting photographed?
We got all done up and got snaps taken, me with guitar solo and playing violin in a group. For a concert where the instruments are likely to only be piano, guitar, and voice. Ohhh well. Truth in advertising doesn’t seem to be an established practice here. Or at home for that matter. At one point they had me holding the guitar in super classical style, with the neck wayyyyy up, and with me slightly turned to the side and with my head cocked. Basically in exactly the pose I would have done if I was being an idiot and trying to act dumb and crack people up. I felt so stupid, I couldn’t stop laughing and had this huge grin on my face. After a few photos of that, the photographer said something and Suong translated rather harshly: “Change your face!” This only made me laugh more.
Our next big task is putting on a concert at a restaurant, to promote the school, in about two weeks. We’ve finally got all the pieces selected and now pretty much just need to go about practicing them. Sounds easy. It’s straightforward, but not easy. So now my mornings and early afternoons are devoted to practice, and late afternoons are for teaching. Wheeee. And evenings are about rugby, getting out, trying to start a social life. Busy busy busy.
And there we are. And here I am.
P.S. A comment that Thomas made about the rugby: “We have plenty of equipment, that’s not the problem. We need coaches.” It made me smile at first, given how much of a struggle getting the right equipment at home can be. It made me think, though, that money isn’t the problem. Money is the easy part, really. Not necessarily large amounts of money, but there’s enough cash and stuff floating around in the world for a bit of charity here, a few dozen soccer balls here, a school building over yonder… The material things are the easy part. They can be ordered and manufactured and shipped and paid for without a lot of effort. Knowledge is the hard part. Experience is difficult to find, impossible to transport. It’s people that make the difference. (I’m sure that’s someone’s tag line by now.)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?: Laos Pt. II
By now I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures of my trip (if not, allow me to direct you to Facebook). I’ve been putting off writing this for some time, so allow me to hash it out poorly and hastily so that I can move on with my life.
My new bus friends and I arrived into town around 8pm, from our bone-rattling journey from Vang Vieng, asking each other if we’d booked a guesthouse in advance. None of the four of us could answer yes. We each commented that one local or another had told us all the guesthouses were full, that New Year’s was a very busy time, all the accommodation had been booked a long time ago, etc. That may be true, but knowing it wasn’t going to go back in time and get us a reservation, so we resorted to walking around the main part of town, asking at every guest house up and down the street. We actually managed to find one fairly soon and on a street in the heart of old town. It only took about 20 minutes, a few blocks of circling, and maybe 10 or more inquiries. Old town is a UNESCO Heritage site, so it’s packed with quaint, colonial-esque buildings that almost exclusively house either shops, restaurants, or guesthouses.
Settled at our guesthouse, we hit the night market for dinner. The food area was fantastic and cheap. Most of the vendors operate buffet style, so you walk up, get a plate full of whatever looks good, and they heat it up for you. I had a plate of noodles and other goodies for 10,000 kip, or about $1.25. I love the cheap street food in Southeast Asia.
After dinner we headed out in search of The Disco. We had passed a busy, loud club on our way into town from the bus station, and my Aussie roommate was determined to find it. There was a lot of pantomime involved with telling the tuk tuk driver where to take us. “We want to go to disco!” “Disco? This is disco.” (A quiet, dark building.) “No, we want DISCO.” (Pump fists above head.)
The disco was pumping alright. Packed to the gills with locals plus a smidge of Westerners, the kids were out in force to celebrate the new year. The music was decent, for a random club in a small town in Laos. It was mostly pop and dance music, although they did manage to play “Happy Birthday” five times. The first time it came on it was funny, the second time it was hilarious, the third time… confusing. After that it was just annoying.
The next day I planned to take on Luang Prabang and get a whole bunch of sightseeing in. My roommate and I headed out to get find a little café for breakfast (as I was craving pastry), which lead us up to the main street. We saw the waterfight from far away and briefly considered eating on another street, before deciding to brave the fray… it couldn’t be that bad and there were cafés offering immunity all over the street.
About 30 seconds down the street a girl stealthily walked up behind me and, smiling and wishing me happy new year (“Sabaidee Pii Mai!”), poured a pitcher of orange dye down my shoulder. A little bit later, a roving band of 8-year-old boys ran up and left two large dye hand prints on my roommate’s back. Things progressively worsened from there. Drenched and covered in dye, we finally found a café and a table on the porch where we could witness all the action.
It’s hard to describe the mayhem of the day, but needless to say we stayed there until evening and I didn’t get any sightseeing done. I didn’t care. The all day street party/waterfight was awesome. All the shops and restaurants had threaded their hoses out the front, and people were constantly filling up large tubs of water that served as refill stations. I bought a bucket and joined in the fun for awhile, throwing water into the street when people were going by and at the other people at our refill station when there weren’t. Everyone was involved, throwing water around with buckets, shooting super soakers, dancing, wielding hoses, cruising around town in pickups throwing water on the people on sidewalks, smearing grease on others, pouring dye into the refill stations, running around with bags of flour spewing giant powdery clouds… It was so much fun. It was hilarious the way the woman with the hose at our refill tub smiled and cheerfully yelled “Sabaidee Pii Mai!” while spraying you with the hose as you attempted to refill your bucket or watergun.
Part way through the afternoon the battle was interrupted by a parade, from the temple at Phu Sii down to Wat Xieng Tong, the oldest monastery in town. It was a cool mix of religious, cultural, and general small town groups. Lots of people in traditional costumes, lots of marching bands of traditional instruments, marching lines and pickup trucks full of monks, beauty pageant participants, party members holding banners, and even a showing of proud ladyboys. And lots more I’ve forgotten already. The parade occupied the entire street for about an hour, but that didn’t mean the water throwing had stopped, and it certainly didn’t stop the waterfight for the afternoon. It raged on after the parade and even after we went to dinner that night.
Even though there was more waterfight and more parade (going from the monastery back up to the temple) happening the next day, we opted instead to go to Kuang Si, the waterfall nearby, which I was told was particularly spectacular in the dry season. It was definitely worth it. Just go look at the pictures, I don’t feel like trying to describe it here. We hiked all the way up to the top and went swimming in one of the bright blue pools, overlooking the mountains where the falls are nestled. Gorgeous. And then some monks showed up to go swimming too.
Though we thought we were avoiding the street fight water party by heading out of town that day, we had to pass through a number of small villages… all of which were packed with enthusiastic kids who hadn’t had a chance to participate in any of the action in town. Of course, our songthaew driver kindly slowed down each time to let the kids have a square shot. We arrived back in town soaking wet and on the way back to the guesthouse three of us narrowly avoided getting smeared in the face with grease… my roommate was not so lucky.
After dinner on the riverside (again) and drinks at a comfy bar (again) we went out to find a disco (again). It was late and the disco we went to last time was closed (at 11:45pm, hooray for small towns), so we asked the tuk tuk driver about other discos, other options. He said, “Bowling!” “Bowling, like… bowling?” “I think it must be a club called Bowling.” Turns out, it was actually a real bowling alley. So there we were, ten pin bowling, in rural Laos, at 1am. Very surreal. I placed second to last, getting berated the entire time for being An American Who’s Bad at Bowling (“It’s your sport! Your country invented it!” – really, did we? I guess it’s pretty American…), but we were all handily beaten by the Algerian, who had never bowled before in his life. Amazing.
On my last day in town I finally went sightseeing in town. First let me say that Luang Prabang is an adorable little town, similar to Hoi An in Vietnam. It’s got small streets and winding alleys bunched with small mixed colonial and Lao style buildings, interspersed with shiny temples and impressive buildings, all nestled between the mountains, the Mekong, and the Nam Khan river. Charming and quaint in a very good way, although it should be, given that it is a UNESCO World Heritage city (a title proudly displayed multiple times at the parade). Hiking up Phu Sii was sweaty in the midmorning heat, but definitely worth it for the view. The sites on the hill itself aren’t the most spectacular, but they’re a fun hodge podge of religious buildings, statues, and caves. There’s Buddha’s footprint, dark caves packed with buddha statuettes, a few altars, and a collection of golden statues winding down the hill, including buddhas for every day of the week.
After climbing Phu Sii, we rented bikes to tour the rest of the town in style, which was definitely the best way to get around. I love biking in Southeast Asia (when the land is flat). It’s relaxing, it gets you places, the breeze is built in, and cars aren’t (usually) trying to run you down. Anyway, we cruised down to Wat Xieng Tong, a gorgeous old monastery with several impressive buildings. The Lao style of architecture is really cool, with roofs that come down very low and close to the ground (again, go check out my pictures to see what I’m talking about).
More bike riding around town, trying to find Wat Phoi Phao, which was recommended to me by a Lao friend from home for having spectacular views of the area. The temple is quite cool as well, a large, octagonal, two-story structure at the top of a hill on the outside the old part of town. It was worth the sweaty bike ride, and cruising back downhill into town was excellent. We cruised along the river and made a few loops of the old town before turning in our bikes.
That evening I caught a flight back to Vientiane so I could fly back to Phnom Penh the next day. My adventure in Laos was over, and now you know all about it.
My new bus friends and I arrived into town around 8pm, from our bone-rattling journey from Vang Vieng, asking each other if we’d booked a guesthouse in advance. None of the four of us could answer yes. We each commented that one local or another had told us all the guesthouses were full, that New Year’s was a very busy time, all the accommodation had been booked a long time ago, etc. That may be true, but knowing it wasn’t going to go back in time and get us a reservation, so we resorted to walking around the main part of town, asking at every guest house up and down the street. We actually managed to find one fairly soon and on a street in the heart of old town. It only took about 20 minutes, a few blocks of circling, and maybe 10 or more inquiries. Old town is a UNESCO Heritage site, so it’s packed with quaint, colonial-esque buildings that almost exclusively house either shops, restaurants, or guesthouses.
Settled at our guesthouse, we hit the night market for dinner. The food area was fantastic and cheap. Most of the vendors operate buffet style, so you walk up, get a plate full of whatever looks good, and they heat it up for you. I had a plate of noodles and other goodies for 10,000 kip, or about $1.25. I love the cheap street food in Southeast Asia.
After dinner we headed out in search of The Disco. We had passed a busy, loud club on our way into town from the bus station, and my Aussie roommate was determined to find it. There was a lot of pantomime involved with telling the tuk tuk driver where to take us. “We want to go to disco!” “Disco? This is disco.” (A quiet, dark building.) “No, we want DISCO.” (Pump fists above head.)
The disco was pumping alright. Packed to the gills with locals plus a smidge of Westerners, the kids were out in force to celebrate the new year. The music was decent, for a random club in a small town in Laos. It was mostly pop and dance music, although they did manage to play “Happy Birthday” five times. The first time it came on it was funny, the second time it was hilarious, the third time… confusing. After that it was just annoying.
The next day I planned to take on Luang Prabang and get a whole bunch of sightseeing in. My roommate and I headed out to get find a little café for breakfast (as I was craving pastry), which lead us up to the main street. We saw the waterfight from far away and briefly considered eating on another street, before deciding to brave the fray… it couldn’t be that bad and there were cafés offering immunity all over the street.
About 30 seconds down the street a girl stealthily walked up behind me and, smiling and wishing me happy new year (“Sabaidee Pii Mai!”), poured a pitcher of orange dye down my shoulder. A little bit later, a roving band of 8-year-old boys ran up and left two large dye hand prints on my roommate’s back. Things progressively worsened from there. Drenched and covered in dye, we finally found a café and a table on the porch where we could witness all the action.
It’s hard to describe the mayhem of the day, but needless to say we stayed there until evening and I didn’t get any sightseeing done. I didn’t care. The all day street party/waterfight was awesome. All the shops and restaurants had threaded their hoses out the front, and people were constantly filling up large tubs of water that served as refill stations. I bought a bucket and joined in the fun for awhile, throwing water into the street when people were going by and at the other people at our refill station when there weren’t. Everyone was involved, throwing water around with buckets, shooting super soakers, dancing, wielding hoses, cruising around town in pickups throwing water on the people on sidewalks, smearing grease on others, pouring dye into the refill stations, running around with bags of flour spewing giant powdery clouds… It was so much fun. It was hilarious the way the woman with the hose at our refill tub smiled and cheerfully yelled “Sabaidee Pii Mai!” while spraying you with the hose as you attempted to refill your bucket or watergun.
Part way through the afternoon the battle was interrupted by a parade, from the temple at Phu Sii down to Wat Xieng Tong, the oldest monastery in town. It was a cool mix of religious, cultural, and general small town groups. Lots of people in traditional costumes, lots of marching bands of traditional instruments, marching lines and pickup trucks full of monks, beauty pageant participants, party members holding banners, and even a showing of proud ladyboys. And lots more I’ve forgotten already. The parade occupied the entire street for about an hour, but that didn’t mean the water throwing had stopped, and it certainly didn’t stop the waterfight for the afternoon. It raged on after the parade and even after we went to dinner that night.
Even though there was more waterfight and more parade (going from the monastery back up to the temple) happening the next day, we opted instead to go to Kuang Si, the waterfall nearby, which I was told was particularly spectacular in the dry season. It was definitely worth it. Just go look at the pictures, I don’t feel like trying to describe it here. We hiked all the way up to the top and went swimming in one of the bright blue pools, overlooking the mountains where the falls are nestled. Gorgeous. And then some monks showed up to go swimming too.
Though we thought we were avoiding the street fight water party by heading out of town that day, we had to pass through a number of small villages… all of which were packed with enthusiastic kids who hadn’t had a chance to participate in any of the action in town. Of course, our songthaew driver kindly slowed down each time to let the kids have a square shot. We arrived back in town soaking wet and on the way back to the guesthouse three of us narrowly avoided getting smeared in the face with grease… my roommate was not so lucky.
After dinner on the riverside (again) and drinks at a comfy bar (again) we went out to find a disco (again). It was late and the disco we went to last time was closed (at 11:45pm, hooray for small towns), so we asked the tuk tuk driver about other discos, other options. He said, “Bowling!” “Bowling, like… bowling?” “I think it must be a club called Bowling.” Turns out, it was actually a real bowling alley. So there we were, ten pin bowling, in rural Laos, at 1am. Very surreal. I placed second to last, getting berated the entire time for being An American Who’s Bad at Bowling (“It’s your sport! Your country invented it!” – really, did we? I guess it’s pretty American…), but we were all handily beaten by the Algerian, who had never bowled before in his life. Amazing.
On my last day in town I finally went sightseeing in town. First let me say that Luang Prabang is an adorable little town, similar to Hoi An in Vietnam. It’s got small streets and winding alleys bunched with small mixed colonial and Lao style buildings, interspersed with shiny temples and impressive buildings, all nestled between the mountains, the Mekong, and the Nam Khan river. Charming and quaint in a very good way, although it should be, given that it is a UNESCO World Heritage city (a title proudly displayed multiple times at the parade). Hiking up Phu Sii was sweaty in the midmorning heat, but definitely worth it for the view. The sites on the hill itself aren’t the most spectacular, but they’re a fun hodge podge of religious buildings, statues, and caves. There’s Buddha’s footprint, dark caves packed with buddha statuettes, a few altars, and a collection of golden statues winding down the hill, including buddhas for every day of the week.
After climbing Phu Sii, we rented bikes to tour the rest of the town in style, which was definitely the best way to get around. I love biking in Southeast Asia (when the land is flat). It’s relaxing, it gets you places, the breeze is built in, and cars aren’t (usually) trying to run you down. Anyway, we cruised down to Wat Xieng Tong, a gorgeous old monastery with several impressive buildings. The Lao style of architecture is really cool, with roofs that come down very low and close to the ground (again, go check out my pictures to see what I’m talking about).
More bike riding around town, trying to find Wat Phoi Phao, which was recommended to me by a Lao friend from home for having spectacular views of the area. The temple is quite cool as well, a large, octagonal, two-story structure at the top of a hill on the outside the old part of town. It was worth the sweaty bike ride, and cruising back downhill into town was excellent. We cruised along the river and made a few loops of the old town before turning in our bikes.
That evening I caught a flight back to Vientiane so I could fly back to Phnom Penh the next day. My adventure in Laos was over, and now you know all about it.
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