Kafka With Cobwebs - October the 12th, 2010

Kafka With Cobwebs

We live on a dirt road around the corner from an Embassy, down the street from a paved road that leads to another Embassy if you turn right. There is another Embassy if you turn left and go around the market and go straight after the textile factory. On one of our dirt roads there is a massage place.

That pretty much is our address.

You can learn more about the particular urban geography of Vientiane in a few days when I post about Vat Sokpaluang.

In the mean time, suffice it to say that no postman ain’t coming by anytime soon with your parcels, letters and ant-traps (as requested in “Minor Inconveniences”). No one really knows we’re here other than the village chief and the boys playing pétanque and the secret police and the guys monitoring the spy satellites from the Pentagon … but no one really knows we’re here. No one important, like a postman.

So like everybody else who lives on a dirt road with no name and potholes galore, we have a POB.

And every few days I ride down to the Central Post Office to see if all those packages have arrived. I have been told that packages are opened and inspected by the Customs Department of the Central Post Office and that this inspection is billed directly to the client! Kind of like having to pay the power bill for your electric chair!

The POB section of the Bureau de Poste is beautiful. The light filters in through cement gun-sights and is then further softened by age-old cobwebs. Ladies sit behind a desk. There is a ledger. Behind a series of closed doors is access to a long corridor of post office boxes. Putting mail and delivery notices in those boxes sounds like Kafka’s wet dream.

If you want to make the postman’s dream come true, you can write us or send us ant-traps:

Hyman

Boite Postale 5704

Bureau de Poste Central

Vientiane Capitale
Lao PDR

Ban Bueng Khugnong - October the 9th, 2010

Just when you think you are getting to know the place, something jumps up and grabs you.

And so it is that on Thadeau Street just north of the Ecole Hoffet there is an ancient water tower that I rode by a thousand times.

Just to the right of that water tower is a long narrow bridge made out of iron with wooden planks. I discovered all this thanks to a very strange restaurant, but that is a different post.

The bridge spans a bit of agricultural land. Motorbikes going across it go thump! thump! thump! thump! thump! the whole way. The wooden planks shudder and shake. For some reason, your motorbike does not fall through the holes in the bridge.

On either side of the bridge as you are going across there are fields with people in pointy straw hats working in them. When you get to the other side, it is as though you have used a time machine to enter a different century.

Thump thump thump thump thump and you are in a land of long-houses and bamboo sliver walls and wells. It really is hard to believe that you are seconds away from a now-thriving (alas!) capital city.

On the island there are places to have a beer and places to eat. There are two old broken water towers that probably date back to the French that are now deep wells with pumps dangling in them.

I say it is an island, but in fact it only used to be an island. As part of the Korean can't-stop-progress rebuilding of the Mekong cornice and destruction of one of the most charming spots in South East Asia (the fools have actually set up sophisticated exercise equipment on the cornice!), someone thought it was a great idea to join the island to the mainland and so a few kilometers south of the bridge a landfill was created and you can reach the village from a wide road just across from the Indian Embassy.

Soon the beautiful old village will disappear as modern houses get built and the agricultural land gets swallowed up by the urban filth.

In these pictures you can see a way of life that is reminiscent of an earlier time, of another century. Better hurry over here to enjoy it while it lasts.

Le Vendôme - October the 9th, 2010

As you can see, life here in South East Asia really sucks.

One of the great rewards of Vientiane is that every now and then the memory of its French heritage comes up and graces our lives.

Our lives are already graced by the gentle Lao and their superb temples, their tiny roadside restaurants and thoughtful driving. On top of it, the ghosts of their colonial past have the good manners to come and haunt our palettes.

Some restaurants are classy, dress-up sort of joints; there is a time and place for them. But the Vendôme is a popular restaurant that serves up good South-West French country cuisine. There are posters on the walls for la vache Landaise, and the three clocks show the times in Vientiane, Sydney and Mont-de-Marsan!

We always sit outside, across the street from southern entrance to the Inpeng Temple.

The first time we went, the plat de jour was poulet forestier/frites.

The plat du jour is 22,000 kip. Another lunch dish is 25,000 kip. This pavé de boeuf sauce poivre vert with very crisp fries and a glass of house wine will cost you 35,000 kip, or 3.5 Euros, or 4 American dollars and 30 cents.

And no, they don’t take Visa.

Best Eatery In The Hood - October the 5th, 2010

Just around the corner from us we found this wonderful place for chicken pho. We discovered it by accident.

I was just about to ask Marie-Do if she had checked the level of gas in her scooter recently when I ran out of gas myself. Just goes to show you that what goes around comes around.

I pushed my bike to this place and the lady gave me a hose and an empty bottle of BiaLao so I could siphon some off from Marie-Do’s full (!) tank.

Then we had lunch. We were impressed by how fresh her chicken and vegetables looked. The stuff tastes delicious, of course.

You’ll find it right across the street from the now-famous Vanhala Guest House.

The owners live behind the restaurant, in a room with no walls. At lunch time, the place is packed.

Mee Nam – Bo Mee Nam - October the 4th, 2010

Have water – no have water!

We awoke to a minor miracle: the cistern was full!

We flushed our toilets! We did our laundry! We showered and felt the nice water come out of the nice shower head!

I filled up all our bottles with water and put them in a reserve room under the kitchen. In the old days, my cellar would be full of wine. How the mighty have been humbled…

The fish tank filled up. A frog came to live in it, looking for a place to swim.

Now the cistern is nearly empty again.

Today is Zéphyr’s birthday! Here he is with Tam, our may ban and his birthday present, a replica of the Great Wall of China, made in Thailand, complete with mortar and bricks and the whole business.

This may not be the exotic stuff of adventures you would expect of a great world traveler, but for us having water for half a day is really big news.

Day Four - No Water - October the 2nd, 2010

It has been said by a real Jew who should know that on Sukkoth (the Feast of Cabins. For more, see the excellent film “Ushpizin”) we are allotted our yearly allowance of water.

Since water is a blessing and is synonymous in Jewish thought with both the Torah and with G-d, I hope you all had a nice, wet holiday.

Ours was as dry as a bone. Four days. No water. The neighbours still sit around and repeat, “bo mee nam” which means, “no have water”.

No rain. The dirt roads are turning dusty and the heat sticks needle points into the back of my neck.

Zéphyr and I came back from karate today smelling like a rat’s ass and with no relief in sight. The dojo was being used for a Taikwando competition so we didn’t even have the benefit of the Japanese-built marble showers. Training took place in a public school and when it was over I dumped a bucket of water over my head to cool off.

The neighbours are celebrating. They are listening to music and drinking beer. It is a no-water party.

Marie-Do had a good idea: call the landlord and see if he can come with his pick-up and deliver some water. A few hours later he was there with about 300 litres of water in jerry cans.

And so we can wash, do the dishes and even flush the toilets. In the end, we are blessed!

My karate outfit still smells like a rat’s ass, though