Monthly Archives: September 2010

Daily Life, Laos

Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your na-a-ame … and they’re always glad you ca-a-ame

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Last year Daeng cooked dinners for us three nights a week. She usually prepared so much food that we could eat leftovers for lunch. This year she wanted to go back to school to study English, and of course we wanted to support her (big eye roll). So we kept her salary the same but cut her hours to half-time. Now she only cooks once a week, and the rest of the time Tony and I feel like hunter-gatherers. We never really know where our next meal will come from.

With no car, shopping for groceries is a bit of a challenge. We generally buy one backpack full at a time. That’s one excuse for not making a weekly menu, buying food and cooking at home. We could also whine about the inconvenience of buying produce at the fresh market and other supplies at the corner store, which likely will be out of whatever we need, forcing us to visit other shops in town. But, in all honesty, our biggest excuse involves an amalgamation of ennui, laziness, exhaustion, sweat and empty pockets. We’re simply shattered at the end of the day, and it’s strangely more expensive to cook at home for the two of us than it is to eat out.

So here it is Monday night, and I haven’t eaten a meal in my own house (other than a little fruit and yogurt for breakfast a couple times and a delivery pizza) since Daeng cooked fried rice last Tuesday.

We live about 15 minutes by motorbike from the center of Vientiane, where most decent restaurants are found. Our village, Thongkang, is not exactly a dining mecca. Nevertheless, our new friend, Carol, (Canadian chemistry teacher and fellow Thongkang resident) had the brilliant idea to try a different local eatery each week. Tony reluctantly agreed to participate, and another new friend, Nikki (Canadian counselor and resident of adjoining Sokpaluang village) signed on, as well.

Thursday night the four of us ventured around the corner to Anna Grilled Duck. A skinny guy wearing a face mask and grilling duck parts by the side of the road gestured us in to the restaurant garden, where we parked the motorbikes.
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The restaurant comprised several “salas” – which are thatch-roofed wall-less huts, each with a low table and cushions. Tony balked at the idea of sitting cross-legged on a cushion for an entire meal, so we bypassed the salas and found a regular table with chairs. A fish with an abnormally large head watched us from its tank, while a bird in a cage chattered nearby.
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The waitress brought one menu with English translations.
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Placenta soup? No thanks. We ordered four ducks and some Beer Lao. I walked around the peaceful garden area to snap a few photos while we waited. The meat on the grill should have been a tip-off. Yep, that’s duck feet on the left, duck faces on the right, and unidentifiable duck bits on the back.

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Soup soon arrived at the table. What kind? Who knows? Spring onions, various veggies and the requisite coagulated blood cubes floated in a clear broth. Carol was the only one brave enough to suck down a blood cube. She said it tasted like tofu.
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Finally a small plate of duck chunks arrived at the table. It was like the cook put on a blindfold and went wacko with a cleaver. The pieces were random sizes and full of bones, so it was quite a chore to get a substantial mouthful of meat. What little I did get was quite tasty, though.

Tony was grateful for all the TP on the table.
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We felt certain that more duck was coming, so we waited and waited until we nearly gnawed off our own arms. Carol eventually ordered a few more plates of duck. This time, the pieces were a bit more recognizable. I was about to nibble on one piece when I realized it was the duck’s bill. In fact, we had a whole plate of faces!
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Nikki kisses a duck.
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So Anna Grilled Duck was a bust. We all went back to our house and gorged on some Doritos and Oreos.
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Next week: Mr. Khampeng’s Grilled Goat. Or maybe not.

Daily Life, Laos

There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute

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When I saw the signs all over town advertising the local circus and proclaiming, “Joyful Fun Excited Wonderful,” I figured it was time to re-visit the Big Top.

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My previous visit to Hong Kanyasin was stellar, but I hadn’t felt inspired to see it twice. The signs’ claim of “New Update” intrigued me, though. I couldn’t resist checking it out.

Some parts of the show stayed the same: the bizarre snake act to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the girls who danced with fire, the contortionist partner stunts, the hula hoop ladies, the tumbling boys, and the bedazzled dogs.

Some parts of the show had been mercifully cut: most notably, the lame fedora juggling act and the insanely safety-free trampoline routine.

Some parts of the show were same same but different: The ribbon acrobatics no longer featured a scared solitary young lady dangling from a rope, who tripped and missed her entry cue last time. Now the act has new bright red ribbons and two performers, who masterfully whipped through the air, twirling and dropping, catching each other, and landing light as feathers back on the ground. The clown act also got a make-over. Same clowns, better costumes, funnier routines. And the tumblers added a bit of successful slapstick to their act.

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Some parts of the show comprised the “New Update”: Kudos to the new-and-improved jugglers; daggers are much more entertaining than hats. But, oh, how to adequately describe the pathetic Lao Elvis magician? He wore a black wig with muttonchops, a sparkly black suit, and platform shoes. So wrong. So so so wrong. Most of his tricks involved sleight-of-hand, which we couldn’t really see from the cheap seats. (They’re all cheap seats.) But he performed each trick with ridiculous flair. He had a magic box, from which emerged rabbits and doves and finally, to our great amusement, a couple of chickens. One of the chickens made a break for it, running and squawking and evading the flustered handler. Lao Elvis dramatically levitated a small table while the crowd howled with laughter at the chicken going cock-a-doodle-cuckoo.

I wish I had a better photo of Lao Elvis, but I took this with my phone.
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Curiosity satisfied, this sucker likely won’t return to the circus. I encourage everyone to see Hong Kanyasin once. But that ought to do it.

Daily Life, Laos

Night Gartening

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Most people we know in Vientiane employ a night guard who doubles as a gardener. It seems excessive until you hear the stories of home burglaries. Or until you look out at your jungle of a yard that you have no time to maintain.

So for $120 a month, we employ Beng. We hired him back in October after an unpleasant guilt-trip of an experience with our first guard, Ae. Beng comes over in the early evening, spends the night in the adjoining guardhouse (a small bedroom and bathroom) and leaves around 7 a.m. In the beginning, he kept fairly strict hours and we kept a close eye on him. However, we’ve all loosened up. Beng comes and goes as he pleases now, often popping by at any time of day to work in the yard or just take a shower.

We don’t know much about Beng. We’ve met his diminutive wife and their sweet 3-year-old son. We know Beng’s dad works as a handyman for our landlady, and we know his mother-in-law runs a market stall. And that’s about it.

I don’t speak enough Lao to get much deeper than “thank you for cleaning my bicycle” or “the garden looks beautiful.” And Beng doesn’t speak enough English to say much more than “hello.” He tells me in Lao when he needs money to buy a new broom (made from sticks), big woven baskets (used as outdoor trash cans, which slowly decompose until they become part of the trash), gas for the weed-eater (which he uses to mow the grass) or other supplies.

Despite the language barrier, I get the feeling Beng is an artist at heart. When I stick my head out the door to say “good night” before heading to bed, I often see Beng sketching by the light of the carport. Using colored pencils I gave to his little boy, he draws temples and other religious scenes and then tapes his artwork up in the guardhouse.

Lately, Beng has put his talent to work in the yard. He salvages containers from our garbage and uses them to plant flower clippings. It started with a little garden of Diet Coke cans lining the railing of our front porch. Now the mango tree is strung with more Diet Coke cans, as well as yogurt containers and plastic bowls from restaurant deliveries. A smaller tree by the gate features pink fabric softener bottles, the serrated edges alternately bent up and down. More Diet Coke cans embellish the dok khoun (golden rain) tree, some with the aluminum cut in thin vertical strips and splayed out at various angles. The display on our front porch has grown beyond the original cans to include containers that formerly held peanut butter, tuna, floor cleaner, restaurant take-away, shampoo, Beer Lao, Pepsi, Sprite and tonic water. A few real flowerpots have also appeared.

In addition to his whimsical container garden, Beng has planted hundreds of cuttings along the perimeter wall and driveway, pruned back the trees and coaxed some dying bushes back to life. Our banana tree has doubled in height since he began nurturing it. Tony and I are stunned at how fast plants grow here.

We love it all, but there’s something about the recycled cans, tins, bottles and tubs that makes us particularly happy. I wonder whether Beng creates his living art with a deeper purpose – to comment on the environmental impact packaged food and beverages are having in this simple country, where street food used to be sold in folded banana leaves and now comes in plastic bags – or whether the garden simply offers something to fill those long, dark, boring hours when the rest of the village sleeps.

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