Remember Bill Nye the Science Guy? We thought his passion for science was unparalleled until we met the new chemistry teacher at VIS this year, who we have affectionately dubbed Carol Seymour the Science Whore.
Carol and I were at a restaurant recently when she pointed to a Coke can and said she could crush it with water. “Whatever,” I said. “That would take, like, a whole swimming pool.”
And the challenge was on.
Here is how she did it.
There’s nothing like a wedding to offer foreigners a glimpse into the local culture. Despite lots of begging, none of my Lao girlfriends seemed inclined to get hitched just to ensure I could attend a wedding before leaving for India. I was getting concerned. Then Johnny, our primary school Lao teacher, secretly announced her engagement (although she waited till about 10 days out to distribute the invitations).
The wedding reception was last night, and here are some highlights:
Wedding Crashers
I caught a ride with my friend Eric and his two kids, Jasmine and Ty. Their mom had coached basketball all day and was too tired come. Eric picked me up and drove the short distance to the reception hall. As we approached our destination, the road was clogged with wedding-goers in search of parking. We finally found a spot but had to walk for awhile (which was unpleasant in my awesome party shoes).
We walked toward the entrance, where a large portrait of the bride and groom stood on display. Family members posed proudly, ready to greet us. As we prepared to enter, I took another look at the portrait and said, “Hey, that’s not Johnny!” Lao brides get a serious makeover on wedding day, so sometimes they are hard to recognize. Eric perused the picture for quite a while before he believed that we were at the wrong wedding. We all cracked up and then saw another wedding portrait at another entrance, so we wandered over to that one. Again, wrong couple. By then, we were in hysterics.
Finally, we walked around the corner and found a portrait of Johnny and her new husband, Kaisone, so we knew we were at the right wedding.
Wrong wedding #1.
Wrong wedding #2.
Right wedding!
An Impromptu Toast
Last week in the staffroom, Johnny asked if I would speak at her wedding, which was in TWO DAYS. Thanks for the advance notice! She explained that a man would give a long blessing in Lao, and then I would explain what he said in English.
“Johnny, I can’t do that!” I said, pointing out that my Lao language was limited to buying mangoes at the street stalls. There was no way I could translate a wedding speech. “If you write out what you want me to say, then I could do it.” She said she would “try” to write it down for me.
When I got to the reception last night, she and her new husband were greeting everyone at the door. Johnny grabbed my hand. “I didn’t write it down,” she said.
Aaaaarrrrgggghhh!
“Just give a blessing to the bride and groom, thank everyone for coming, and then tell them to eat dinner and enjoy the dancing,” she said.
I asked how I would know when to do the announcement, but she brushed off my concern.
Not one to shirk from the spotlight, I was happy to take the stage, but I felt nervous about when to do it. When the wedding party lined up in front of the stage and a man started a very long speech, I grabbed a Lao friend named Not and made her accompany me to the front of the room. She waited till the man’s speech was wrapping up, and then she sent me up on the stage.
I thanked Not for helping me, and she said, “I’m your bodyguard!” We had a big laugh over that because she is the tiniest bodyguard you ever saw.
My bodyguard and me.
I gave a quick little toast and then received cheers and looks of adulation from the crowd as I wove my way back to my table.
The happy couple.
Dancing Queens
For my Lao friends, the highlight of any wedding seems to be the dancing. They don’t just get down and funky like we westerners do. It’s very structured. “Phon” is like a line dance with the same steps repeated over and over. There seem to be a jillion different “phons,” which the Lao people learn by watching DVDs or practicing with their friends. I was truly way too stupid to figure it out. My friend Mai gave me a quick lesson during one “phon,” so I managed to do the simple kick-kick-step-step-turn.
Carol had the moves, but she couldn’t resist cutting loose occasionally.
The Couple’s First Dance
Johnny and Kaisone took the floor for their first dance, but they looked like awkward eighth graders at homecoming. My friend Addie told me to push them together, which seemed inappropriate, but of course I did it anyway.
Other Random Shots
The reception hall.
One of the singers.
Some of my Lao homies.
What a fascinating experience!
Family Night a couple weeks ago had it all: mystery, humor, plot twists and even a celebrity guest!
Nikki had chosen a local restaurant but couldn’t really tell us what or where it was. And if that wasn’t exciting enough, we had invited Yoga Lily, who was back in town on a Thai visa run. As usual, we all met at our house and formed a motorbike convoy to dinner, with Nikki leading the way.
At the small shady restaurant, we were greeted by the ubiquitous beer server. To our surprise, (a) the Beer Lao girl was actually a CARLSBERG girl, and (b) she spoke some English. “Do you want Beer Lao or Carlsberg?” she asked, gesturing toward a cooler stocked with green bottles.
Nikki confidently whipped out a translated list of our usual requests. Something to the effect of, “Please bring us five of your best dishes. No bones, blood or faces and no coriander.” The Carlsberg girl explained that they didn’t have an actual menu, per se. They only served a collection of Lao snacks. Hmmm… if we ate enough snacks, that would constitute dinner, right? Tempting … for about 5 seconds. Then we saw what the snacks were: grilled pig ears, grilled pig intestines and large salted fish.
After finishing our beers, we motored to a previous Family Night haunt – Pinky Beef Pot. I think Lily was sufficiently impressed.
Many Southeast Asian tourist destinations offer cooking classes as a way to experience local culture and sample authentic dishes. Despite my aversion to everything culinary, I do enjoy shopping in the wet markets for fresh ingredients, playing with unfamiliar kitchen tools, and eating my creations. Over the years, I have “learned” to cook in Chiang Mai, Thailand; Luang Prabang, Laos; and Bali, Indonesia. Most of the time, I get distracted with my camera, fail to follow directions and botch the dishes. (In Bali, I didn’t even bother paying for the course; I just showed up for part of the day to snap a few shots on Tony in action.)
And now I can add Vientiane, Laos, to my list of places where I halfheartedly learned to cook.
Morven Smith, a teacher at our school, recently started a business on the side – Lao Experiences. The first “experience” she’s offering is a cooking class at her home on the banks of the Mekong River. As she trains the staff and tweaks the process, she invited a few of us to be guinea pigs. I warned her about my lackluster cooking history, but she kindly allowed me to participate.
The class met in an open-air cooking area next to Morven’s home.
Morven, Carol and Nikki discuss the cool wooden cutting boards.
Morven watches as Catherine and Anna collect their ingredients.
Smashing up the ingredients with a mortar and pestle – exhausting!
I wrapped the smashed herbs, rice and fish in a banana leaf and secured it for steaming.
Our banana leaf-wrapped fish concoctions went in the bamboo steamer while one of the friendly helpers prepared the grills for our kebabs.
We grilled tomatoes, garlic, shallots, chilies and small eggplants for making dipping sauces. I made a spicy eggplant dip, which nearly melted my nasal passages.
Ms. Sang brushes marinade on chicken clipped in bamboo stalks on the grill.
Carol opens the steamer to check on our fish packets.
The last dish we made could possibly be my favorite food on the planet – sticky rice with mango and coconut milk.
Finally, we all carried our dishes to a table in the garden for a little feast. Shaded by mango, passionfruit and tamarind trees, we listened to the monks chanting in the temple next door, rolled sticky rice in our fingers and sipped Beer Lao to cool our fiery tongues. Butterflies skimmed around our heads and the occasional long-tailed boat puttered by as we savored a leisurely Lao lunch.
For more information about Morven’s lovely Lao Experiences, visit her website: www.lao-experiences.com.
I have spent the last hour scouring the internet for information about the insect order Coleoptera, aka beetles, and specifically trying to identify this big guy. He was hanging out on our outdoor shoe rack this morning, ironically draping his antenna over a bottle of Off insect repellent.
In my quest, I learned that beetles:
* constitute almost 25 percent of all life forms,
* live in every habitat except the open sea,
* comprise more species than any other order in the animal kingdom, and
* roamed the earth up to 318 million years ago!
People who study beetles are called coleopterists, which I have been for the last hour. Fascinating stuff. But really I just wanted to know what was lurking on my shoe rack and whether he would bite my face off if I got too close. There are several beetles with similar markings, but I think I can safely say this guy is a Batocera davidis. I couldn’t find any information about his inclination to attack or spray poisonous venom, so I’ll take that as a good sign.
I’m going to leave him alone, though.
Well, this story is getting a big stale, eh? If you’re new to Family Night, here’s the scoop: Tony, a couple friends (Carol and Nikki) and I take turns picking a local restaurant for dinner once a week. By “local,” we mean nearby and geared toward Lao customers.
This week’s Family Night restaurant had all the requisite components: twinkly lights, yellow Beer Lao-sponsored restaurant sign, karaoke, indecipherable menu, no English speakers on staff, and friendly fellow diners. Carol had chosen the open-air Soundara Restaurant, a little joint just a couple meters off Tha Deua, one of Vientiane’s main thoroughfares.
We grabbed a table overlooking the motorbike parking area (really just the shoulder of the road), where the bored parking attendant and a little boy played with battery-operated dinosaurs. The roadside restaurant’s location explains the gritty film on the tabletop, but there’s no excuse for the nails poking out of my chair that nearly shredded my jeans.
Before we could say “Beer Lao,” the ubiquitous refreshment appeared on the table. Ordering food, however, proved a bit more challenging. One waitress fooled us with her confident use of English numbers and animal words. We tried to order random dishes, so we said – and she repeated while scribbling on a pad – “One chicken, one fish, one shrimp, one fried rice” and so on. She scurried away, and we waited. And waited. Finally, she returned with three other waitresses and the busboy, who all chattered at us in Lao despite our humiliated laughter and our insistence, in Lao, that we didn’t understand.
At that point, it was time to call reinforcements. Nikki dialed our Lao friend Addie, who answered the phone with “I’ve been expecting your call.” Nikki handed her phone to the restaurant staff, who huddled around the telephone to record our order.
In the meantime, we all continued to sing along with the men at the next table to the Thai pop songs (and occasional English-language tune) playing on the karaoke screen. This place was clearly unprepared for a band of western songsters: they played neither Mariah nor the Eagles, much to our disappointment.
More disappointment came with the food. The soup cleaned out my sinuses, but the fried chicken comprised mostly chunks of cartilage and the veggies were uncharacteristically bland. Just as we were ready to write off this place for good, the fish came out and rocked our world. Usually restaurant fish here is literally just a fish: intact and grilled. This one had been dismantled, mixed with some herbs and spices, breaded and deep-fried. Bring it on!
The verdict? Pleasant enough ambiance, mediocre food, interesting karaoke selections, monolingual but undeterred servers, and Vientiane’s most tasty fish.
All Family Night photos this week are brought to you by Carol.
The English faker.
Bored parking attendant.
Dinosaurs alleviate the boredom.
Tony supervises the frantic food ordering.
Heading off to get ice-cream.
The home of good ol’ North American-style comfort food here in Vientiane is Joma Bakery Café. It’s the place to find pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, a hot iced cinnamon bun after an early morning bike ride, a tasty Greek salad that won’t give you tummy trouble, a killer BLT and many other treats that offer a safe and nostalgic break from Southeast Asian fare.
On weekend mornings, we often lug our laptops to Joma for breakfast and free wifi. This morning, Carol, Tony and I checked out the restaurant’s new branch. We had heard they were building a separate play area for youngsters, but unfortunately, that area was still under construction.
We had scarcely popped the first bites of “Bagel Egger” in our mouths before the place erupted with children. Determined to get our money’s worth, I gulped down my free refill, but then we made a break for it.
Note to self: Stick to the two-story, decidedly kid-unfriendly Joma Bakery Café downtown.
Here’s Carol in the midst of the Romper Room bedlam. Just as I turned off the camera, one of the urchins leapt on the sofa and landed on her shoulder.
You can make a lot of safe assumptions when you peek in a Vientiane restaurant to check out the clientele. Mostly Lao people? The restaurant probably serves cheap, delicious, spicy Lao food; the menu most likely won’t include English descriptions of the dishes; and if you don’t speak Lao, you shouldn’t try to place special orders. Mostly expats? The restaurant probably tailors its dishes to our less adventurous palates; the menu likely features illustrations and/or sometimes-decipherable English descriptions; and you can usually find someone who understands your Lao/English/Body Language special requests.
That’s why we felt a bit sorry for the couple who were strolling along the Mekong River, saw our group hanging out at NeNaTa Restaurant on Wednesday and clearly thought to themselves, “Hey if those white people are eating there, it must cater to westerners.”
Ha! Little did they know that it was Family Night! As usual, we ventured out to find a local joint in our neighborhood. It was my turn to pick the place, and I chose this riverside restaurant that you can’t access from the main road. We had to maneuver our motorbikes past the barricades blocking the dirt road that runs along the Mekong from our village to downtown Vientiane. The road is under construction as part of a massive flood-management project. NeNaTa Restaurant is the only eatery along this stretch of road, and we were the only customers (until those other poor saps showed up).
As expected, the menus were devoid of English, and the staff were friendly but monolingual. I called our Lao friend, Lae, and handed the phone to the waitress (cook? owner?). Lae prattled on for about 5 minutes, later explaining that she told the woman foreigners don’t like MSG, bones, blood, animal faces, or anything with a strong smell. We had no idea what she had ordered for us, but it all turned out to be delicious: steamed rice with grilled fish, stir-fried vegetables, deep-fried shrimp, a seafood medley, and stir-fried chicken and veggies.
I don’t know how that other expat couple fared.
Here are some photos.
The “parking lot” was behind the elevated restaurant, which backed up to family garden plots.
The front overlooked the Mekong, where locals hung out among the construction materials.
The “family”: Tony, Nikki, Carol, and Jon.
As we enjoyed the sunset, our view was suddenly blocked by a truck and forklift transporting paving stones.
Sometimes you just gotta laugh.
This guy found his own riverside bliss.
I’ve got to remember to buy one of these lovely toilet paper dispensers for our summer picnics in Michigan.
There’s my ride. Another fabulous family night.
With a significant population of Chinese living and working in Laos, our little city saw its fair share of Chinese New Year festivities. However, nothing will ever compare to celebrating Chinese New Year in China. As we kicked off the Year of the Rabbit, Tony and I were feeling a bit nostalgic for the real thing. Luckily, Vientiane has a newly renovated Chinese temple at the Mekong riverfront.
According to the website Chinatownology, this is a Teochew temple called Fu De Miao, which was first dedicated in 1968. The area around the temple was previously a muddy embankment but is now a park, constructed as part of a $37 million flood management project funded by a loan from Korea.
We visited the temple recently and liked it immensely. The only thing missing was deafening fireworks.
As international teachers and travelers, we can’t keep track of the people who skitter in and out of our lives. Some encounters are short, entertaining and casual, such as a chat with tourists who heave their oversized backpacks in the corner of the fruit shake shop and share their travel stories. Other encounters have an enduring impact. In this post, I introduce you to Lily Russo, a yoga teacher who visited Vientiane recently and changed my life.
When we returned to Laos after our month-long winter break, I received an email from the Vientiane Yoga Studio saying there would be a guest teacher for the next couple weeks. After just one class with Lily, Tony and I both developed a big crush.
Colorful feminine tattoos devoid of dark outlines embellished her arms – rainbow finches, symbolizing her parents and her brother, on one arm, and elegant blooming flowers on the other. Her soothing voice offered specific instructions to attain proper alignment in the asanas while making each person in the class feel like we were doing everything just exactly right. Her vinyasa-flow-style classes challenged us to find our edge, to focus on the breath, to revel in our strength and flexibility. Energizing music, often lyrical takes on traditional mantras, accompanied her practice. Emerging from savasana at the end of each class, I always felt happier and more relaxed than I did at the start.
For three weeks, I didn’t miss a class with Lily. I also caught myself chanting softly and practicing pranayama (breathing exercises) at school. I felt joyful and light, even when faced with life’s daily frustrations. Patience, not usually an attribute assigned to me, suddenly came quite easily.
A week after Lily’s departure, I still feel the inner peace she brought to our hectic little city. My history of on-again off-again yoga obsession suggests I’m unlikely to maintain that gentle connection. But I hope I can.
Lily and her husband, Chris, left Laos to travel through Thailand and later up through Nepal and India. They plan to arrive in northern India about the same time Tony and I move to New Delhi, so we’re keeping in touch. (If she sees this blog post, she may start to worry that I’m a stalker. But I swear, I just deeply appreciated her reminder of yoga’s transformative power.)
This week, a new guest teacher arrived with her own brand of inspiration. Toni, a lovely yogini from England, leads strong hatha classes followed by wonderful restorative yoga. Unfortunately, she’s only here for two weeks. If you know of any fantastic traveling yoga teachers, please send them to Vientiane!
Following Lily’s last yoga class, she invited us to play on a slack line she had rigged up behind the studio. I had never heard of a slack line, but according to the rest of the ladies, they are incredibly popular in parts of Europe, Australia and the U.S. It’s basically a tightrope strung a couple feet off the ground. Here are a few photos.
Lily offers some slack-lining tips.
Getting on the line is the scariest part.
Such concentration! But I couldn’t do it without spotters.
