A glimpse of life in the family compound

Discussing market produce
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Friday 2 November 2007

After the last couple of long days it was decided to have a latish start. Coffee and deep fried, puffy, semi-sweet, round, sesame covered puffs. A second choice was 15 cm long, 5 cm wide, puff pastry strips again deep-fried. Before frying they had been cut for a cm or two from both ends allowing the morsel to split on cooking to end up looking a bit like a cross or a splitting chromosome.

Market people arrived at the compound with swinging baskets of live snails and crickets, fish struggling to remain alive, exciting, joyful and tearful in equal measure!

The crickets are so fresh they are still alive
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Market people arrived at the compound with swinging baskets of live snails and crickets, fish struggling to remain alive, plucked and alive small lark-like birds and an assortment of leafy green vegetables. An interesting assortment, all of which were duly surveyed and some purchased for our meal.

Jim and I took a jumbo tuk-tuk into town to do some shopping - some paper for the kids to draw on; an airline ticket each for us to fly to Luang Prabang on Monday; and a visit to the ‘hole in the wall’ ATM to get some more money, to become a millionaire, a couple of times over again. These ATM’s were in special glassed in enclosures with a guard on the door - the maximum withdrawal was 1 million kip.

The fish are still alive too, just!
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Then with our pockets full of Kip, we walked to the Mekong to enjoy a fresh orange juice before lunch.

For that, we walked back into a more central part of town, only a couple of hundred metres away, where we just happened to bump into Chanla, and some of the others. With them we enjoyed another pho (bowl of traditional clear soup with or without meat) and for the first time since arriving in laos. I was able to get a bottle of Beerdam, or dark Beerlao - a much better beer for my tastes.

Market women carry their produce in baskets
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Next came a 90 minute full body massage. There were six of us, so we wondered if the establishment could handle such an onslaught. As I’m learning to accept anything and everything is possible in Laos, of course they were able to cope. We had our feet washed downstairs in warm water that looked as though it had a tea bag in it. Afterwards the three men of the group were taken upstairs where there were three mattresses lined up on the floor, each separated from the other with pull curtains, just as in a hospital ward. Everything was spotlessly clean. From here on I can only speak for myself. In the dim light I was massaged by a beautiful girl - she must have been beautiful as all Lao girls are beautiful! She squatted beside, over and on me for the next 90 minutes and massaged hard with her very strong and competent hands – all for 80,000 Kip or AUD9, plus tip. A very interesting experience.

Small birds for sale
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We caught a jumbo home to fill in the hour before we headed for the ‘port’ to pick up two of Chanla’s sisters who were arriving from Pak Lai... an 8 hour boat ride away on the Mekong. They were already waiting for us when we arrived and had been for an hour. Did the boat arrive an hour early or were we an hour late? I will never know. But the reunion was excited, joyful and tearful in equal measure!

We were driven home through the very well behaved peak hour traffic, but not traffic that I could survive driving in myself, for a first reunion dinner. We were joined also by my mate Stephen, who, years ago, was responsible for my Nepal sojourn and who I have known since my university days in Canberra. He’s a good friend of Jim’s too and just happened to be in Vientiane on business, so that was an extra pleasure. So it was another ‘long-table’ dinner with 20+ people present. A beautiful meal of rice, both types, fried fish, chicken, bamboo shoot salad and soup, all washed down by Black label and Beerlao.

If it moves it must be protein!
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Somebody left around 7.30 to collect yet another family member - a daughter of one of the sisters who had arrived earlier by boat. She had flown in from Luang Prabang to join us all for the weekend.

After dinner, some of the younger generation went night clubbing, whilst the little ones sat down-stairs watching a rather noisy DVD. I left the six brothers and sisters to catch up on the many years that have passed since they were all last together. At least one nephew from Australia (one of Chanla’s sons) had never met these two aunts. The eldest is around 70, so this get-together may not occur again. It was so good to hear them chatting and laughing together - in Lao of course.

A house in the family compound
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As for me - I have taken the chance for an early night.