Big trouble in little Laos

So my visions of at least a month as a lady of leisure ended quite abruptly just one week into Lao life when I got a job! Woah! It's a freelance gig that a friend from my old job (at FORM) hooked me up with, working with an advertising firm in the US (!) assisting them with social media coverage and monitoring. It's interesting and I'm really enjoying it and learning a lot - feeling very international as the team I'm working with spans from the US to Europe and then to me in Asia. I've been working seven days a week and will be for the next month... wait, wasn't I meant to not do that over here? Oh yeahhh.

Tom has also settled into work at his site. He's on the same shift as he was Perth-Port Hedland so home each weekend and every second Thursday, so it hasn't been much of an adjustment. Something that's a little different from the usual FIFO schtick is he now flies to site in a war-era Russian helicopter. A big change from the business class upgrades on Qantas that he's accustomed to and according to him "totally not as exciting as it sounds". I may have added the 'totally' to that.

The only downside of my awesome work opportunity is that I haven't been able to get out much during the day to explore our new city so I've mostly been wandering around at dusk and into the evenings, jumping in the odd tuk-tuk when I can't find my way back to the apartment. We are staying close to the little Chinatown area which by day has the best fake dvd shop, what seems like thousands of fresh juice and ice coffee stalls, the most delicious pho I've ever tasted and Home Ideal which is the closest thing to a department store in Vientiane. You can buy bizarre Asian groceries there including pre-cooked eggs in vacuum packed bags (ew) but also Tim Tams and fake designer bags, and they alternate hardcore swear-rap with honky-tonk country music over the PA. It's a trip.

Home Ideal. It's a sale biatch, whut whut!

By night the area offers plenty in the way of bustling street food stalls and late-night street snacks as workers knock-off shift and join their families or partners for dinner. Most of these eateries seem very much in the spirit of get-in-eat-get-out, so we get a few weird looks from the staff when we hang around talking, taking our time with our food, ordering more Beer Lao, inspecting the hundreds of bottles of condiments on our table and admiring the interesting decor choices of our surrounds.

Assorted condiments!

In a lot of the restaurants we've been to my favourite aesthetic feature has been the bounty of plastic fruits and vegetables cascading from walls and hanging pots - it must have been a good harvest that year. As I plan how we can potentially work masses of faux vegetation into our new home (and Tom dies a little inside) I'm pretty sure the restaurant owners are thinking 'Why are these whiteys so obsessed with those fake corn cobs - just eat, pay and leave people!!'.

Actually, Lao nationals have a word for whiteys/expats/westerners and it's 'falang'. We are falangs. Yes. And this is totally us now.

I also liked this painting of running horses in one of the restaurants we went to. It was the only painting on the wall in the whole place... which makes me think it might be covering a gaping hole going through to the shop next door.

Running horse motif.

I should note that we foolishly packed our camera cord with our items that are being shipped. I also can't find anywhere that will develop film, it seems you can buy film readily enough but not develop it. Hmmm. So until then iPhone photos will have to do!

I also figured out how to add a link to some of my Instagram photos below (proud!), so you can see more pictures there.

Apocalypse Lao

So almost two weeks ago we packed up our little West Perth semi-detached to move to Vientiane, Laos. Laos. Apparently with an 's'. It's between Thailand and Vietnam and Cambodia and China and Burma. Asia, man.

The whole move - from Tom applying for the job that got us here to manic city/site visit to goodbye parties to getting on a freakin' plane with a one-way ticket (and my puppy dreams being dashed, but we won't dwell on that) - only took about 8 weeks in total. Strangely though life in Perth seems like an age ago and while we have been slowly settling in over the last few weeks this feels like some weird holiday-limbo where any second we'll be leaving again to go home. I think it's because we are living pretty much on top of each other in a studio apartment which has a pool and daily cleaning service etc. Hotel life! With no room service. Boo! But you can buy beer (Beer Lao of course) for under $1 from the pool area. Yeah!

Truthfully, it's been pretty cool so far. It's not as humid as this blog may suggest so I have been enjoying reasonably good hair days. We have been getting by alright with our 'Sabaidee' (hello) and 'Kop Chai' (thank you) and big, overly enthusiastic smiles which I'm hoping endear us to the locals who are just lovely. We're feeling so relaxed we've even nicknamed the Mekong River (or the Mighty Mekong as it's called by many, apparently) the Kong.

I'm definitely still in honeymoon mode with the city: the appeal of the Asian street grit hasn't worn off yet. God, I LOVE Asian street grit - all overgrown greenery, trash being swept to the side by those bamboo brooms, rattan bins, broken drain covers - yeah. We have also been getting into the ultra-cheap-and-tasty food... actual Chaisan (cheap Asian food) where giant bowls heaped with fresh noodles and steamy pho cost less than $2 (!!). Chancing it at a few roadside diners, turning blind eyes to weird cats hanging around and swatting the occasional bug off a tabletop like seasoned pros. Don't worry guys, we'll take you to the best places when you come visit. 

We have even found time to be a little social. I've met some pretty cool people so far who I'm hopeful will become great friends. Yay! 

I know this whole move will become a reality as soon as we move into a house, and I'm excited to say that we may have found our total dream house... but no more details until the lease is signed and it's ours.  Next time perhaps I will regale you with my brief foray into the Lao real estate market. Here's a teaser: it involves lots of random babies in empty houses. Seriously. Shudder. 

The brooms!