What little boys are made of

Happy New Year 2551!

The Buddhist New Year celebrations are just coming to an end - amazing times!

I took off for the countryside with one of the novice monks and escaped the heat of Vientiane for a few days.

Food was a major theme - I had a close shave on avoiding the bee larvae - going with the plan to either check beforehand or never - and this banana wrapped offering was almost in my mouth when I asked. It was 6a.m. and my stomach wasn't yet ready for that! Bags of live frogs hung from the trees and the 'door to door' saleswomen brought bags of live lizards as suggestions for a delicious afternoon snack (these were later to be seen for sale at the market lined up as a perfect photo shoot - with no camera to hand - bugger!). The frogs were eaten head first after being boiled alive and sat on the balcony after lunch I looked on bemused as the visitor was offered as a small snack one of the dead beetles that were lined up on the balustrade – funny they hadn’t offered me one!!!!! I’d caused deep consternation recently when someone had shown me their pet rabbit. Dogs and snakes are okay food, as are insects and fish poo, but rabbit is a truly terrible thing to have eaten! I bought a Laos recipe book the other day. Many many recipes for ‘sheatfish’. Took a while to realize that these were not recipes for a breed I’d not heard of – shit of the fish is probably a better way to put it!!!! There was some amazing food too – the clean taste of a soup of chicken breast in a stock with nuances of chilli and lime, and heaped with freshly cut coriander and spring onions, noodles served with stacks of mint and basil, again delicately flavoured with chilli and lime, fish, freshly caught and stuffed with lemongrass, heavily salted and barbecued then served with raw cabbage and lettuce leaves, white noodles, mint and coriander and, after you’ve made yourself a parcel from these ingredients, you dunk it into a sauce made from peanuts, dry fried, dehusked and lightly crushed, fish sauce, garlic, lime, sugar and water. Sour mangoes thinly sliced and served with a bowl of sugar, chilli, soy sauce, shallots – finely sliced, rice powder made from dry frying some grains till they are toasted and then pounding them into a rough powder. This is an excellent thickener for all manner of sauces. Laap - a minced pork (or chicken, beef, tofu, fish, etc), mint, lime and chilli mix – the key being to add an enormous amount of mint to give a fabulous flavour. Fish steamed in banana leaf baskets with red curry sauce, and chicken breasts shredded and served with all the ingredients of laap plus handfuls of bean sprouts and thinly sliced red peppers. I introduced them to the delights of sweet ripe mangoes served with sticky rice and coconut cream – made fresh from a coconut off the tree, the flesh shredded on a wooden spike and then soaked in water and rung out to make the creamy sauce. Toasted peanuts make the sweet perfect.

We caught the boat there. A six hour ride along the Mekong at breakneck speed. We skimmed the waves, zigzagging to avoid the rocks emerging from the shallow waters. They wanted to charge me double because I was a foreigner. I negotiated this down to one and a half times then realized I couldn’t fit in one seat – how do people sit on a cushion – no chair and squeeze their legs into a space which gives them little over a foot from bum to toes??????? And stay there for several hours. The extra cost no longer seemed unreasonable. As the sun shone down, bouncing off the Mekong, my nose and legs turned pink. When I was comfortable, I was in my element. The mountains loomed around us – memories of canoeing down the Zambezi, being rowed along the Ganges, and being chased by a new mother swan on the Severn all drifted through my mind. Then it started to rain. The drops slapping hard into my face – suddenly the crash helmet I’d been ignoring until now seemed an excellent accessory. I watched my rucksack darken as the rain was absorbed into the fabric – the loosely fitting helmet being whipped back off my head as we speeded across the water. My hair tangled and soaked. We stopped for some fuel. The Novice Monk bought us a bag of crisps each – our first food of the day. The chilli crisps too hot to eat. The only other option durian flavoured biscuits. Durian is a curious fruit. It smells as if someone has been sick in a drain. For me it tastes much like this too. But we’d been up since 4.30 and now it was nearly midday. I chose the drains and puke over the ridiculously hot – I’m not keen on food that hurts. My back and bottom ached from the bouncing and ridiculous seat. We passed a broken down boat and stopped to help. Presents for the novice monk’s mother had found there way into this boat so as the boat was fixed, I took back my possessions – delighted to have found them. We dropped someone off who wanted to get into Thailand illegally leaving him on the Thai side of the Mekong to find his own way. The sun broke back through the clouds and as I dried out I enjoyed the journey once more.

We sat around in the heat sipping from freshly cut coconuts in the garden during the break – the guy digging the well had emerged, thirsty from the depths and needed something sweet to snack on. When we’d eaten most of it, the shells were just dropped where we sat so that the chickens could feast on the remnants. As we sat there a business proposition was put to me. How about I bought a cow? Then when they’d bred ten cows they’d give me five cows and keep the rest.

Owning five cows didn’t really appeal overly – not a great ambition of mine – but these people would really benefit from this. I mulled it over for a while. They are dirt poor. And so generous and hospitable towards me. This is my second visit and they’ve done so much for me. Eventually I decided what to do. I’m buying a cow in calf and her one year old daughter. When they have a few cows, they’ll sell enough to repay me the money I’ve lent, and in the meantime if the cows get ill, I’ll pay the medical expenses and they’ll owe me for that too. But if they die, they’ll owe me nothing – not the best business plan but it’ll help them.

Okay, loads more to upload but I’ll continue this soon.