Christmas in Luang Probang, Laos

Sunset over the Mekong

We've been reminding ourselves it's Christmas .....how can it be Christmas when we weren't at Lyle and Chris's house for Christmas Eve dinner, and we didn't have stockings to open this morning?  It's cooler here  than Cambodia, at the 20th parallel and in the mountains.  To appease the Christian tourists, a few plastic decorated trees are around, but it aint' the same!! The Perrett clan has succumbed to the reality of traveling and we are a bit under the weather, nothing serious but keeping us close to the accommodation today. Tom and Eli are brain engaged in scrabble, Mel is writing postcards to Australian pals, and here I am typing.......

Lao rice wine for sale

We stayed in Cambodia  for 9 days, 6 of which were at the project at Prolit village. On the weekend we were four of the three thousand visitors to Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world and home to tons of headless Buddhas as the heads were mostly all carted off by  the French and then the Khmer rouge. Sunday we got close and personal with silk worms, and took a slow boat to a floating village.At the project we all became attached to kids, families and other volunteers. Tom and Eli made quite a bit of progress working with the other guys building sanitation units, and Mel and I spent our time in the child welfare program. It required a bit of creativity to figure out how to make the best use of time when anywhere from 15 to 30 kids showed up on any one day. Aged between  3 and 18, most had quite minimal understanding of English. We had use of a  roofed structure with a cement floor, a white board, some flashcards, pens and paper, jump ropes,  matching cards, and a couple of tennis balls. Whatever we did they seemed to enjoy it, and I sleep better at night knowing they are all a lot better at singing BINGO than when we arrived.

200 or so monks 

Christmas dinner with Andy and Fam

At the moment we're in Luang Probang.  Nestled  in Central  northern Laos, it is a world heritage listed sight. Its beautiful and wonderful here but as we are in the traveling mode,  we are headed north to a small village called Nong Khiaw. And we have traveling companions! A few days ago we were at the night market and here comes someone wearing  a los bagels shirt, it's  Andy Slavin. He is a former teacher at SunnyBrae Middle School . He and his wife Michelle and 6 year old daughter Kyla are currently living and teaching  in Bali. They are here on holiday so we had Christmas dinner together. We're sharing a mini van and are driving up into the hills for a couple of days.

Mel and I on our beast

roasted pig head anyone?

Zippin'

Not being ones to sit around much, yesterday we embarked on a little expedition to an elephant camp. Mel was a little freaked at first as the Mahouts ( Elephant handlers) had fun with her and prodded the elephant to do a little trot to seem like it was out of control...... the guys were laughing as she was screaming. Next we headed to a very cool zip line, one of those tourist attractions not possible in USA due to the large number of barristers per capita. This only Loation zip has been open just  since last year and perhaps soon someone will tell them maybe they should do at least a few sentences of safety briefing....anyhoo the equipment was new, the guys seemed to know what they were doing, and it was FUN! The longest line was 200 meters so we were haulin' butt, zinging our way through the jungle.....

Today marks two things.......half way through our Asian adventure, and the day Tom and I met twenty years ago. Need to pack up now, we are leaving soon for parts north. Hill tribe villages, waterfalls, and heaps of fun in store no doubt. Thanks for staying tuned, I'm thinking I'll be turning out two or three more blogs and then that's all folks. Life in Arcata is wonderful BUT our goings on at home are much less interesting!

Street tales from Bangkok, and what we're up to in Cambodia

plastic wrapped Buddha images
 due to restoration work

Ok, I have learned. Never leave the accommodation without the camera! Surprises at every corner. Our third and last night in Bangkok we had dinner at a Thai place down the road. Tom ordered the special beverage and it came with a straw in it that was as long as his arm, but not as hairy. Eli had coconut juice, served in a bowling ball size coconut, and made the observation that a little coconut juice goes a long way. Mel had a 'cherry temple' which she proclaimed to be the most boring drink of all. I had a colorful apricot number adorned with an unripe banana.



This alleyway is deserted compared to most

After visiting just a hundred or so Buddha images, including a solid gold fellow weighing over 5 tonnes, we paid a taxi driver 100 baht (three dollars) to endure an hour of traffic to get  us to Chinatown.Visual, olfactory and auditory entertainment in the first degree was awaiting us along with mid day heat and humidity.These tightly packed alleyways were a hub of all things useful and useless. We wound our way into the inner lane ways momentarily thinking we were escaping motorized traffic, only to come across someone on a motorcycle  squeezing through the slowly moving humans.  Booth after booth sold watches, chandeliers, hub caps, skinned whole chickens, dried squid, herbs, washing machines, hello kitty etc, beads, hair ribbons, flower seeds... also in this labyrinth someone was making their way through with a dozen bolts of colorful fabric piled high behind the seat, and a child on the handlebars accompanied him.

The kids think the street scene is cool. After a couple of hours at the market  we were exhausted and hungry, so we quickly grabbed  the inches of space available at a eating establishment,  made it into four spots, and supped on delicious noodle soup. Mel found some nifty little earrings for 18 cents. Luckily we didn't lose track of each other as the squash of humanity seemed capable of swallowing us.

Eli and hammer are one

Onto Siem Reap, Cambodia for our volunteer placement. I can't really describe it accurately in a few sentences, but we are diggin' it. There is a python in a cage under our room that was being fed a live chicken just as we arrived, and the shower scenery overhead is bamboo. Real plants,  not pictures of bamboo.  The khmer people are beautiful, friendly, and small. Melissa is towering over most of the teenage kids and even some of the adults. We have now spent two days at the project, which is a small  rural village about 45 minutes away in a tuk-tuk from the volunteer H.Q. Several Gen X ers are here as well, implementing the current programs which include house building, installing water pumps, and providing play based English lessons for the children and teens. The largest project, however, is building sanitation units, which are small outhouse type brick and thatched structures containing a compost toilet and private area to bathe, a novelty for this village before vMAD arrived on the scene earlier this year.



traditional Cambodian house, the roofed
area on the side is for the kitchen

teacher Melissa

We were prepared for massive begging and limbless individuals but happily that isn't what we've encountered. The tragic history of the country is undeniable but the smiling faces don't let it on. Bicycles, motorcycles, rice paddies, water buffaloes, anorexic cows,bicycles, and HUGE hotels for the thousands of Koreans who come here are the most common sightings so far. We're going back to the night market again tonight and hope to see some traditional dancing, and find some toys to take to the village tomorrow. Today we took hacky-sack like plastic gizmos which were a big hit. Mel and I are spending our time doing the hokey pokey, and singing 'wheels on the bus' along with other preschool type activities. The kids are keen learners and eager to practice their limited English skills. Eli and Tom have been busy doing man things with hammers.

That's all for now, back atcha in a week or so.........

Performance, Packing and Parties for the Perretts

G'day All,

This is Tom here, sitting in as your special Guest Blogger for this, our final blog from Australia! We are literally hours away from closing the front door of our lovely Sunshine Coast home here for the last time.  This afternoon we board our flight to Sydney where we will spend a short night before jetting off again early Sunday morning for Bangkok. Starting in Thailand, we expect that our one-month Asian adventure will serve as a nice buffer between our year in OZ and the return to our "other" good life back home in Arcata.

Our eyes are a bit misty as we ponder all the good times, good friends, and fond memories we will soon leave behind.  Leaving this home is so much different from leaving Arcata one year ago- we knew we were coming "back" there in one year (and we do look forward to seeing all our friends there again in one month!).... but now we are saying goodby, well, perhaps forever?......Snif!.....

I don't think any of us anticipated making so many close friends here in such a short time.

Our first six months was a time of getting our new home in order, getting the kids get into gear for their new school, exploring the area and finding our way around. The last six months found us settled into established routines, attending regular events and sheparding the kids off to their friend's homes and their various extracurricular activities. Plus: weekly poker games (for Tom and the boyz), and weekly Mah Jong games (for Steph and the gals), and Friday night potluck dinner with Gary and Julie and friends.

But all of that is about to end.  Our final few weeks here have found us in the performance, packing, and partying mode....

Performance:  Final dance performance and musical shows for Melissa's end of season events.  Grand final singing events for Stephanie's choir group.

Packing: Because it takes a month to clean and pack a house that's been fully lived in for a year!

Parties:  Because we've had many farewell gatherings- Yoga group goodbye potlucks, final blowout poker games, small dinner parties and final lunch dates with friends.

Last week Steph and I hosted a final going-back-to-America party for ourselves here at our Yaroomba manse.... we were expecting maybe

6-8 of our friends would show up, but we were greeted by over two dozen well wishers to see us off.  Hugs, tears, presents and laughs all around...

But the Big Party Bash of the year was hosted by none other than Eli, who was determined to top his 15th birthday party he had here last August, with The Going Away Party to Be Remembered.

Preparations began days in advance, as meticulous "invitation only" guest lists were drawn up, revised, rewritten, and carefully scrutinized. 

Bouncers were recruited ("Dad", plus "Dad's biggest friend", were hired to man the front entrance, to ensure no "party crashers" busted though Security...).

Premises were readied: decks swept, rooms cleared, bedrooms locked and barricaded, liquor hidden.  Strobe lights were strung and a disco ball that survived the 70's was hung in the center of the garage- cleared and scrubbed to serve as a dance floor.

And exacting sound checks were made on the IPod stereo system by two seasoned sound technicians.  It went something like this:

"DAD!!! IT'S NOT LOUD ENOUGH!!!"

"WHAT?????!!!"

"DAD!!! I SAID IT'S NOT LOUD ENOUGH!!!!".....

"WHAT??????!!!!"

The big party began at 7:30PM.  After completing my bouncing duties at the front door, I retreated upstairs where Stephanie and I proceeded to bite our lips as we tried to ignore the loud sounds of the downstaris mayhem: banging doors, breaking glasses, semi-violent screaming, and huge splashing noises coming from our pool (the next day it was revealed that the party-ers were jumping into the pool from the 2nd floor balcony).  After what seemed like hours, I checked my watch to see if it was almost midnight- the previously agreed-upon end of party time.  Dismayed to learn that it was only 8:15PM, Stephanie and I continued our negotiations with each other relating to whose turn it was for another periodic foray into the downstairs abyss for a new welfare check.  I won't tell you exactly what we saw, but, well,  it wasn't pretty....I will tell you that Stephanie got kissed by one of Eli's 15-year old pals on one of her inspections (come to think of it, that trip took her a bit longer than usual, hmm...).  But I won't tell you more.  Stephanie has a video, but don't ask to see it.  You REALLY don't want to know, do you?!....

So what will we miss about Australia?  For me, it will be the sound of the exotic Aussie birds waking me up in the a.m., riding my bike to the gym though the forest on Wednesdays, walks on the beach with Steph in the late afternoon, having SOOO much more quality time with my wonderful family, low, low stress levels, and of course, poker games with my mates almost every week!

All in all, it has been a tremendous year that has far surpassed all my own wildest expectations.  We are all so very grateful to have had the ability to take this "year off" from our busy lives and I'm sure that the benefits of this experience will unfold in presently unknown was for years to come in the lives of our children.

Steph says: look for her next blog posts coming soon from Asia!

Bye for now!

Tom