Work In Laos : Give Up January 2, 2009

I sure hope that you had a great past two days, celebrating the turn of the year and then having a good sleep to recover from partying hard. As for me, as alluded to in my previous entry, I had to work late on the 31st. Til about 2am. Then I came back on the 1st of January to work til about 9pm. Sigh…

We stopped work for about 20 minutes because we heard fireworks outside, so we ran out to see :

I watched the fireworks til I felt dizzy. Til my depth of perception went crazy. And the falling sparks felt like a billion bullets aimed at me and I would pretend to cower from fright. Or run away. Who was I pretending for? Myself… which just about proves that I was driven to the loony bin after working here.

I… I don’t know how to put into words how I feel about this project right now. I feel like the more I know, the deeper the shit I feel this whole thing is in. The more I know, the more I feel like I don’t want to know. The longer I stay here, the more random bad luck shit I find out which makes me feel as if I’m some sort of bad luck charm. I feel disappointed that there are people in this world that doesn’t care about what other people have to go through, who only care about themselves. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be someone who cares for others. Just look out for yourself, that’s my advice to you…

I’ll update more with pictures next time, because I need some much needed beauty sleep after the last few days.

Here’s some pictures of us being -____- on the 31st and the 1st :

Phong (pronounced as “feng”), Dung and Khamphai… nuts I tell ya.

TayTay (Khamphai’s nickname for him). Incidentally, today WongKok said that Tay = 30 and guessed that I am 26 which is TECHNICALLY correct. WTF, how can there only be 4 yrs different between the two of us!!!

Aftermath of not going out to eat dinner or lunch. Long story.

Some pictures of stuff I took while I was in at my cubicle back in Bangi :

Chu gave this to the team in celebration of his son’s “full moon” celebration.

Cleaned up my cubicle real nice before I leave. Such a good employee.

Random cute 3d stickers on my computer monitor. >=)

Napolean Dynamite mints from a store in Gilroy. Bought it just for the tin, as you can guess.

Can’t believe that it’s just 4 more days before I’ll be going back. I feel like I’ve been here for years. Heh. I’m going to post more tourist-y stuff next time… I know I’ve been talking a bit too much of work recently! Happy new year again to all! Still feeling very upbeat about the new year, as you can tell.

More BCEL girls for you… hahaha.

Work In Laos : Random ~ Random ~ Random December 28, 2008

I’m working on a Sunday. Well, not really. My work is done, the vendors are cleaning up some stuff, so I have to come in to “jaga kedai” (look after them, in a way). I’ve actually been half-working and half-looking for flights to Colombia / Rio de Janeiro. Damn fcuking tedious wei! And expensive. Call me naive, call me dumb… I really had no idea that things were going to be that expensive.

The best deal that I could find to travel into Rio is to take Air Asia X to Stansed, travel by coach from Stansed to Heathrow, and then take Iberia to Rio. Total travel time is 26 hours and cost is about RM4k for ONE WAY. *faints* If I want to travel direct to Bogota, the cheapest flight I could find (which costs between RM8k-RM9k) is to travel from KUL to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Paris, and from Paris to Bogota. Total travel time is something like 33 freaking hours. *faints again* If you think it’s cheaper to take the Brazil option, you must keep in mind that I will be returning from Bogota to KUL, not RIO again. And if I were to take from Heathrow direct to Bogota or Sydney to Bogota, it’s all around 8k to 9k. HAIH WHY SO EXPENSIVE!!!!

Travel schedules are spinning around in my head now. I think I’ll just go back to Malaysia and ask my travel agent to plan something lah. Ideally max RM6k for travel there and back. Hehehe.

Back to Laos — more random pics from the last few days.

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Special Laotian snacks, courtesy of AhSiang. It’s called “ha nong chok”.
I had something similar in Cambodia. Sana said it was made of rice flour and water. However, the one in Laos is to be sprinkled liberally with sugar before eating, unlike the Cambodian one which is dipped into a mixture of chilli sauce and milk.

Menu Fail… hahaha. I feel like sending this in to Fail Blog.

This was our Christmas dinner… again at Chateau Du Laos. It wasn’t bad, but wasn’t spectacular or anything particulraly special.

The special “chap fan” … Laotian pork leg! Damn good ok.
About 12,000kip /RM4.80 / USD1.50. If I take 3 side dishes or 4, she still charges me 12,000 kip.

After lunch, it’s time for drinks at a nearby coffee shop.
Khamphai will have his fruity yogurt drink, while AhSiang and I have Vita Milk. Chocolate milk + soya bean = strangely tasty.

The main attraction @ the drinks store we go to is the owner’s pets… which cohabit together without any issues.

Here’s an upclose look on her ‘unique’ pet… o_O

Every Friday, the staff have a party at the end of working hours. The mini meatballs / meats on the upper left corner is DAMN good when dipped into a mixture of soya sauce and chilli.

The stuff in the plastic bags earlier — salad leaves and stuff to wrap inside the salad leaves…

Yummy!!

Party in the middle of the loans department. L-R : Sengphet, Chanpheng, Wongkok, teller (forgot the name…) and AhSiang.

Feng (our Vietnamese vendor), Khamphai offering me a Beer Lao, Dung, AhSiang, Wongkok.

I think Dung and Wongkok were having a bet on the outcome of some football match.

Khamphai back to work…

My workstation[s] here… bleh.

Laos Chinese sausage.

More weird soyabean drinks… soyabean mix with honey.

Went for a dinner at Khop Chai Deu (this means “Thank You Very Much” in Laotian). Don’t know the exact address but it’s opposite Joma in Vientiane. Damn nice place, with good, affordable Western food and live music. And the singers are damn talented. There was one doing a good rendition of a Cranberries favorite.

Lemon juice with soda ; Mixed Fruit shake (papaya, banana, orange, pineapple)

AhSiang’s Fish Steak set.

My pork steak set (well done). AhSiang was jealous because I got both mashed potatoes and french fries (can only choose one) and stir fried veg & salad (can only choose one). Hahha. Why they treat me so well?

My extra side dish of a salad, each person gets 4 pieces of buttered bread. Super filling. Cost is about RM16 per person.

Work on Saturday…

Lunch at Talat Sau. Think I showed this pic before on my blog, but I don’t mind posting it again. Hehehe. Curried noodles (the curry is not spicy, it’s SWEET) mixed with pork and pork spare parts.

According to Khamphai, this drink that I adore so much is called ‘neng mo nay’ and is actually a herbal kind of drink like our ‘leong sui’ in Malaysia.

Saporilla (that’s the English name for ciku! I just found out!) and raw mango. Two huge packs of fruit for RM4. Super worth it!

Dinner last night was in the City Inn Hotel. Was too lazy to walk anywhere and I was ALONE.

The “seafood macaroni” I had which only had 3-4 pieces of squid! >=\ And it’s not macaroni, it’s PENNE. But it was really tasty… don’t know how to explain what it tastes like… but it’s not Italian at all. Hahahah.

The best part of the meal last night was the mixed fruit tea. Damn unique. Lots of pineapple, papaya and cantaloupe boiled together in the teapot with a tea bag. Copious amounts of thick, sweet tea.

Eating at the hotel may have been pricey, but it works out to be about 1/10th of the allowance that I get while working here. So you can either think that I’m being paid a lot (not likely) or that the food here is just cheaper than what you get back in Malaysia (more likely). Okay, I’m done here for the day… going to get some CAKES. Today’s work is super boring… zzzz.

Work In Laos : Of Belated Posts on Winter Solstice and Absinthe December 27, 2008

I didn’t tell you about the most awesome discovery here… yet. I thought I was already really lucky when I went to this restaurant called Chateau Du Laos and found a bottle of absinthebeing sold there. Yeah, absinthe! Never seen it being sold anywhere else (jakun?) and it’s here! In Laos!

The reason(s) why I want to try absinthe :
a. It’s a drink that’s currently banned in the States. A DRINK THAT YOU CAN’T GET IN AMERICA, BUT CAN EASILY GET IN LAOS.
b. It’s not such a simple mix of liquor on the rocks / with a soft drink. To mix absinthe, you mix it with sugar and cold water. And to decrease the bitterness, the mix of water to absinthe is not 1-to-1. It’s like 4:1. :3
c. The bottle it comes in is really pretty. And the green color of the alcohol itself is also very very pretty! :3
d. Apparently drinking it results in getting both the “high” from alcohol as well as the “high” from smoking mushrooms. O_o”
e. The scene in Moulin Rouge!!

I dropped by a minimart after lunch today, and there was even more absinthe there! Of various brands! The prettiest one is still the one I saw in Chateau Du Laos, but it’s sold cheaper in the minimart. Cost is 120,000kip, which is about RM48 / USD14. *smug* I think drinking absinthe with my galpals would be a fantastic idea.

The problem is that apparently the airport security in Laos has been tightened up. After checking in your bags, they do some further scanning, and if they find liquor in your bag, they will make announcements for you to retrieve it. -___-” When MrLim sent his wife back, he got stopped and was requested to take out the alcohol. I asked him if he was just unlucky or if everyone got scanned. He said there was also an Australian tourist looking at a lost because she was barred from bringing back 12 large bottles of Beer Lao. So he bought it off her for 50% off. He said that he would buy back the absinthe from me at 50% off if I fail to get through security. -___- Both him and AhSiang swore to wait like vultures for me to get “kicked out” by security.

The reason behind the “tightened security” is because they want people to buy the alcohol from the airport itself instead of getting cheaper stuff outside. Sigh… I don’t want to do anything illegal, so do you think the alcohol has absinthe for sale? I don’t mind paying more for it since I didn’t see it while I was in Langkawi or in any airports in HKIA or LCCT or KLIA. How? How? How? Or should I risk it and potentially lose 60,000 kip to MrLim / AhSiang?

I’m currently in the office, and despite seducing me with thoughts of going into Thailand again for the year-end sales, it seems like I’ll have to work on Sunday as well. *pitiful whimper* Cos I’ve been here for the past 8 hours (give or take an hour for lunch) and I still haven’t been able to wrap up today’s items because the vendor has been restoring and re-restoring stuff on our servers. Running year ends and stuff, takes a while. On a normal PC, it takes about 1 hour to drop the user and restore the database. To run EOD… another long piece of $h1t, not worth talking about…

On the upside, I have officially, OFFICIALLY finished off all my outstanding SMRs! It took a while, was tricky at some parts, but it’s done! I amaze myself. My documentation for the users are so comprehensive that I even show them the financial calculations involved at each step. Hah! Take that!

Now let me talk about the winter solstice while waiting for slow machines to be input-ready.

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We had to work on the Sunday of the Winter Solstice, but was treated to two really good meals. In the afternoon, we went to Chateau Du Laos for lunch. It is just about 5 minutes walk from the office, and 5 minutes walk from my hotel. Looks like a real classy place from the outside, but the prices for the food is reasonable. The best part about the place would be the alcohol store next to the restaurant. Pretty comprehensive selection to suit all tastebuds.

Situated near this structure… which I forgot what it’s called… hehe.

Chateau Du Laos…

The hard liquor & wine shop. Go in for a look ’round while waiting for the food to arrive.

View from the window.

There you go… the address of the restaurant should you ever decide to stop by.

They have some weird stuff on the menu…

The guy on the left is from the Sikhai branch. Forgot his name… *shy*
The one in the middle is the infamous Sirisack. When people in the Head Office call up and ask “Who is on the line?” he proudly answers “SACK!” (pronounced as “Suck”). They’ll be shocked and repeat their question, whereby he practically hollers into the phone, “SACK!!!”. -___- Which results in the person hanging up.
And the one on the rightmost is Dung, our vendor.

Decor.

Twas a nice, sunny day.

Ate this while waiting for food to arrive. Zomg, really nice snack! Tastes a little like the Chinese egg rolls, but much fluffier and crispier!
Okay, people back home, expect this as your souvenirs this time round.

Seafood fried rice ; seafood tom yam. The tom yam here is not as spicy, more sour…

Fried chicken wings – they’ve been marinated with some unknown herbs, freaking good! ; Regular omelette.

Fried noodles ; Stir fried veg

The food there was pretty good, but as you can see – it’s typical Chinese fare. It’s really hard to find something that is “truly Laos” aside from the stuff I had at the Cultural Show last time. Laos food is a hodge-podge of Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai cooking. However, I’m definitely not complaining as it’s good food all round and I reckon that the food of it’s neighbours are authentic.

At night, MrLim brought AhSiang and I to this new restaurant by the Mekong River called Kong View. Located at LuangPhabang Rd, Hom 1 Ban Nongpanay, Sikottabong District in Vientiane, the restaurant was unfortunate enough to open when the city was fearing floods from the Mekong River 3 months ago. However, it seems to have gained popularity here very quickly and you can see lots of people dining here! This place is pricey (not that I noticed since Boss paid.. *sly smile*) , but the food is reallllllyyy good. There’s also a live band playing really emo songs like Minnie Ripperton’s Loving You and Michael Buble’s Home…

The front of Kong View. I apologise again for the low quality of night time pics.

Despite the short operation time, this restaurant has already started churning out souvenirs from the restaurant ala Hard Rock Cafe chains. According to MrLim, the sales are pretty good too. One tee costs about RM30, not exactly cheap stuff either.

Funky chairs for some tables. Check out the 1/2 a scooter seat.

Night time view… quite a lively place.

Discovered the “Christmas” add-ins in Photoscape. A few days too late, but I’m not going to wait 1 year to use them again.

Nice lamp and decor on each table. I was so afraid that I would knock the lamp over with my elbow. :O

Have a Tiger.

Half a roasted chicken.

Crepe stuffed with minced prawn. Omg, so good when dipped into this sweet citrusy chilli sauce!

Pineapple fried rice.

Laotian snacks, which consist of raw vegetables, Laotian ham with pistacios, some fried sausage / mystery meat and crunchy Mekong seaweed with sesame seeds.

We called for fried noodles, and out came Phad Lao! Hahha.. but it was delish.
That’s the “hati pisang” (banana heart?) on the left… don’t know whether it’s for decor or what. MrLim claims it is edible. He tried some and choked on the bitterness.

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So that was my eating-filled Laotian celebration of the Winter Solstice. Back in Malaysia, I celebrated it much earlier… on the 15th of December. The reason why my parents celebrated it earlier was because they would be going on a trip to Japan as well, so they too wanted to eat the “tong yuen” and all those delish stuff earlier. The entire day was spent at my maternal grandparents, playing mahjong and watching Money No Enough 2 (crazy show, damn funny though!) before having an exquisite dinner, courtesy of my grandmother’s culinary skills.

Pak Cham Kai (Steamed chicken with oyster sauce), acar (spicy raw veg with peanuts) and sweet pork offal soup with abalone. Yummy stuff… also served during Chinese New Year.

Stir fried veg with mushrooms, siew yoke (barbecued pork). My grandmother said she purposely bought the siew yoke from a restaurant instead of from the market place so that it would be EXTRA delicious. T3T No wonder why I love my grandma.

The “Tong Yuen”, which I ate 2/3rds of. How can these blasphemous people celebrate “guo dong wu” without eating this! (my family members all professed to being too stuffed to do justice to this sweet dessert).

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That’s all about my Winter Solstice double celebration. Despite getting to try new food around Laos, I still love my small and quiet celebrations with my maternal grandparents. Actually, it’s not very quiet because everything is super noisy when we play mahjong! :3 Haih, I miss them. Can’t wait to go back to Malaysia and celebrate CNY!

P.S : Check it, check it out! My name in Laos :

As translated by Khamphai. Who also thinks that I live in :

Lawl!

Work In Laos : Christmas Here & More December 25, 2008

Hey everyone, Merry Christmas!! I hope that everyone had a great time. =) As for me, I’m about 20% better… because we walked to Avenue Lane Xang today to buy medicine. Khamphai gave some weird directions – first pharmacist we saw didn’t speak a word of english or mandarin. The second one spoke mandarin, and as it turns out — he actually owns a pharmacy back in JB as well! However, he doesn’t really have a good stock of medicine. I wanted charcoal pills, but I ended up with Jidesheng Sheyao Pianwhich translates to Ji De Sheng’s Snake Pills. O_o”

The medicine is damn scary okay! Apparently you have to eat 20 pills for the first time, and 10 pills every 6 hours after. And the pill isn’t the small stuff like poh chai yuen, it’s as big as your regular aspirin and smells like the smelliest Asian herbs you can find. *dies* But at least it works… I think… grosser details will be left out for the sake of the sensitive souls who read my blog.

When I arrived here, I was being dramatic and telling my boss that I would be missing out on two Malaysian holidays – Awal Muharam and Christmas. I know the Laotians will definitely not be celebrating the former, but Christmas?? How could anyone not celebrate Christmas!? Anyway, while it is not a public holiday here, the Xmas spirit is alive. Hotels have special, pricey, USD50 and above per person Christmas set meals, Christmas decorations can be seen around restaurants and sidewalks…

Here’s some of the Christmas scenery around Laos… walked around a bit after dinner today because MrLim got a random call to go to a customer’s house party and we got dumped onto the sidewalk.

The best decorations around here would definitely be the Lao Plaza Hotel… hands down.

AhSiang and I also met this really nice Australian man and his Laotian wife while we were mucking around outside the hotel, taking pictures. He helped take a photo of the two of us together too. And he thought I was Korean. -___-” I thought he was holidaying here, but he said that he’s “here for good” and had already been living here for 3 years. The best part was that he knew of the bank that we worked at and said that he has an account with us. Hahahaha. Well, I think it’s nice to retire in a country like Laos. Peaceful life, cheap & good food, and lots of alcohol. (The lovely couple was going to a bar for some wine after their meal in the hotel.)

Walked by the National Cultural Hall because there was a concert going on. I saw a guy dressed up as Santa Claus there yesterday as we were driving past. I wished I had stopped to take a picture! He was in a red suit alright, but he didn’t have the staple white beard, and he was way too thin! Hahaha. The Laotian Santa Claus! *still kicking myself for not getting a picture*

FYI, the concert was organised by a local bank here.

For dinner, we walked to the city center. Had no idea what to eat. We debated over eating something extra special for Xmas eve or not… In the end we got lazy (we had no car — boss ditched us by the side, remember?) so this was my very special Christmas dinner:

Yau Char Kwai and Ham Chim Peng! There was Wu Kok, Pau and Soyabean with Cincau as well! Hahaha. Our staple after dinner meals back in September.

And we walked around the city center for a while… finally got my laundry done. I’m so relieved… I was about to wear t-shirt and jeans into the office tomorrow. T_T And this is my favorite laundry store in the area… 1kg of clothes washed for 12000 kip. That’s about RM5/USD1.30. Talk about a sweet deal. :3

They had this hugeeee nativity scene that takes up 1/2 their doorway. Catholic Vietnamese people. Very nice but shy… so that’s why I had to take this sneaky picture from afar.

I’ll end this entry with some small random photos. I’ll blog about the Winter Solstice tomorrow… I’m real excited about it because I can talk about how I celebrated it in Malaysia as well.

This little wallet calendars are being passed out by BCEL, the local bank of Laos (stands for Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao). The ladies on the calendars are staff of the bank… which one do you think is prettier? We said that our bank ought to do the same, but with the MALE staff. Should be more popular since one of the guys in the bank told me that the females outnumbers the males here.

Kiwi yogurt drink! But I didn’t drink it yet cos Khamphai said that it’ll kill my stomach.

Kueh chap that does not taste like kueh chap ; the Asian spaghetti — made of glass noodles. But I’m not recommending it because I’ve a sneaking suspicion that this brought on my current stomach pains. *bitter*

Char Siew fan!! Quite worth the price. Just about RM5!

Ok, Merry Xmas, and see you next time with a post on Winter Solstice!