Photos in lieu of an effort

The last few days have been fairly eventful and I thought in loo of actually telling you all about them I would post some photos and be done with it. Sally arrived, as you know and work held a combined, farewell P, hello Sally, happy birthday KPL party, including a baci. For a vivid description of what a baci entails you can read C's post on one of the other's we've attended this year, here.

The first one is of C and I on NYE in Cambodia, post spewing and uber-expensive medical treatment. We look pretty chipper in spite of everything, don't we.





The next one is a shot of the lanterns haning in the trees at the bar where we almost made it to midnight. In the end though post-sickness tiredness and the knowledge we had to get up at 5.30 the next morning to catch the only available flight to Bangkok sent us packing at about 11.15. We're are such party animals...







Next is a shot of Sal looking very cosy in out favourite Indian restaurant in Vientiane, Taj Mahal.

Then Sal again, this time getting baci-ed by KPL's Director General, while everyone else goes baci-crazy in the background.






The aftermath of a baci, along with the hangover, generally include a whole bunch of white strings tied around both wrists. The strings are for good luck and everyone at the baci wants to tie a string around your wrist if you are the reason the baci is happening in the first place. Consequently, you end up looking like this...


...which is all well and good, until you discover that it is considered very bad luck and very poor form to remove the strings for three days. And even then you aren't suposed to cut them off so you are left to either wait for them to rot off (usually assisted by a swim in the nearest chlorinated pool) or to tear the buggers off after a few days have passed. I'm all for the tearing.

Next to last, I said in the last post that I had a headache and now you can see why. Just look at that head...

(Thanks for making me look beautiful, C).

The last one is of a crumbling French-era villa downtown. There are a few of them left and they are all slowly disentegrating, except for the one that's been restored and is now being used as the Asian Development Bank's headquarters.

PS - C promises she will post one of these days.