Happy Winter Holiday!

A refreshing 23 degrees Celsius on Christmas day in Chiang Mai, the first hot Christmas I've ever had. Very peculiar, agreed Zippy and Heather, Canadian comrades teaching in Vietnam and Hong Kong respectively. It's like Christmas already happened and we weren't there for it.

Nevertheless, we dutifully opened presents under palm trees over plates of eggs and pancakes from Bake&Bite, exchanging handmade crafts from not so far-flung exotic locations.

We took a clattering song taew to Wat Umong, wandered through the temple tunnels and overgrown paths scratched up by chickens and dogs, hoping to spot any escapee antelopes who had broken free from the old zoo on the grounds. Instead we found ourselves in the monk pad where they do their laundry and sleep. Whoops. We walked to the pond and bought pellets for the catfish. Man those things are ugly. As they swarmed around the food in a writhing gaping-mouthed mass, Zippy said, "It's like when someone has a really gross scab and you keep looking at it over and over." Some of them were huge. The picture doesn't quite capture the alien gullet maw of the giant catfish mob.

Gives me the Freudian creeps. Am I right, ladies, am I right?

So we washed our hands and went to the market to buy fruit and nuts in exciting colours for the party flapjacks. Here is the recipe for forgieners who don't what a flapjack really is.

Recipe for Party Flapjacks

200g butter
200g demerera sugar
200g honey
400g oats
pinches of any or more of the following spices:
nutmeg
cinammon
star anise
cloves
handfuls of any or more of the following treats:
chocolate chunks
raisins
chopped mango/ pineapple/ cherries/ almonds/ fresh ginger
multicolour sprinkles (that's the party bit)
M&Ms

Heat oven to 180 C
grease up a pan, make that thing slick so nothing sticks
put the butter, sugar and honey in a medium or large saucepan on medium heat (I have only one smallish-medium sized saucepan which made this whole thing a rather careful procedure) and stir till the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Then get it off the heat.
Whack the oats into the pan.
Hassle the spices o'er top.
Impose the treats.
Stir everything up so it's good and wet, but holding it pretty much together, not falling apart like a sissy.
Press the sticky mix into the pan and put it into the middle of the oven. Cook it for 15-20 minutes. The edges will be crispy and your kitchen will smell like hot sugar (unless you have a sinus infection and you will be making this recipe for your friends only since you won't be able to smell or taste a thing)

When it looks done, take it out of the oven. Divide it into squares or any shape you want. Eat any bits that don't fit on your serving platter. Then it's up to you to party.

a roi maak maak.

So we took this winner of a dish to Small House and had an actually good time with excellent chefs and budding professional line dancers. We wore our matching Christmas sweaters, fluffy and bedazzled. Ukuleles were played, turkey was digested next to the butternut squash dissolving in our stomachs.

Later, we song taewed merrily to the 24 hour coin-operated laundry and computer shop, where I called the Showers's, Zippy called the Doiron's, and Heather snoozed on a plastic chair. And who should flicker onto my screen but father Showers, decked out splendidly, if a little snugly, in a glittery google-eyed cartoon robot t-shirt with the word FRENZY! on it. "I'm thrilled with my present, thank you so much! I've been wearing it all day." How did I know my dad and my 12-year old brother had so much in common? Note to self, put names on presents when you wrap them in the same paper and ship them to different countries.
Enjoy your brown cushion cover, Michael.

Then we tra-la-lah'd home, and I listened to Lucy Day on the Myspace to send me off to sleep.

Happy Festive Time.

Loving Laos

14 hours on a bus later, I am in Vienne Tian, Laos, snuggled up in the tourist area, munching Scandanavian shortbread after the best pastrami and mustard sandwich of recent years. I do love the colonies.

I drop off my bag at the Mixay Guesthouse, buy a floppy hat, and walk down the riverside. The two square miles that comprise the tourist area has a marked boundary of people not staring at you to people stopping in their tracks to see what you're doing outside your quarter. And the houses turn from brick and plaster behind metal gates to shacks made of corrugated iron and woven bamboo screens tied together with twine.

There are dogs, there are chickens. There are tall temples around dusty corners, and fishermen in long boats trying to find things to eat from the Mekong River. And everyone gets their own hammock.

A couple of hours in, I realise that I've stopped sweating, and dehydration is a pain to deal with. “Could I have some water, ka?” The young couple at the stall selling beer and fizzy drinks look blank. “Water?” I ask in a Canadian accent this time. “Nam plaow? Nam geaow?” I ask in badly pronounced Thai. The whole street is now involved in trying to understand what I want. A woman appears from her door with two bottles of water raised aloft, and invites me inside. It's a small acupuncture clinic with eight beds separated by screens. (Rachel please stop reading here) On one of the beds lies a 15-year-old girl who she is treating for a brain injury two months previously. She has ten needles in her face, under her ear, and a couple in each wrist. There are used needles on the tables. The doctor swiftly but deftly plucks out each needle, which is a little creepy to see. Then she takes me to her house on the river where I meet her son. We start talking, as you do, and he invites me to visit his friend's farm on a river north of the city. Meet you at the temple, tomorrow at 1PM.

We drive and drive, through the city, down a questionable reconstruction of Champs Elisee complete with its own Arc de Triumphe, out past the fruit stalls floor to ceiling with apples and tiny oranges, past the smoking barbeques grilling chicken feet and cat fish, and down the dusty red road. Everything is covered in red dust; the plants, the houses, the laundry hanging outside the houses. An hour and a sore pair of legs later, we are at the farm.

This is very exciting to me, because I have been looking to find someone who will tell me the names of trees. Here is mango, banana, starfruit, jackfruit, bamboo bamboo, and fish. Fish is not a tree. I befriended a cow.

We go across the river on a ferry made of wooden planks with a longtail motor driving it. We are dropped off in a tiny village, and in minutes the rumour has spread that there is a falang in town. Stepping around baby goats and little children, we walk through the dusty streets, saying hello to old women poking at weeds in their front yards, and to children hiding in trees. Some try out their English, “Oh! My gosh! Hello. I like you.” Everyone stares but they are all friendly.

Later, my guide takes me to his counsin's wedding, big honour. I sit with his family, we celebrate with many toasts to everybody's health, and I learn to line dance Laos style.

A fine day.