MontanaRon

An English teacher's blog about his travels and his digital art.

Category: Laos (page 1 of 17)

Merry Christmas

December 25, 2020 / / Comments Off on Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope you have a great, wonderful day with your families and loved ones. In Laos, of course, Christmas is not a big deal, but next week’s New Year’s Eve and Day are celebrated by more people.

For today, I might ride my motorbike to visit Nai’s family, only about 5 miles away, but much of the journey is over a very bad, dirty, pothole-filled road. If I go, I’ll take some photos and try to get some of them posted in the very near future.

The school’s on break between terms until January 10th, so I’ve got plenty of time to work on my digital art. Here’s a recent composition I’ve been working on for what seems like forever. It’s entitled “Moonlit Desert City.” I’ve been adding and subtracting objects from it, fiddling with blend modes, shading and tones, and generally playing around with it. I’m still not satisfied with the results, so I’ll probably keep working on it. Anyway, here’s the most recent iteration. (P.S. That’s me on the far left with my eyes peeking out from the mask.)

moonlit desert city

Moonlit Desert City

Pink Invaders?

August 16, 2020 / / Comments Off on Pink Invaders?

We’ve had a lot of rain recently, leaving the area back of the house with several inches of water. I’ve noticed that on the cement wall in back there are these weird-looking pink “things” that have been clinging to it. What the heck are they?, I thought.

Apple snail eggs

These are apple snail eggs, pink “aliens” clinging to the low wall in the back of my house.

So, I did a search on Bing (I don’t like using Google, for various reasons). Are they animal, vegetable or mineral? I eliminated mineral, so animal or vegetable. The word mollusk popped up in my mind, so I did an image search for pink mollusk. Bingo! Got it right away. These appear to be the eggs of the apple snail, which lays its eggs above the waterline, according to this Wikipedia article. Mystery solved. Thankfully, they’re not space invaders.

Stormy Weather!

May 8, 2020 / / Comments Off on Stormy Weather!

Wow, we had a heckuva storm out my way yesterday afternoon. It started rolling in about 4 p.m, and I was thinking it would be nice to have a breeze and maybe a bit of rain. The clouds looked pretty benign, but the full force of the storm hit around 4:30 and it was anything but “nice.” I swear we had a mini-tornado. The winds were coming from all directions and they were extremely strong. The roof of my house was being lifted a few inches and dropped back down, more than once. The neighbors’ trees, large and strong, were being bent to about a 60 degree angle, debris was flying through the air, and the rain, only about 15 minutes worth, was fierce!

After it was over, about 30 minutes later, I took a walk around. Our house was OK, but the neighbor in front of us had part of his roof blown off, much of the roof of the karaoke across the road was destroyed, and a small pavilion in the rice field behind our house was torn up. Their was sheet metal all over the yard, and I don’t know where it came from. Plus, the power was knocked out for about 3 hours. This was a bad one, and had me a bit scared. Below is a photo of the pavilion and of the neighbor doing repairs to his roof. We’re supposed to get more storms again this afternoon. I certainly hope they’ll be nothing like yesterday’s.

Pavilion after storm

The pavilion behind my house after the storm yesterday.

Neighbor roof repair

My neighbor repairing part of his roof.

More Lockdown News

May 3, 2020 / / Comments Off on More Lockdown News

So, the lockdown will be eased quite a bit beginning tomorrow, and I reported in a previous post that Vientiane College would re-open on May 18th. However, the Lao government clarified the school opening guidelines. Universities, colleges and language schools (that’s us) won’t be able to resume classes until June 2nd, so that’s another month off, which, thanks to our fantastic administration, will be paid to us that are on contract. Nice! Thanks to all the folks involved in this decision. Now, let’s hope that the lifting of the lockdown won’t result in an outbreak of covid-19 infections. The government said that if there are outbreaks, then the provinces where they occur will be put back on lockdown. Fingers crossed.

P.S. For your info, bars, karaokes, movie theaters, gyms, and other similar types of venues will not be allowed to open yet. I’m not sure when that will happen. There’s a karaoke (open air) right across the road from my house, so their closure has been nice. I had gotten used to the noise, but it’s been closed since the end of March. I suppose I’ll have to get used to it all over again when it does reopen.

Lockdown Revisited

May 1, 2020 / / Comments Off on Lockdown Revisited

Many of the lockdown constraints in Laos will end this Monday, May 4th. I think many businesses will reopen, including restaurants, with certain provisions in place, including limitations on the number of people that can be in the business at any one time; masks, of course, will be mandatory. I don’t know about bars, karaokes or other types of entertainment venues. I imagine they might still be shut down.

Vientiane College plans on reopening May 11th for registration, with full time evening classes to begin on the 18th. A few daytime classes will also start the week of the eleventh. I have been far from bored during the lockdown; there have been so many things to keep me occupied around the house. Reading, digital art, morning jogs and catching up on movies and TV shows, among other things, have filled my time. Still, I’ll be happy to get back to work (not to mention earning some money!). Let’s just hope that there isn’t a resurgence in covid-19 cases after the reopening. More later.

Lao in Lockdown

April 17, 2020 / / Comments Off on Lao in Lockdown

Laos has been locked down since April 1, meaning everyone should stay at home. Of course, people with essential jobs are still working, but most other businesses have been closed, as well as all the schools. Vientiane College, where I work, has been shut down since before April 1, so I’m having an extended vacation, so to speak. I still go jogging in the morning, which I consider essential, and that hasn’t been a problem with the authorities, though I’ve never seen any that early in the morning. I also see quite a number of bicyclists riding for exercise at that time, sometimes in packs of three or four, coming from the city or heading back that way. I’ve also been to one of the foreign markets to replenish my food reserves. I thought I might have a problem doing that because some districts of Vientiane have been blocking travel in and out of their area if you don’t live there. However, I didn’t see any roadblocks on my way to and from the market.

Yesterday, the government said that the lockdown was going to be extended from April 20th to May 3rd. At that time, schools and some businesses would be allowed to open. So, perhaps, Vientiane College might be able to re-open in time for the original start of our next trimester, May 7th. That, though, might be unlikely because I imagine that it might take another week to set up registration times for the students and to get the word out that we’ll open again and to get everything ready. I expect to hear from the administration soon about the school’s plans.

The Lao New Year holiday just finished. The government cancelled all planned activities and warned everyone that social distancing was in place (and the lockdown) for the holiday, meaning no celebrations outside our homes and no more than four people celebrating together, other than immediate family. We’ll probably know how this worked out near the end of the new lockdown date, around the end of April. Laos has had no new infections, that people know of, for about three or four days now (19, as of this posting), but if covid cases start increasing as the month goes on, well, the warning to not celebrate probably didn’t have much effect.

The government also banned alcohol sales and distribution from April 13th to the 20th. The only effect that might have is that when the small mom-and-pop markets run out of beer, they won’t be able to get any more. Also, mini-marts, liquor stores and others won’t be able to sell alcohol. While jogging today, I noticed one of the small markets still had many cases of canned beer left and I would guess it is selling to people who want to buy, which would be quite a large number of people. Lao folks love their alcohol, especially during holidays. (P.S. I stocked up when I heard about the ban, though I don’t drink a whole lot. I still have some BeerLao left–come over to the house and we’ll tip a few!)

Covid in Laos

March 29, 2020 / / Comments Off on Covid in Laos

There hadn’t been any confirmed cases of covid-19 infection in Laos up until about a week ago when a couple of people were found to have the virus. Since then, six more people have been infected, and all of them are related, in some way, to the first two cases. Just about everything has shut down, though, including bars, restaurants, gyms, movie theaters, and other entertainment venues. Even the two “mom-and-pop” restaurants in front of my house have closed. And, most amazing, the karaoke just across the road has shut down. Ahh, peace and quiet in the evening for a while, unless the neighbors decide to crank up their music, which they did last night. Luckily, I’m pretty well stocked up on food, so I’m staying at home, except to go jogging in the morning and maybe take a bit of a walk in the evening after the day’s heat has gone down a bit. (Lately, it’s been around 100 and will be for about the next three days.) To the heat and the virus, add in the horrendous air quality of late (> 150), and Laos is not the most pleasant place to be right now.

Vientiane College shut down, along with all other schools, a couple of weeks ago, so I’m on extended vacation at the moment (paid, thankfully). Our next term was supposed to start on May 7th, but that increasingly looks unlikely. Hopefully we won’t be out of commission for too much longer after that. So, I’m just sitting at home, watching movies and TV shows, doing a bit of digital art, playing online games (Lord of the Rings, Eve Online), reading and drinking beer. What’s a guy to do? We’ll get through this, but it could turn out to be rather boring after a while.

Oh, one other thing is that in the middle of April is arguably the biggest holiday of the year in Laos, the Lao New Year (Pee Mai Lao), but, because of the virus, the government has cancelled all of its holiday events and advised people not to gather in large groups for celebrations (this includes weddings and birthday parties). I’m really curious to see how many people follow through with that. I suppose there will be at least a small party out on the farm where Nai’s sister lives and where I used to live. I’ll go out there for one day (out of the three that comprise the holiday) and be sure to social distance myself from the others. How much they’ll do the same, I don’t know. If things get out of hand, I’ll boogie on out of there and go back to my house.

So, in finishing, I hope everyone stays healthy and safe. Catch up on your reading or gardening or whatever and wait it out. More later.

Rain!

March 6, 2020 / / Comments Off on Rain!

Yes, rain, glorious rain! We haven’t had any in months, literally. The last few days, though, we’ve had around an inch, I think. It’s been quite a severe drought due to various factors, including climate change and the increasing number of dams on the Mekong River. (Check some of the factors that are screwing over the Mekong, including China, Laos, and Vietnam.)

Any amount of rain is welcome, but it definitely hasn’t been enough to break the back of the drought, which probably won’t happen until the rainy season starts in late May and June. When I went jogging this morning, there was a nice sprinkle that got me moderately wet, but once I got back to my house, the rain came down quite nicely, soaking the ground. It’s finished now, and there isn’t any rain in the forecast for the near future, but we’ll take any that we get.

Drought Over? Not so fast

August 1, 2019 / / Comments Off on Drought Over? Not so fast

Not long after my previous post, it started raining. It turned out that a tropical storm/depression, Wipha, was possibly heading our way, after hanging out around Hong Kong, bringing several inches of rain with it. We had a lot of rain last night, but when I woke up this morning and checked the forecast, it turned out that Wipha was turning in a more northerly direction, toward southern China. The forecast had changed also, with rainfall predictions quite a bit less than previously forecast. Right now, Thursday morning at 10 o’clock, it’s sunny with partly cloudy skies here in Vientiane. Oh, well, any amount is better than none. Will keep you posted.

Bigtime Drought

July 30, 2019 / / Comments Off on Bigtime Drought

Although it’s raining heavily this morning, Laos and the rest of Southeast Asia are in the middle of a terrible drought, with the Mekong River in some places at its lowest level in a century. Not only is the lack of rain during the monsoon season affecting the level of the Mekong, but some are also blaming the upstream dams in China and in Laos itself.

Whatever and whoever is to blame, the water level in Vientiane is near record lows and farmers and fisheries are suffering. Here’s a chart of the current level on the Mekong River Commission website. Let’s hope this much-needed rain continues.

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