Work deadlines

It's very weird when your countdown for rollout at work goes from this...

To this...

Sigh

Making a Phone call in Laos

This has nothing to do with me or my experiences in Laos...
But it's hard to figure out how to make a phone call here.

Our office admin sent us a how-to guide and I thought it might help anyone who randomly stumbled across this site.

HOW TO CALL A PHONE IN LAOS

Laos Country code: +856
Home line 021	Cell 020
How to Call:
Cell - Cell 59999999
Cell - home  021 499999
Home - cell  020 59999999
Home - home  499999
eight digits number for cell (standard)
six digits number for home line (standard)
Call from other country to cell in Laos +856 20 59999999
Call from other country to home line in Laos +856 21 499999

Bangkok hanging lanterns

Ant genocide

Every Friday our office admin brings breakfast- half the time American breakfast (bagels, pastries, oranges) and the other half of the time Lao (fried noodles, pork stuff, etc).

Today she brought Lao sandwiches.

And I am a very messy eater.

I dropped a bit of pork on the floor. In human world it was no big deal but in tiny ant world it was like Christmas- a deliciously enormously porky Christmas.

I hear 'Oh jeez! Look at all the ants!' 

Even 15 feet away I knew my inability to eat neatly was the cause. 

So Nick (he was the first to notice it) grabbed a couple paper towels and picked up the pork.

Then the ant massacre happened. 

It was like the Bounty paper towel ads- in a couple graceful circular motions, the mess was cleaned up. Except rather than the random blue liquid from the Bounty ads, it was ant LIVES. Hundreds of ant lives extinguished forever.

Reminded me of the scene in Mockingjay. I won't ruin for those who haven't read hunger games. But it was just like that.

Sunset from the office

Sunset is between 6pm and 7pm, and from the riverwalk it is beautiful. 

But 90% of the time we are at the office till after 7pm. So we get to catch glimpses of it ...

Bruise day 2

Painful as all get-out

Nam Ngum Lake

Today (Sunday) a group of 12 of us went to Nam Ngum Lake, a two hour drive outside Vientiane. Rainy season means that at least part of the time is spent dealing with rain, but we had a great time. Lunch at the Longview resort restaurant way REALLY slow...

Lake is man-made - from a dam that displaced apparently hundreds of small villages. 

We rented a boat - for 2.5 hours, it cost about 400,000kip ($50) and fit all 12 of us.

It took us out to a random island in the middle of the lake, where we swam and skipped rocks.

Then we jumped off the boat. 

This is Seth.

This is Nick.

This is me.

But now that means I have both a nasty sunburn ...

... And a massive bruise in the shape of a heart on my upper thigh (from awkwardly climbing into the boat)