Austin in Laos

Well, the Holmes family is all back, safe and sound, from different parts of the world.  Austin went on a school trip to Laos and Savannah went on a school trip to Bhutan.  With both kids gone for the week, I decided to tag along on Joe's business trip to China.  I have been sifting through thousands, yes thousands, of pictures.  So perhaps you will understand if these blog posts are long.  :)

Today I have a guest blogger-- my son Austin!  I will let him tell you about his trip to Laos.  I am the one who uploaded all the pictures, so they are in no particular order.  

Hello to all followers of my mom's blog. I indeed went to Laos for a school trip. We stayed in the village for a week and  built a house/hotel to help bring revenue to the village. This was my home away from home. A pretty typical house in the area. Wooden walls, straw and bamboo roof, and just one room. It was pretty snug to say the least.

  My mom is just so impressed with this long legged chicken. It does look quite disproportionate though! Chickens and rooster were very common as they roamed around.

Naturally, it was the rainy season. More mud than you can possibly imagine!

 That shirt didn't stay white for long... 

In the school teaching the kids English numbers as they taught us Lao ones. 

I got them to line up without saying a word in English. That is not to say that I speak much Lao. I just flailed my arms about with my camera and they got what to do.

This "semi-strenuous" hike was up the side of a mountain. Us students had trouble going up in hiking boots carrying just water bottles. The natives did the same thing in flip flops while carrying heavy baskets of corn and without slipping once.

The view from the second hike of the trip. I really do love the lush green landscapes that this part of the world can offer. 

Laos really is jungle. This is actually one of the better parts of the trail. At some points I would have to crawl just to get to the next section of trail.

This water from the waterfall was not supposed to go over the stairs.  It rained so much that the river swelled and caused more water than normal to flow which flooded many of the areas around the river. 

A terrified selfie.

I just look Texan there. A Dallas shirt. A camouflage Longhorn hat. A knife stuck into the strap of my backpack. Oh well. I had this picture taken at the last minute before we left the waterfall because I realized that I had no pictures of myself and my mother would be angry!

I don't think a comment needs to be made here.

This is a video of the procession of monks. I, one of my trip leaders, and one other student got up at five to see the monks receive their alms for the day. Buddhist monks are forbidden to own materiel items so they rely on worshipers and follows of Buddhism to provide sticky rice and other food for them. Every day they meditate for around two hours before they walk down the street and receive their food for the day. 

A cave that contained over four thousand Buddha statues. Truly an impressive sight.

[This is Wanda, making a quick note.  The rest of these pictures were taken by Austin's GAP leader, Kate Meinenger.  She did an amazing job!]

They call it the Golden Temple. I wonder why.

Local fishermen casting their nets for the day.

Just chillin'

They learn young how to handle knives and how to help out in village life. I also saw a baby playing with a machete.

Had to split bamboo to make fences for around the house. Needless to say, I was a pro. :)

The Lao language when we went to the school.

After a hard day's work I need my water. Did not have the energy to actually suck it from the pouch. I had to hold it above so that the water flowed. 

I had finally conquered a tree stump that me and one of the guides had been working on all day. Near the end we gathered and audience of villagers and students alike to see the momentous act as we pulled that tree stump out of the ground. And me casually rocking the US Army shirt in a Communist country. 

Local lady makes these purses. (Should've gotten one for my momma. Oops.)

We took a boat ride and the views were fantastic. 

These boats were very slim and very shallow. Very similar to the ones in Vietnam and also similar to a gondola. 

This picture was taken by a very amused teacher. This is in an airport as we are waiting for our flight. I would like to draw your attention to the gun magazine in my hand, the "Born In The USA" t-shirt, the bullet hanging around my neck, the camouflage hat, the red communist shirt, the camo and communist hat that my friend has on, and the overall irony of this situation.  

A depiction of village life. 

Stunning. What more can I say?

This was my meal. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's safe to say that I am not going to be eating rice for a good long while. 

A ceremony for good luck and as a thank you from the villagers.

The hike to the waterfall. 

Another view of the Golden Temple. 

I find piglets cute. And here is a prime example of why.

My house mates. The two biggest guys on the trip rooming with the smallest. He still had enough energy for us all. 

Building a ladder out of bamboo. Shirt still surprisingly white.

That stump was my proudest accomplishment. We had to dig the hole so deep that I needed people to sit on me so that I did not fall into it! Thus, the Butt-Sitters were formed. 

It had been a hard week. Sleeping on a wooden pallet doesn't make for the best rest, so I had to catch up on some Z's.

Wow. Just wow. Well, this is the end of my contribution to this blog. Thank y'all for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to learn more about the hectic life of an ex-pat then you can look at some of my mom's other blog posts and even at her previous blog which recorded our adventures in Oman. I'll make her put a link to it below. Peace!

Wanda again.  A big thanks to my son Austin for describing these pictures for us.  I consider myself fortunate, since he could be catching up on sleep!  :)  Anyways, I am including my link to my prior blog, just because Austin asked.

wandainoman.blogspot.com

I will work on Savannah's Bhutan post next.  But I don't think she will be much help.  :)

River View Dining

So much of our time in the last few weeks have gone into settling in and working around our kids' schedules.  But last Saturday, we took some time to venture out of Kuala Lumpur, to a restaurant Joe and our friend Tony had visited during the summer.

The worst part of the drive was just getting out of the traffic in KL.  Once we were out, it was a very pretty drive, with rolling hills and lot of palm trees.  But, we did see this smoke stack on the way.  Now, Joe and Tony are both former plant managers in the US.  This kind of emission would never be allowed in the US.  A little sad to see it here.

I couldn't resist snapping a picture of this mosque.  I loved all the beautiful mosques in Oman.  Even though Malaysia is a Muslim country, you don't see as many beautiful mosques here.

Our first glimpse of the river.  It took a couple of hours to get here, but a lot of that was the traffic leaving KL.

Here is our destination:  the River View Restaurant in the small fishing village just outside of Kuala Salangor.

Me and Joe

I took this picture of Tony to show his wife, Peg.  Peg is still in the US, but will join all our fun soon!

The day's gang in this open-air restaurant.  There was a nice breeze that made lunch very comfortable.  By the way, we were about the only expats here.  Very much of a locals' restaurant.

Everyone got a small dish with fresh garlic and hot chili peppers.

This is a first for me.  Our utensils came out in a bowl with very hot water. 

Kevin starts off the dish of scallops.

This was a vegetable dish, served in an edible bowl made from some root vegetable.  It was good.  Not my favorite, but good.

Prawns.  But they had their whole shells on, so a little bit of work.

Second blog post in a row with a fish head!  :)  I forget what kind of fish this was.  I want to say snapper, but not sure.  It came with a sweet and sour sauce.  May not be the prettiest dish, but it was delicious!

Crabs.  We also had spicy Thai chicken, pineapple fried rice, fried calamari, and vegetables.  All the food was very fresh and delicious!  And reasonably priced too.

Views of the river

After lunch, we strolled up and down the street.  This was a Chinese part of town.  These were some sort of fish chips.

Part of the decor in one of the grocery stores.

And these chips were being made down the street.

This was an interesting store.  Lots of fishing equipment, as might be expected.

But across the aisle, Legos!  And liquor.  So as someone said, lures, legos, and liquor, all in one stop!

This was a fun afternoon with great food, not far from KL.