Sao Darly

Lunch from Kuadin Market on day 31 of my two months trip in Laos.

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The best part of the meal is dessert and Nam Varn Lodchong is my favorite Lao dessert.

After shopping at Talat Sao, it was time to head over to Talat Kuadin to see what we would like to have for lunch.

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After a visit to the Immigration Office for Lao Visa extension, it was time for a little shopping at Talat Sao or Morning Market in Vientiane. For this particular morning the priority was looking for Lao silk skirts and shawls. There were many shops at the market selling similar materials if not the same and finding the best bargain is the must have experience when it comes to shopping in Laos.

Of course I’m not much of a bargainer and Aunt Kian was doing all the bargaining and inspecting the materials. In the end we went home very happy to have found the Lao sinh and prabieng at the right prices.

A morning drive after breakfast to the Immigration Office in Vientiane for one month Visa extension in Laos.

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For breakfast on day 31 of my two months trip in Laos it was stir fry and jeow. Aunt Kian made the stir fry while Aunt Phone made jeow phak ee kood.

For dinner we had a special treat from Pakse. Aunt Tou asked her relatives to make a special batch of Som Moo (Lao soured pork sausage) and sent them as a gift to Vientiane.

Aunt Kian grilled the Som Moo and later made Sao Noi Disco to surprise me. Of course since she can’t eat the dish raw and doesn’t want me to try my dancing with Sao Noi Disco, Aunt Kian made sure these girls were not dancing too wildly.

I spent my morning taking care of Sidney and later took a walk to Gok Pho market to order a batch to Lao green papaya salad and Lao sticky rice noodle salad. Aunt Kian prepared the pickled fish she bought in Pakse and heated the famous savan ping kai for us.

For breakfast I ate khao thom made by Aunt Kiane and the rest of the relatives for the Morning Alms Offering (Giving) after Grand-Mama’s funeral. It is a tradition to give out the left-over to relatives and friends.

I found it comforting and was reminded of the same old tradition from my sister’s funeral when I was a young kid in Laos. So much memories and so much emotions but so loss of words to express my feelings at that moment.

W’re back to the long adventure of my two months in Laos. I woke up to another day of November rain in Vientiane. Aunt Kiane finally came back from Pakse from Grand-Mama’s funeral at the crack of dawn. It was not too long before the sky started to pour down on us.

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A very inspirational message that is worth sharing with you. Steve Jobs, CEO and co-founder of Apple and Pixar gave a Commencement speech on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University. He urges the graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks and even death itself.

I hope you will find his message useful in your life.

Connecting the dots: Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

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