Neighbourhood Building Site

I have been watching this house being built, next door to my apartment block.  Bamboo is the scaffolding material of choice. The site office is the shanty on the left, which also serves as the laundry for the workers.  Some of them live on site and you see them cooking and living in the shanty and now in the front rooms.

Sunday Sunflowers

 Sunflowers at the front of a temple at Ban Thana on the edge of Vientiane.

Mekong Motorbikes - 555

Marigolds not Motobikes

5 is ha in Laos so 555 is Ha ha ha

Hopefully Gerard  you will open this expecting motorbikes - but see flowers before they can be deleted.  Just a joke

Graduation Week

Graduation was the focus in the secondary school last week. Preparing, practicing, then the awards dinner on Wednesday night and the Graduation ceremony on Friday night. My favorite part is the "Final Walk". On Friday morning the Grade 12 students walk out from the office, around the secondary courtyard and into the elementary school.  The other students line the path and cheer them out.  This year we finished with a group photo on the secondary lawn.

 

 

Rube Goldberg Machines - Grade 9

The  Grade 9s have been working on an Interdisciplinary Unit  (IDU) this term, Science and Design.  We covered Newton's Laws in Science and in Design they used these to design a Rube- Goldberg Machine (a contrapation to complete a simple task in a complicated manner).  Today the nachines were presented and there were some great machines - one with a Star Wars theme, another with a social media theme  and two with a bathroom theme - to put toothpaste on a tooth brush.

Here are some of my wonderul Grade 9 boys - Maxime, Harren and EJ with their multi stage contraption ready to put toothpaste on a brush via a vice triggered by a series of balls running down ramps and up pulleys.

Last Minute Visits - Haw Pha Kaeo

As I prepare to leave Laos I am visiting places that " I have meant to visit, but haven't quite made it".

The first of these was Haw Pha Kaeo.  I ride past the temple every time I come back from the downtown area, but have not stopped to look at the temple.  It has had a recent renovation so looks shiny and new, but in fact dates back to 1565 when I temple was first built on the location to house the Emerald Buddha.

The Emerald Buddha is a very small Buddha statue, now in a temple in the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

The temple was destroyed by the Thais in 1779 ( the year Captain Cook met his demise in Hawaii), and the statue taken to Bangkok. The current temple was rebuilt by the French between 1936 - 1942).

Buddha on a Diet

The Buddha statues at Haw Pha Kaeo were old and unusual.  They were extremely skinny and had pointy noses and extra long ears.

Many statues of Buddha have long ears.  It can signify many things, all linked to compassion.  He has the ability to hear the  sound of the world.