It it an intervention? Is it a move to restore law and order? No, it's a coup.

COUP TV
Since we moved into our new house in November, we have been receiving free cable TV, an interesting package which is mostly Vietnamese and Thai soap operas, pop music and news but also includes CNN, BBC World, CNBC, Al Jazeera and TV5 Monde. We also get HBO (Alfred: All hail, Game of Thrones!) and Fox and a variety of sports channels which, very occasionally, actually show something I want to watch (Alfred: You notice the use of 'I' there - there not being anyone else in the house with the slightest interest in the sports channels, except possibly Robin and that is only as an excuse to get into the house. Robin? Haven't I mentioned Robin before? OK, we'll get to that later).

Anyway, as the world knows, the Thai Army launched a coup about a week ago now, once they eventually got around to admitting it actually was a coup (Alfred: It was rather like when you confront a sulky teenager about something they have done wrong, wringing out the reluctant, gradual admission of culpability:
a)   It's definitely not a coup!
b)   Well, it is kind of a semi-coup
c)   Yeah, OK, it's a coup all right).

For foreigners living here, the first concern was for those people who do not have permanent visas and have to travel regularly to Thailand (once a month) to get their tourist visas renewed. This now seems to be OK as the troops on the border are really only concerned with Thai political leaders and agitators who may be trying to flee to Laos (Alfred: Though various embassies did point out that it might be better to wait a few days if possible as the mixture of soldiers, police and customs officials rushed to the border are, not surprisingly, a little unsure of who exactly to check/allow/detain. That and the incredible queues and traffic jams!).

For us, the first obvious sign was turning on the BBC News and seeing instead the logo for the National Peace and Order Maintaining Council. A quick trawl through the 51 channels normally available gave us about thirty to thirty-five of these, accompanied by the kind of music that reminded you of when Soviet leaders died and Soviet TV played solemn music, though the Thai version did have a little bit more of an upbeat rhythm to it. Interestingly, while all the news, sports and other channels were replaced with this, Vietnamese and Chinese channels were not and neither was Al Jazeera.

(Alfred: We have also been puzzling over the five symbols. Presumably it is army, navy, air force and police - but what is the fifth?  Given that every time the new leaders appear on TV we see five of them, presumably the fifth is ... customs? Intelligence services?  Who knows?)


By yesterday (Friday 23rd) all these channels were now showing the same station, Thai TV 5, which alternated soap operas with documentaries about Thailand as a tourist destination (Alfred: In the interests of editorial accuracy, Ruairí only checked twice during the afternoon. This may not be a completely accurate representation of Thai TV output). And today everything is back as normal, with a few small exceptions. BBC, CNN and CNBC have a sign saying 'Transmission will resume shortly' and two other channels have the logo above. And, strangest of all, a third channel (Channel 16 which I think was True Visions Fashion Channel!!) has a picture of the King of Thailand and a recorded message in Thai playing on a loop.

On a more serious note, the developments are worrying for a number of reasons. From a Lao point of view, Thailand is our biggest trading partner, thousands of people work on both sides of the border and a huge proportion of Lao imports come in through Thailand. Any serious unrest would have major repercussions here. But from Thailand's own point of view, the outlook isn't great. The economy is already in recession in a region where everyone else is doing at least reasonably well, the country is divided between two extremes with little or no middle ground and the prospects for a settlement are limited. This article in The Economist gives a good idea of the problems, especially as regards the position of the royal family - well worth a read http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21602759-sudden-move-army-brings-only-near-term-calm-path-throne (Alfred: And, yes, we know The Economist  can be very right-wing and conservative in its coverage of many issues but this article is pretty bang on).

(Alfred: Those not particularly interested in Asian or Thai politics may wish to skip the next paragraph. I certainly did. But I threw in a few Thai cartoons to try and liven up what is becoming far too serious a blog entry!)

And my opinion? The opposition represents the ruling elite with the tacit support of the army, courts and royal family and have been used to being in power. But every election held recently has resulted in a win for the party representing the poorer and more rural sections of the population. This is why suggesting a new election is being turned down by the opposition - they know a majority will vote for the present government, so they want an appointed government that will, presumably ignore the wishes of the majority and give power back to the ruling elites. Reminds me a little bit of the early years of Chavez' rule in Venezuela (Alfred: An unfortunate comparison, given how that turned out).


BOWLING IN LAOS
Well, yesterday saw a brand-new experience - we went bowling!! There is one bowling alley in Vientiane with 12 lanes and we stumbled across it on the way to ... actually, not sure where, maybe the swimming pool. Anyway, we checked it out and decided to grab some lunch before coming back.

Photo taken when there were actually people there

Now, it would be fair to say that neither Martine nor I are expert bowlers (Alfred: Please check dictionary definition of 'litotes'  http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/litotes. Actually, it's worth looking up and Irish people are not reluctant to use them). I think I have only bowled three times in my life and I spent lunchtime trying to look up the scoring system on the internet. So, when we returned, the fact that we were (initially) the only people there was actually just fine with us. On the plus side it was cheap (one euro per player per game), they had air-conditioning (Alfred: Of a sort. But to be fair, they only turned it on when the first players arrived so it took a while to have an effect), the shoes fit - in  fact, mine were far too big and I had to get smaller ones, a definite first in Laos. And they sold cold beer. But if you were a serious player, you might get a little frustrated by the technical flaws - skittles falling over when being replaced, equipment freezing up, bowling balls with holes designed either for pianists or Mafia mob enforcers. But it was great fun and we didn't even mind when others turned up who, while also being absolutely terrible players, were still miles better than we were! We will be back.


ELECTION RESULTS

Never has a malfunctioning pixel done such a great job!

As my family and friends know (Alfred: All too well ... sigh) I am passionate about elections of any sort. The time difference means I was actually able to follow the results of the UK local elections without having to stay up all night and thereby was able to witness Nigel Farrage's triumph at first hand. Depressing but not unexpected. I was hoping the Greens would do a little better having topped 10% consistently in national polls but the UK system doesn't really lend itself to that.

So tomorrow I look forward to immersing myself in the wonderful world of Irish local politics, which I probably won't share with you guys as I doubt you are very interested. (Alfred: Amen) And, if you are, you won't need me in Laos telling you what is happening. I just hope Mary Hanafin gets in just to really turn the screw on Micheál Martin!!

FRUIT
As regular readers know, we do produce a lot of fruit in our garden (Alfred:  Yeah, pretty much every post, actually. No, I'm calling a time out on this one. I KNOW you are going to talk about cats later, cats AND fruit in the same post is too much, you can have one or the other. Or combine them - catfruit!

Disclaimer: this is not our cat.

CAT UPDATE

While we are still officially a one-cat family, we now have a second cat who is extremely intent on adopting us. The fact that Robin (as we call her) actually belongs to the family next door doesn't seem to matter to her and she spends all her time on our verandah, trying to steal Obélix's food or sneak into the house when we aren't looking and gobble down whatever she can. There is a sense of inevitability about the process - even Obélix has given up chasing her away!!

The heat, the heat!!!

A long time since the last post, apologies.

PLANE CRASH, THAILAND, VIETNAM
As some of you may have noticed, things have heated up in this part of the world recently (and I am not referring to the weather, more on which later). Four senior members of the Lao government were killed in a plane crash, including the Ministers of Defence and Public Security - arguably the two most powerful figures in the government. Riots swept across Vietnam targeting Chinese businesses after China parked an exploratory oil rig in what Vietnam claims are its waters (Alfred: Most of the targets turned out to be Taiwanese or other foreign investors - the Taiwanese government has printed up a large supply of stickers in Vietnamese to be stuck up outside Taiwanese businesses in Vietnam explaining that they are not really Chinese, or at least not THAT sort of Chinese). And most significantly of all, the Thai army finally stepped into the political turmoil and we await the outcome.

Of the three, the Thai situation is definitely the most significant. There is a massive amount of travel and trade between Laos and Thailand, so any major political upheaval there will have definite repercussions here. By contrast, the deaths of the senior government figures, while marked by three days of mourning, seems to have been downplayed (Alfred: Downplayed? A massive understatement. Three days of mourning but nothing closed, no flags or ANY visible sign of official mourning to be seen. Very strange). 

HEAT and RAIN
Martine and I really enjoyed reading the series of thrillers set in 1970s Laos written by Colin Cotterill. One of the standing jokes is when one character will remark 'It's hot' and the other will reply 'Damned hot' (Alfred: Which was translated into French as 'Il fait chaud', 'C'est la canicule' which my ursine sensibilities feel is somewhat wide of the mark). Well, it is damned hot and has been for quite a while now. We do get rain from time to time but that seems to have little effect on the temperature. Mind you, our Lao colleagues complain about it just as much as we do, which is actually slightly strange (Alfred: Really? Think of Irish people and the rain).

Cycling in really heavy rain is slightly more fun here than it would be in Ireland because you are not being simultaneously chilled to the bone, but in Ireland you wouldn't even think of cycling in rain as heavy as this. Here, you don't have a lot of choice. Having said that, we haven't been caught that often. (Alfred: I don't wish to rain on your parade - ha! rain! - but it is actually still the middle of the hot, dry season. Things MAY just change in a few weeks' time. Just saying.)


GARDENING and FRUIT
We really wanted a house with a big garden and that is what we got. But it is turning out to be a lot of work - thankfully, Martine enjoys gardening a lot more than I do (Alfred: Another classic understatement. You enjoy gardening more than going to the dentist and that's about it. And it gives Martine the excuse to set things on fire!!) so we have so far resisted the urge to hire a gardener. I bought a sickle last week and used it to cut the grass, a far less romantic operation than I had at first expected. But it is a nice sickle - Martine wants me to buy a hammer to go with it, an urge I have so far resisted.

As for the fruit, we have been inundated with mangoes, hundreds and hundreds of them, most of which were at least partially edible. There are also starfruit and another fruit we didn't realise until recently was also edible which goes by the name here of Lolly fruit, so called because it contains four large seeds with a fleshy covering which can only really be eaten by sticking them in your mouth and sucking them.

The real problem is what to do with the fallen fruit, of which there are at least dozens each day. So far we have been gathering them up and dumping them in a pile far from the house where they are merrily fermenting away and producing a smell like a pub on a Saturday morning which wasn't cleaned up on Friday night. I have observed the thousands of ants and insects to see if they are obviously inebriated but it's hard to tell when you are flailing your arms around all the time trying to avoid being bitten - or drunk - to death.


BOOKS and FILMS
As I mentioned before, I have a lot more time now for reading than I used to and here are a few of my recent reads and what I thought of them.

For science fiction lovers, I strongly recommend the series of three books by James S. A. Corey called The Expanse, and even better was Ken Macleod's The Night Sessions which expertly blends robots and Presbyterians. But the best of all was a wonderfully evocative book (for people my age) by Ernest Cline
called Ready Player One, set in the future but mostly concerned with the culture, music and computer games of the 1980s. If you ever played Space Invaders or Asteroids, owned an Amstrad or a Tandy or took part in any role-playing games, this book is a must!

I also read a famous Japanese SF novel (Alfred:Well, famous in Japan anyway) called Yukikaze - this was part of my preparation for being interviewed for the Japanese Embassy job. It was ... really strange, and I have read a lot of strange stuff in my time. And how was it strange? I'm not sure where to begin ... in fact I'm not even going to try. Reading the reviews on Amazon was actually more interesting than the book, especially some of the comments on mistakes in the translation (Alfred: http://www.amazon.com/Yukikaze-Chohei-Kambayashi/dp/1421532557 if you are that interested)

The new Robert Harris novel, An Officer and a Spy, based on the events of the Dreyfus Affair, was slightly disappointing but that may be because I already knew the story so well. Trinity's Child by William Prochnau is a World War Three novel written in the 1980s and I only finished it out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Awful stuff. Even Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising was better than this, miles better in fact (Alfred: Now there's a biting criticism - even Tom Clancy is better than this!).

Our TV watching has been dominated by Game of Thrones. We are thoroughly enjoying Season Four and I went back and watched all three seasons just to get myself in the mood! We have just about got to the stage in the books where Martine stopped reading and I can't really remember what happens next so that makes watching them even more exciting!!

We have also started watching Breaking Bad, which we are struggling to warm to but a recent post on Facebook attracted a lot of responses that assured me it was worth sticking with. On verra.

I have a friend who owns a copy of 'Pi to one million places' and a dramatised version of that would probably be more exciting than the Lynda La Plante series Trial and Retribution we watched (Alfred: And it would have a lot more characters!!! Ha ha!!). I mean, seriously, never have I been so tempted to watch something in fast forward mode than this.

Finally, a little gem of a film. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary on the best sushi chef in the world who runs a tiny ten-seat restaurant in the Tokyo subway. Find it if you can!

RECIPE
Haven't been cooking as much recently but did cook an amazing soup the other night which I will now share with you (Alfred: 'Amazing' is a bit strong. It was .... yeah, OK, it was amazing). Fry garlic, ginger and chillis briefly in oil, add shallots and a carrot chopped up small and sweat gently, then add peeled and chopped up aubergine. Add salt and pepper and continue to sweat. Meanwhile cook your split peas/dal/whatever type of soup-making Indian legume you have in stock. Once the vegetables are soft, add spices (cumin, coriander and turmeric for me) fry for a little, add chopped mushrooms and mix together. Then add in the cooked dal and stock and simmer gently. We use these amazing Japanese eryngii mushrooms which are very common here (Alfred: I think they are called King Oyster or French Horn mushrooms back in Europe)

FOOTBALL
World Cup is coming!!! This will present a major logistical challenge - the games kick off at 2300, 0200, 0500 and 0800 Lao time so I suspect I will have to mutate into a nocturnal being for the duration. I see both Italy and England are at 33-1 with Paddy Power but I think Brazil are going to crack under the pressure so I'm going with one of Argentina, Germany or Spain (Alfred: Wow! How brave! Really going out on a limb there, aren't we?).

Meanwhile, I have been assured that Lao TV will be showing all the games so, as long as I don't want commentary in English, all should be OK. And if not there is a satellite shop just down the road who will install a box for 600,000 kip that will give me Thai English-language coverage (Alfred: That's about 50 euro).

TRAVEL PLANS
We are heading back to Europe for a few weeks, July 29th - August 20th so I hope we can catch up with some of you during that time!!