Lao - Currency

For the first couple of days, my head was swimming with the figures.

1 USD = 7,800 Kip to 9,800 Kip (depending on who you’re asking and trading with)

1 Bhatt = 265 Kip to 280 Kip

And here’s the additional catch for Malaysians. We can’t trade for Lao Kip in our Malaysian Ringgit (or in Malaysia for that matter), so you can exchange for Bhatt and USD (in Malaysia), and then for Kip in Lao.

1 RM = 9.8 Bhatt (est) = 2,597 to 2,744 Kip

1 USD = 3.23 RM (on 5^th April 2008) hence, 1 RM = 2,415 to 3,034 Kip

Negotiating for goods became that much more interesting. It was a game of “Who gets more confused first”. You, or the trader.

At one point I was bargaining for scarves.

After negotiating the price down from 5 USD (5 x 8,700 = 43,500 Kip per piece) to 40,000 Kip a piece, the lady was adamantly unable to reduce the price from 120,000 Kip to 105,000 Kip for 3 pieces (35,000 Kip per piece for ‘bulk purchase’). I didn’t have enough Kip, so she suggested USD. Strangely, she was amicably agreeable when I suggested 4 USD a piece (4 x 8,700 = 34,800 Kip a piece). That’s 5,200 Kip less then her insistent price of 40,000 Kip.

At first I thought, maybe Lao traders preferred USD, but anther trader selling bags preferred I pay 55,000 Kip instead of 6 USD (6 x 8,700 = 52,200 Kip).

Even hotels contradicted on their currency exchange rate. The first hotel I stayed in charged me 19 USD a night based on an exchange rate of 1 USD = 7,800 Kip. The second one cost 17 USD with a rate of 1 USD = 9,800 Kip. My friends and I saw yet another pretty decent guest house which valued 1 USD as 10,000 Kip.

If you have an uncanny love for numbers, eateries with receipts come in 3 to 4 currency denomination options for a delightful dinner-after game of digits.

Lao - Vang Vieng

“Eat a papaya, save the seed, and give the seed to the villagers to grow.”

“To recycle this brochure, give it to others to read or return it to our office.”

The simple things we tend to forget and take for granted.

Our daily waste is but a normal routine. We’ve numbed ourselves to the numerous junk mail in our post boxes and increasingly maddening number of posters and flyers on our car windshields and city streets. We not only NOT think about the seeds we throw out, we throw out food itself without so much as a thought, much less remorse. In offices, we click print and copy as fluidly as we flick open our mobile phones and click call – without much thought.

Imagine a place where a simple brochure is utilised to tatters before being recycled. A place where simple resources are treasured. Imagine a world without waste which translates into simple appreciation of everything and everyone in it.

Lao - Songkran

13th April 2008

My friends were hoping to escape Songkran in Thailand. What they didn’t know was that Lao is just as enthusiastic about the Water Festival. I had a few refreshing splashes from water guns and buckets walking down the streets of Vientiane.

We ventured from Vientiane to Vang Vieng by bus. All the way on our journey back from Vang Vieng, the bus was greeted by buckets and water hoses. Anyone who dared venture off it was in for a bath.