Sabaidee Pii Mai

Sibaidee Pii Mai (which means Happy Lao New Year) everyone. This is our first time celebrating Pii Mai..Much like the Songkran Festival in Thailand, just about every where in Vientiane we are seeing water fights..kids and adults alike armed to the teeth with water guns, buckets and water hoses and simply douse and shoot any passers-by they see. Traditionally they will just pour water just behind your shoulder as a way of cleansing yourself and wishing you good luck. However, things have changed especially with the young people. They sure are enjoying themselves on these annual public holidays that normally coincide with the Lao New Year. I see tourists or Falangs (Farangs in Thailand) joining the fun too. I suppose since April is the hottest month here, the people dont really mind getting soaked with water as the temperature can really go up to its 40s.

Random pics by iqah and kaka amal

I will keep my ramblings short for this post as the random photos taken by my angels will tell a thousand words.

hooray, Tiger is back!

At last after all the speculations, Tiger just announced that he will be playing at the Masters!! After his 4 month hiatus from his silly dalliance off the golf course, he will play at the Masters where he won his first Major. I am just so excited. It would be extraordinary if he would be able to cope with the media pressure that will tail his every move once he comes out of the closet and not the mention some of the rowdy spectators who would probably heckle him with the many new nick names given to him such as “cheetah woods”. Lets just hope that wont happen. booing and heckling should be best left at contact sports such as soccer or rugby but definitely not in golf. That is why its called a gentlemen’s game.

Missing his own socrates cafe

One of the most difficult things living abroad is the constant anxiety on the conditions of the loved ones you left behind. You just simply dont know when the next bad news going to beep on your sms inbox or whether the next unknown numbers that will appear on your mobile screen belongs to the unfortunate messenger who will have to break the bad tidings that you dont want to hear. Just today I got a message that one of my aunts passed away and my mum was rushed in an ambulance as her blood sugar level went dangerously low and she fainted at home. These two separate incidents just reminded me how constant anxiety is a common sine qua none if you live thousand of miles away from the place you call your real home. There are times when loneliness creep in and these are the times when your mind flies home reminiscing the good and bad memories you left behind. I have tried to avoid loneliness by filling up my time with all sort of activities with my kids and missus. Golf, the gym, swimming, horse riding, cycling, table tennis and coffee lounging with the kids are now in our regular schedule. One good thing of course, the kids are now closer with me. They will wait for me everyday after work begging me to join them in their activities which could be anything from what I listed above or to something quite silly like giving a chase to our two rabbits, mocha and alley that we set free roaming around our compound.

Of course back at home things are no different except that my circle of families is a lot bigger. I would make an effort to spend the weekend with my little siblings even though we are all now grown ups with our own families and our own set of stresses and problems.. I am the one who always feel the need to make up the lost time for I was away from them since the age of 11. So at weekends we would always make an effort to get together and either find a new hangout for dinner or just simply go to our usual hangout for a few sips of mocha latte and either do people watching or simply watch the Premier League on the big wide screen that is now commonplace in most cafes in town. We also will constantly update each other on things some of them petty like one of our little new nieces saying her first word or sometimes on a more serious stuff like the conditions of both our mum and dad. The weekend hangout would basically become our socrates cafe exchanging stories as well as our life experiences worth sharing. These are the few little things I miss. Anyway, as I am updating this post, my first angel Amal is coming to town. She will be here for two weeks for Easter. We are all thrilled. Lil bujik has been asking me when she will arrive. Missus is of course also happy as she will have her own companion.

Happy bday nizam, babah loves you soo much!

we just had one of our sons' bday party today. It wasnt exactly a grand celebration but nizam was happy that he celebrated his 8th bday this year. He was haunting us all weeks for his bday to be celebrated. He was actually born on the 24th Feb and since it was just a day after our National Day we couldn't really hold it on the day he wanted. His friends whom he invited from his school were thrilled when we told them them it was going to be a swimming party at our compound's pool. We also hired one of those huge inflatable slides just to make sure the kids would have a lot of fun things to do. unfortunately missus caught the fever bug. She wasnt feeling well all day and it looked pretty serious. She actually nearly fainted several times but stubborn as she usually is refused to see the doctor by saying she had taken her medications. She ended laying in bed all day though she managed to show herself just to say hi to some of the children's parents who came along with the kids and went back to bed soon after she learned that she nearly fainted on the floor on her way to the ladies'.

As I expected not all the children in Nizam's class came as it was just a start of the easter's school holidays and being a school for expats, most of the children would probably have gone back with their parents to their home countries or gone somewhere abroad for short term break. Despite that we had a good fun time and the children were loving it too. we all know when we were kids there would be a couple of things that we couldnt keep our selves away and water and the slides would be on top of the list. some of my adult guests too joined in the fun by hopping and jumping on the inflatable slides. Obviously I wont publish them here. I myself have always wondered how it was like sliding on those fun-looking inflatables but being expected to maintain a certain set of decorum, I had to refrain myself.

Haiti Earth quake

am I the only one who is wondering why there isn't a single rescue team from the rich OIC countries being sent to help Haiti? I only saw the Turkish team giving their hand. Shame on us :-(

Tiger Woods

Ok, this doesn't seem to go away. After we heard Tiger Wood's admission of his own should I say dalliance, he suddenly became the joke of the twitterverse and the net all over. Even the CNN couldn't help but join in the bandwagon of the tabloid world. Everyone seems to rush in digging up a piece of the story. Twitter's popular tweets were on jokes which I thought were hilarious. But jokes aside, I really pity this guy. I supposed when you are a public figure and rely your income on public endorsements, part of the bargain is that you forfeit your right to privacy. I have been following him as I am such a big fan. In fact I went to see him played golf once in a Johnny Walker Classic some years ago in Bangkok. Funny, I actually bought a package ticket to fly to Bangkok just to see him played. The Tiger effect is that many people who play golf and some that I know don't, are actually drawn to watch golf because there is Tiger playing. I actually will get my self glued if Tiger is playing on the sports channel. He is such a golf wonder, the way he drives the golf ball miles and miles away and the way he gets the ball rolling into the hole with his putter makes you wonder how he could ever do that. Anyway, in the Bangkok tournament, he was reportedly paid $1 million USD appearance fee. Thats right just to appear he was paid that amount of money! But he didn't disappoint us, he actually won that tournament. For the winning prize, it was much much lower than his appearance fee.

well, I just hope in the coming days, the news on his transgression will just go away. Let this be just his private affairs for him to sort it out with his wife and family. Because as for me, I just want to enjoy seeing him play golf again and win as many majors as Jack Nicklaus if not better.