Flashback: "The day I was a tree and a toilet". Chapter 2.

8 o’clock in the morning we were set to meet at the Children’s Library. It was a foggy morning in Luang Prabang. The temperature was pleasant, yet a bit chilly in the early hours. Close to our hotel we found a little eatery for a bit of breakfast.
Laos has very good bread and coffee. That might be some reminiscence from the French influence in the country, and so a typical Laotian breakfast, is a baguette like sandwich with some kind of pork meat pate. None of us had that though at this morning, I had a sandwich with bacon, eggs, horseradish, some shredded carrots and a nice dressing, and Catriona had an omelette as I recall.
We were the first to arrive at the Library, where Chantha, the manager showed us around while waiting for the rest of the party. As they had arrived the box with the books and we were loaded onto the back of a tuk tuk.. 10 minutes later the tuk tuk arrived at the Mekong riverbank.
A huge number of different sized boats were anchored side by side. At the improvised bamboo pier a little boat was lying waiting for us to embark. That was the Library Boat and the captain and a smiling female teacher was welcoming us onboard.
Along the walls of the boat -if you can say that- there were books placed in holders, so when the Library boat came to one of the small villages along the river, the children and their teachers could get on board and read.
Apart from us, Chantha the manager, the female teacher –which name I cannot remember- and then a young volunteer called “Gow”, were onboard and our captain sat the course up the river towards the little village school, somewhere up there, which was going to receive the box of books.
A stunning ride lay ahead of us up the mighty Mekong river, and we had a pleasant time either watching the wilderness along the banks of the river or to chat or read in the books for the Laotian pupils, the ones that was in English, that is. The young man joining us, tried in his best English to explain where we were going, and tried to teach us some simple phrases in Lao. The fog was still hanging over the trees at the banks, and made the view to the hills and mountains further back, like a dreamy opening of a adventure movie. After some time the fog just disappeared, like when you snap with your finger and then the sun was shining from a clear blue sky.

After about one and a half hour we were approaching the village on the left riverbank. Gow was on the phone, I guess to tell that we were approaching and to ask where the boat could anchor up. Suddenly we saw this little army of children running through the bushes in the dense jungle, and down to the sandbanks at the river, where they lined up to have a look at the visitors.
As we stood in front of them, they were all lined up in perfect rows yelling a Laotian greeting simultaneously.
Then the funniest thing happened when we introduced our self, all of them repeated exactly what we’d said, like: “Hello, my name is Jørgen, or Bob or Catriona, Yvonne or Larissa”, and again all in chorus from thirty something small voices.
The female teacher –which name I still can’t remember and the young man told some stories and told why we were there and what we’d brought for them, and all of this happened on the riverbank. The sun had meanwhile gained in strength, or to say it in another way; it had become pretty hot, and out there on the river bank, with no real shade, we could feel it, so the children was told to walk into the shade of some bushes, and while they were sitting there, Gow, the young volunteer and the female –what was her name again- started to tell a story, using some hand puppets and some props like a cardboard tree and a cardboard toilet building, both placed on sticks. I then volunteered to hold them as the backdrop of the story, which presumably had something to do with normal hygiene using the toilet, and something I guess they need to bring to the children in the most remote and rural parts of Laos, embedded in a funny little puppet theater story.
So that was why a had to act like a tree and a toilet at the riverbanks of the Mekong River on Christmas evenings day 2010.

Good stuff from the 80ties gets better in the 00ies!

Gary Numan, one of the synthesizer musicians from the 80ties meets up with Trent Reznor at a concert in London in 2009.
Here the original from back then, and how it turns out when he joins Nine Inch Nails some 20 something years later.

On stage with Nine Inch Nails!

Could sound like some musicians dream, to be on stage with Nine Inch Nails. Here you can try out how it is to be a rock star at a huge concert.

Albrechts Cooking School. Vol. 1

The good thing about getting a “son” aged 16, is that you can start teaching some cooking skills right away. I mean when he is so matured, that he wants to go so far away from home for 6 months, to live with the two of us who has absolutely no experience in parenting, then he must be grown up enough to start cooking for him self –and us.
Albrecht stated that he couldn’t cook. So he got a cookery book –Asian Cuisine- and had to choose a dish he –and I- would make for dinner, as the first lesson in the art of cooking.

His choice fell on this receipt:

Chiang Mai Noodle.

Preparing time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves 4

500 g Hokkien noodles (or what ever)
1 tablespoon oil (peanut oil is the best as the wok gets pretty hot)
3 red Asian shallots, chopped
6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 teaspoons of chopped red chilies
2 teaspoons of red curry paste (from a glass)
350 g of chicken or pork meat in thin slices
1 carrot cut into Julienne (thin sticks)
2 tablespoons of fish sauce (from Asian grocery)
2 teaspoons brown sugar
3 spring onions, chopped
Chopped fresh coriander

1. Boil the noodles in boiling water 2 to 3 minutes, drain and keep warm.
Heat the oil in a wok. Add shallots, garlic, chilies and curry paste and simmer for 2minutes while stirring.
2. Add the meat to the wok and fry untill it changes colour.
Add the carrot sticks, the fish sauce and sugar and bring it to a boil, keep stiring.
3. Mix the noodles to the meat and add the spring onions as garnish, simmer for 1 minute and serve on plates with the chopped fresh coriander on top.

Good job "son".

Flashback: "The day I was a tree and a toilet"!

Chapter one.

I guess that many will agree on this one; Christmas evening’s day can be pretty predictable in terms of what is going to happen. Here I do not think about what could be inside the wrapping paper around the foreseeable Christmas presents tucked away under the unavoidable Christmas tree in the obvious Christmas decorated living room.
This is needless to say that this is when you come from a certain culture, and a culture where this Christmas thing is something and important.
For the writer of this Blog Christmas evening’s day –last year it is already- turned out this way.

We’d arrived in the city of Luang Prabang in Northern Laos on the 23rd of December by bus from Vientiane.Friends of ours -Bob, Yvonne and Larissa, who was also touring in Laos and Cambodia- had arrived the day before us, and had not surprisingly explored the city and the surroundings a bit. When we arrived I had a txt message on my phone to call them at their hotel, for the reason that they had an idea, what we could do on Christmas evening’s day.

Here I need to make a little excursion in the story, and go back one month in time, to tell something related to our work at an International School here in Hong Kong, and show a video.
The students in year 12, has to do something called CAS week. That means that they will take some action including Creativity, Activity and Service, That can be done in many specific ways, such as going to for example Laos and Cambodia to help an organisation called “Schools to Schools”, with their work setting up and supporting schools.
In November a group students and two teachers went to exactly Luang Prabang to help and sponsor a project there called ‘Library Boats”. These boats is a typical Mekong river boat, equipped with books and designated to go up the Mekong river to remote villages hidden in the jungle, and where they do not have normal access to books and or other educational material.

A group of students went to Laos to help and support the Library boat in Luang Prabang.

From this trip we got to know this noticeable project, and naturally this was in our mind when we decided to go to Luang Prabang.

Now in the story we're back in Laos at Christmas time last year, and we'd arrived in Luang Prabang, and the text message from our friends.
So when I called the hotel where our friends was living to get to know what the idea for Christmas evening’s day was, I was not so surprised of their suggestion for the next day.

They had already been to the library and talked to the manager. Obviously she could remember the work our students had done one month previously, so we were welcome. We decided to sponsor some books, some pens and notebooks and some balls and other toys. So the deal was that we should meet at the Library early in the morning, to go with the Library boat up the river to a little school in a village, which had not yet had the visit of the Library boat, and there we could hand over the book gift our-selves.

From two to three!

Why is this blog called: "Dresden - Hong Kong"?
Well, a long time ago both members of this strain of the Mortensen family -the rest is still somewhere in the Danish landscape and the other part in Scotland and England - lived in this nice town in eastern Germany. When we left Dresden to seek new adventures here in Hong Kong, my colleagues from work sat up this blog so i could tell how life turned out, here far more east than the Polish border. That is why it is called :"Dresden - Hong Kong".
As you also can make out when reading the older post, is that we have hosted some friends from Dresden here in the new "heimat", so the connection Dresden - Hong Kong is also in that way maintained.
And then now this connection has come to meet it's biggest challenge ever!
For the next 6 month we will be 3 people here in the house in Tai Wan village, as we are hosting a 16 year old teenager from Dresden. He is going to study at our school and be living in our with us, so it will be a kind of like having a teenager son, but not having him from he was a baby.
I think we are all a bit excited how this is going to work out for him here with us and at the school.

Music Videos of the Day: "Pictures of Matchstick Men"

I've been on the hunt again for good cover versions of great songs.

The original from 1968 with a very young adaption of the Jeans look Rock-band Status Quo, and then the some what underrated US band; "Camper Van Beethoven".

And here the real thing from 1968. I just love the hair!

Happy New Year and welcome twenty eleven!

Twenty - ten has matured to become twenty- eleven. Still in Laos in the capital Vientiane. From Luang Prabang to Vientiane is 420 kilometers. Normally not that much of a distance, but here in Laos, where the infra structure still is very basic, it is. 12 hours and about 4257 curves later you find yourself at the Nothers Bus Station in Vientiane. A bit groggy from a night of turning and turning around in the bus seat to try to find the most, or the least uncomfortable way to sit, or what ever you will call the attempts of wretching the long european legs in between your own seat, and the seat infront,where the passenger there, had bend it as long back as possible, in her attempt to be comfortable, and sleep so the hours would go faster. Not.
The space between those seats in the V.I.P special Airconditioned bus was for sure not designed to suit tall people, but they were kind of not suitable to smaller people either, so there I was with both legs stretched out in the aisle, with my upper body dangeling around in the beat of the movements on the road A 13 up and down the curves on the mountain sides in nothern Laos.
Enough of complaining. All in all it was worth it, the bus ride I mean. But now I know that the next time we visit Laos, I will try to find smaller distances to travel by bus, to break up the journey. It is a place worth visiting. It is rual and overgrown with jungle through the mountanious landscape. The roads are mainly in very poor condition and the few of them which is considered as the mainroads. can be compared with the single track roads in the scottish highlands, with the exception, that on these roads in Scotland, you will meet no heavy trucks or hourly tourists busses, running in both directions.
At this moment we are just killing time at our last destination on this Christmas trip.
We will fly out at 3 Pm to Hanoi, wait there for 4 hours, before the last leg back home, to Hong Kong.