My Lao friends came to visit! A couple of people from my office in Laos came for a conference and leadership development training over four weeks for people with disabilities in the Asia Pacific region. I took my friends on the train because one of them had never been on a train before. I was pleased when a shiny new millenium train pulled up and not some old dirty one. We caught the train over the bridge to Chatswood where the hideous discount stores near the station are still 'closing down'. Sydney is not beautiful here. I took them out to have pho for the first time during their trip. While they eat this nearly everyday, they were missing rice- based dishes. They were complaining about the quantity of bread and sandwiches they had over the past week. The first thing my friend did was dump a huge quantity of chillis on top of his pho for flavour and energy.
They missed papapya salad so we went to a Thai restaurant, Saap Thai, that has north- eastern Thai dishes. They got a fix of sticky rice too. That's the thing I love about Sydney- the variety. My friends ordered in Thai language, and I agreed with them that we could have been in Thailand. The next night we managed to have kangaroo larp, Thai/ Lao spicy salad with a distinctly Australian touch. Crocodile Senior Thai on George St completely aced this. The chilli and snake beans went really well with the roo meat. I came up with this idea independently also, cooking kangaroo larp when I came home. My Lao friend said that when he read the email that I had cooked this roo larp he laughed out really loud! I reminded him there is one kangaroo in Laos in the zoo...
The next weekend I took my Lao friends to the beach. One of my friends had never seen the ocean or the beach in his 25 years. It was funny that his shoes got wet when the wave came in! Then we had a beer at Bondi Icebergs- what a beautiful spot! I had never been there before, but I liked it because of the unobstructed views, it's casual and you can watch people do ocean swims and surf.
It was great to see them and they promised they wouldn't forget me.
No comments:
Post a Comment