Monday, April 14, 2008

Super Armless woman from China!!

She is born armless and yet, she is doing her daily house works as good as... or even better then those with their arms. This lady is simply amazing and i really give my greatest respect to her...!!

This is a "must watch" video, and lets see, what do you feel after watching the video...

Video is in Chinese Cantonese. Will last for about 10 minutes.



I am speechless... amazing...!!


Sunday, April 13, 2008

Placing bets on Luang Namtha


A casino and special trade zone being built along the Chinese-Lao border are only a few of the interesting and unprecedented developments to have recently sprung up in the region, writes ERIKA FRY



(Picture above: The Royal Jinlun Hotel and Casino in the Boten Border Trade Area).

In Laos' Luang Namtha province beyond the salt works and an exuberantly-punctuated Cigarette Factory!, and just before Route 3 runs into China - a golden city is taking form.

It's a strange break from the otherwise lush and forested hills of Luang Namtha - all cleared land and concrete: a squat, sprawling plaza of Chinese restaurants, mobile shops and clothing stalls and the turreted, yellow brick building that rises up, from dirt, behind it. (Picture above: The sports betting centre in the Royal Jinlun.)

This is Boten Golden City.

It's a bit of a misnomer, really. Literally and figuratively the card of one local sales representative listed the address as Boten Colden City.

There's a slum, some bulldozers, and a lot of razed land. The plaza is a strip of garage - like spaces about every third one, open for business but, at least on this Monday midday, empty. A few people smoke around noodle shops and a monkey, kept in a cage outside one of the stalls, squawks and throws orange rinds. You might find a hair salon. (Picture above: Still very much in the works, the Boten Golden City slum and development in the distance.)

The large building, despite its architectural embellishments, is neither gold nor particularly glamorous. It's a 271-room hotel that rates 3 stars and discounts its 600 RMB/night (2,700 baht) deluxe suites for parties greater than 8.

Its lobby is floored with faux marble and furnished with faux wood. People mill around a display case of cigarettes while making their way towards the back of the hotel, where two men with wands and a metal detector stand between them and this gilded city's true attraction, the casino.
Boten Golden City's casino is actually a bunch of them; a group of 9 or so gaming operators that rent rooms, beyond the metal detectors, in the back of the Royal Jinlun Hotel.

The Royal Jinlun is the biggest building for miles and the seeming anchor of this half-finished city - since 2002, a "Border Trade Area" - that lies just 2 kilometres south of the Chinese-Lao border, and where, until a few years ago, Boten (the non-golden village) used to sit. (Picture right: Rubber growing outside Luang Namtha along Route 3).

That Boten, or at least its huts and their inhabitants, have been relocated 20 or so kilometres down the road; a move made simple by government decree and a 30-year deal struck with Chinese investors to develop the land.

Casinos built along borders of gambling-banning lands are not new or unusual in Southeast Asia, and like Poipet in Cambodia, or Burma's Golden Palaces, Boten Golden City was built with neighbours and not natives in mind (gambling is illegal in China; and for the Lao, in Laos too).

While gambling in the country's casinos is off-limits to Lao people, working in them is not and the border-zone gaming industry is an increasingly safe bet as a source of livelihood for some.

There are other casinos in Laos, too, in Vientiane and on its outskirts. Perhaps the grandest of them all is Danasvanh Nam Ngum Resort, a veritable pleasure palace 60 miles outside the capital that comes with 27 gaming tables, a health centre with "saloon services", an 18-hole golf course, and staff that is fluent in Tagalog (along with Chinese, Thai, Lao and English). Despite its capacity for Filipino tour groups, the casino is said to be biggest with the Chinese.

So too, with Boten. Though they get an occasional busload of Thai tourists from Chiang Rai, the casino's clientele is mostly Chinese. The staff is a mix of Chinese and Lao that have learned to speak Chinese. You can bet wagers are made in Chinese RMB.

I encountered several people in my travels, my Lao eco-resort owner among them, that believed the Golden City was not in Laos, but in China. I was told to take my passport; I'd be crossing borders.

Plans for the Boten Border Trade Area were first formalised in October 2002 when Laos' then-Prime Minister Boungnang Vorachith issued a decree to create a zone for the promotion of investment, trade and the creation of jobs.

According to the Laos Embassy's commercial attache in Bangkok, that first agreement has since been cancelled and altered slightly into a concession agreement with Chinese investors. Nonetheless, the plans for the 23-kilometre zone remain essentially the same.

These plans include 12 projects, four of which - basic infrastructure, warehouses, a telecommunications package, and the Royal Jinlun hotel-casino complex - have been completed. The eight others, which include a golf course, a 5-star resort, several cultural centres and a stock exchange, seem to promise the Golden City will rival the Danasvanh Nam Ngum for title of Laos' most remote and pleasurable pleasure palace.

Despite the scale and novelty of the Luang Namtha project, it has been barely publicised in Laos, and thus sometimes the source of wild rumour.

Steven Schipani, a Vientiane-based adviser to the Laos government on tourism who helps with eco-tourism efforts in Luang Namtha, had never seen the zone and said information about the place was scarce.

Meanwhile, Rik Ponne, a member of Unesco Bangkok's Culture Unit who works several projects in Luang Namtha, hadn't been to the Boten Trade Area either, but had read about it in the Vientiane Times . He had also heard rumours (and they are rumours) that it was an "enormous complex" of over 10,000 rooms.


Roads to change

The geography of the trade area is strategic. Besides being just barely over China's border, Boten is also a pit stop along Route 3, the recently constructed highway, which will ultimately link Thailand to Laos to China and no doubt, become a well-travelled trade route.

The 1,850-kilometre road, which was inaugurated on March 31, is part of the Asian Development Bank's North-South Corridor Project and a rare stretch of paved road in a province where a fair number of people still cook by roadside fire.

The highway, which had just a few unfinished dirt stretches when I visited mid-February, has cut travel time through Laos considerably (2 days to a speedy 5 or 6 hours) and shifted, at least physically, the dynamics of village life.

I passed through many places where it seems life has not quite caught up with the infrastructure running past it. At many points the road was just a few steps out a hut's front door, and Route 3 seemed for some less a major roadway than a novelly paved place to conduct village business and recreation. More than once did my bus have to honk, brake, or swerve for kids at play or people sitting cross-legged in the road.

Concerns about the future social impacts of Route 3, which include the region's increased vulnerability to Aids and the trafficking of humans and wildlife, have been wide-ranging and well-documented.

Ponne says that while there are certainly risks in such development, "it is not necessarily a bad thing.

"Obviously there will be major impacts on traditional life when you go into a remote area and bring in lots of outsiders. Many things need to be taken into account, but it can bring many positive trade opportunities and tourism, in addition to threats." (Picture left: Despite the vast change going on around it, work at the salt works near the edge of the Boten Golden City remains the same).

Trade between Laos and China has, of course, been going on for years. But the Boten project is just one in a number of recent deals that many say signifies a shift in Chinese economic strategy and the way the nation deals with its neighbours.

Between 2004 and 2006, China's foreign investment figures increased by more than 70% per year. A fair bit of this largesse has been directed at lesser developed countries along the Mekong River like Laos, and much of it towards ventures in mining, hydropower, rubber and the other resources that fast-industrialising China is running out of.

Schipani says that while there is a new copper mine in Luang Namtha, most Chinese investment in the province has revolved around rubber, corn and cassava production, and is managed through a variety of arrangements which include smallholder agreements and concessions.

The Chinese government refers to this economic strategy as "zou chu qu" or "going out," and in the 2007 fiscal year, China eclipsed Thailand as Laos' leading foreign investor.

The inroads of its influence run far deeper than Boten; red lanterns and Chinese signage start appearing regularly as far south as Oudomxai, about halfway through the 10-hour trip from Luang Prabang to Luang Namtha.

China's "zou chu qu" in Laos is sometimes cast as a nefarious and single-sided development (terms like "Chinese invasion" and "Chinese take-over" are sometimes used, most recently in a deal with the Chinese that involved Vientiane marshland and a large sports complex). While there certainly may be some unscrupulous business in it, this is also an Olympic year to make that case.

Schipani discounts much of this rhetoric. "Policy is that the country is open for investment from anywhere. Most in Luang Namtha happens to be Chinese because of geography and business networks, but in other parts of the country you see investment by the Thais or Vietnam.

"Like anything, there are mixed feelings. Some people are happy about the help, others have fears that these investors are more business savvy."

Like Ponne, Schipani believes this influx of investment and infrastructure could mean either good or bad things for northern Laos, depending on how such deals are managed.

"The door to the country is really open right now. The impacts and what this brings in the future will really depend on how well Laos can manage the change and negotiate these contracts. There is certainly lots of opportunity, it just needs to be planned carefully," says Schipani.

He notes that the government's commitment to conserve environment and culture, and the local people's ability to keep tenure over ancestral lands, while gaining technical and financial assistance, is particularly important.

Foreign investment also very much figures into Laos' poverty reduction plans, and its goal to shake Least Developed Country status by 2020. (Picture above: A stall at Luang Namtha city's Chinese market).

In recent years, the country has made strides toward this. Since 2001, the country's economy has grown by 6 or 7% per year and poverty levels have fallen from 46% to 31% since 1992.

Two hours south of Boten in Luang Namtha city, for example, there are signs of the prosperity that has come with eco-tourism and the recent, not completely uncontroversial rubber boom.

One can find internet and electricity; sturdy two-storey homes and, for items as miscellaneous as toy trucks and coonskin hats, a sizeable outpost of Chinese goods.

An airport is in the works and the place is now relatively accessible, via Route 3. At the time my visit the airport was far from functional: in fact, one of the days, an end of its unpaved airstrip was festooned with a crepe-paper, Tunnel of Love-like display, doubling as wedding reception venue.

Whether that same prosperity will reach the Golden City remains to be seen, but for now, the casino is built, and it's open for business.

(Picture above: The Luang Namtha airport, currently under development. Here, it hosts a wedding reception).


Into the casino

As I learned, the men with wands are diligent about confiscating the obvious (cameras) and the non-obvious (reading materials), and pointing you to the wall of small metal storage lockers.

The room feels sealed and unventilated; like neither night nor day; and maybe a bit like prison, with this wall-mounted metal; the austere white walls; and the hard-to-shake sense that this room hasn't been flushed with fresh air, maybe ever.

Breaking workers play their part (only slightly diminished by bowties and attire that is movie usherish) by looking bored and slumping against the wall the way so many movies imagine prison inmates cling to chainlink fence.

But this is all the better to get you into the gambling dens, which turn out to be less like prison than the guts of an overheating pinball machine - all smoke, florescent light and the frenetic ringing of bells which are apparently meaningful in the game of Baccarat.

In all nine of the Golden City's gambling rooms, they play Baccarat and only Baccarat. Though operators initially offered other games when they opened over a year ago, they soon ceded to their customers' single-minded tastes for the game.

There is also sports-betting centre before you pass the metal and reading material checkpoint. The centre, which is run by a Lao casino operator who used to work in Vientiane, is by far the most glamorous looking space (higher quality faux wood?) in the whole hotel-casino complex, and maybe in all the Golden City, though the day I visited, neither the betting options, nor the wall of flat screen TVs seemed to be drawing customers. I imagine this had something to do with the complexity of it all: on just one of the centre's "live football match coupons," anong many, many other things, I could have bet who would win the Olympiakos-Chelsea football match or which team would be the first to score or whether the "total corners" would be under, over, or exactly 10.

Instead the 500 or so customers had surrounded select tables inside playing, but not looking particularly enlivened by their games of Baccarat (lethargy brought on by the smoke or the sense - no clocks! no windows! - that you have stepped outside time, perhaps.)

Despite being run by a variety of operators, the rooms are essentially the same. They all ring maddeningly with bells.

I settled in the centre one, which like the others, seemed overstaffed and overdressed. A few from the bloated ranks of the room's waitstaff moved about the room with cardboard cups of ramen (soon to be slurped up by one of the players straight off the table) and Coca Cola hoisted over one shoulder, but most crowded around tables, looking on.

I, too, picked one of the busiest tables, where Somxai, a nice young man in a red vest and bowtie was presiding.

Though he spoke to the players in Chinese, he is Lao. He came to Boten a year or so ago when he was moved from a casino in Vientiane, where he had worked and been trained.

He says he mostly sees gamblers coming across the border from Yunnan, some of whom will, in a trip to the Golden City, blow through 1 or 2 million RMB.

They are not the only losers though.

There was also, briefly, another casino in Boten. It was smaller, and operated across the road from the Royal Jinlun, in a warehouse-like space behind what appears to be large garages, but are actually the worker's dormitories.

The day I visited it was empty. Like games other than Baccarat in Boten, the casino had quickly folded.


This is the first part in a series about the opening of Route 3.


Article is available from:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/Perspective/13Apr2008_pers14.php


Wednesday, April 9, 2008

How Smart Are You? (QUIZ)



If you are good in lateral thinking, then you can be agood strategic thinker or... be part of a Think Tank. Here is an interesting quiz to test your Lateral Thinking abilities...
Think!! Think!! Think!!



Question #1


There is a man who lives on the top floor of a verytall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down tothe ground floor to leave the building to go to work.Upon returning from work though, he can only travelhalf way up in the lift and has to walk the rest ofthe way unless it's raining! Why?


To check your answer, click [ HERE ]
(Click 'Back Arrow' to return back)

REMARK: (This is probably the best known and most celebratedof all lateral thinking puzzles. It is a true classic.Although there are many possible solutions which fitthe initial conditions, only the canonical answer istruly satisfying. )





Question #2


A man and his son are in a car accident. The fatherdies on the scene, but the child is rushed to thehospital. When he arrives the surgeon says,

'I can't operate on this boy, he is my son!

'How can this be?


To check your answer, click [ HERE ]
(Click 'Back Arrow' to return back)





Question #3


A man is wearing black. Black shoes, socks,trousers, lumper, gloves and balaclava. He is walking down a black street with all the street lamps off.

A black car is coming towards him with its light offbut somehow manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?


To check your answer, click [ HERE ]
(Click 'Back Arrow' to return back)





Question #4


Why is it better to have round manhole covers thansquare ones? This is logical rather than lateral, butit is a good puzzle that can be solved by lateralthinking techniques. It is supposedly used by a verywell-known software company as an interview questionfor prospective employees.


To check your answer, click [ HERE ]
(Click 'Back Arrow' to return back)





Question #5


A man went to a party and drank some of the punch.

He then left early. Everyone else at the party whodrank the punch subsequently died of poisoning. Whydid the man not die?


To check your answer, click [ HERE ]
(Click 'Back Arrow' to return back)






Question #6


A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for aglass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and pointsit at the man. The man says 'Thank you' and walks out.


To check your answer, click [ HERE ]
(Click 'Back Arrow' to return back)

REMARK: (This puzzle claims to be the best of the genre. It is simple in its statement, absolutely baffling and yet with a completely satisfying solution. Most people struggle very hard to solve this one yet they like the answer when they hear it or have the satisfaction offiguring it out.)


[END]

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

My way to the concert

At about 2:00PM, I was already on my way in attending for the concert. However, I have planned to kill two birds in one stone; or, maybe to be more accurate, to kill three birds in one stone!! LOL… I have an appointment with some one at Xayoh Restaurant which is at the opposite of the stadium. Beside that, I also want to send my report to my boss in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the internet cafĂ© which is just about 50 meters from Xayoh Restaurant which the shop claims that, their internet speed is the fastest in town… but I think, is the fastest among the snails (in town)!!

Weather is terribly hot on that day! My self was sweat-up bathing under the hot sun. As approaching to Xayoh Restaurant on my meeting appointment, I have been told by the restaurant’s waiter that, the dinning hall inside the restaurant is temporary closed for small maintenance, and have to be seated outside of the restaurant corridor with few big fans blowing, I refuse and trying to find a place with air-conditioning, therefore moving to the next restaurant behind it – Lotus Restaurant.

With much disappointment, I notice that, the dinning hall of this restaurant has no air-conditioning install! Without having a third choice, I choose a table which is nearest to a fan. Already in front at my left was a European lady seem reading something on her “Lonely Planet” traveling book and another couple at their early seventy which I am so much confident from their speech, must have came from French, which are just sitting next to my table.

With a liter of the chilling draft Lao beer, I start notice that, the atmosphere in the dinning hall is actually quite ‘cooling’ even without an air-conditioning system. I felt and getting more comfortable…

Renovated from an old French house, this restaurant has his taste of his own. The interior decoration is very simple and yet beautiful. As a person who know nothing about architecture, I still have a feeling that, the architecture and the design of the structure in this old house, are playing a very important role on the recirculation of the air which made the house remain its cooling even it was over 90 degrees at the outside! It also shown that, how wise the peoples before us were, who has the ideas to manipulate the available elements according to the environments!





At about 4:00PM, I left the restaurant and walking to the stadium for the concert. The surrounding area is so quiet but yet I do not suspect any thing! The time printed in the ticket is suppose at 3:00PM because as conjunction to 1st anniversary of Tigo, there will have some games before the concert. Usually, the concert (any concert) will start at about 7:00PM. Anyhow, did not think on all those! As I mentioned in my previous blog, I have not been to the stadium even I have been in Laos for ten years! The environment and its surround on the way to the stadium therefore seem ‘new’ to me.
Now only I knew, actually, there is a tennis club there which not more then 3 tennis courts and also a public swimming pool with one kid pool at the other part not far from the tennis club.

When I reached the entrance gate, I told the boy there that I am going in for Tigo 1st anniversary concert. As to my surprise, he told me that, the location is moved to ITECC at the last minute! Oh my dear…!!

Immediately, I have two choices appeared in my mind – to go or not to go! ITECC is quite a distance from here (of course still within Vientiane City). If I go there direct from my house, it will be much nearer. Anyway, I told my self, I have all the way here, why not complete-up the whole journey? Yes, I will go to ITECC for the concert!

I walked out to the main road where the Xayoh Restaurant is. I stop a passing-by tuk-tuk (tricycle motorbike) for a ride to ITECC. As to my usual practice, I will ask for the price before I climb up to the vehicle. One should not take for granted for the price or assume a fixed price for a trip by not asking first because some dishonor tuk-tuk driver will taking advantage by increasing the price when you reached to your destination and this mostly happened to foreigners!

30,000Kips, the tuk-tuk driver demand. No way, I murmur myself! As usual, the increase of petrol price will be their main excuse for demanding for a higher price from customers. I have been to this country for ten years and have been staying in Vientiane all these years so I am so much understand on all these rubbish…!!

I then refused and walk to the other main road which about 200 meter from the stadium; behind the Lao Plaza Hotel next to the Korean Bowing Center. I waved for a passing-by tuk-tuk for ITECC and he is requesting me for 20,000Kips. 15,000Kips, I demand. 18,000Kips, he counter demand with me! No…, I walk off and before I manage to wave for another coming tuk-tuk behind him, he quickly call me and ask me to climb-up and agreed to take me to ITECC with my offered price of 15,000Kips!

By just walking for about 200 meter to another direction, I have managed to save from paying 30,000Kips to 15,000Kips only – with a discount of 50%! In Vientiane, one must know the right way to demand and the right place to wait for this tricycle transport even sometime, needs you to walk across to another block or else, you will always paying extra for the unnecessary…!!

To be continue...: Next: Before the concert.

Friday, April 4, 2008

The South Korean 'Paran' Concert.



I doesn’t know why out of a sudden, I am feeling of going for a concert after I scrolled thru the promo that came in to my mobile from Tigo, my network provider.

Join the 1 yr celebrations of TIGO with PARAN hottest Korean Band, @ National Stadium on 5 th of April 2008 from 3 pm. Get your tickets now. Call 123 for info

I made a call to Tigo customer service for enquiries and as per my expectation, as the previous concerts organized by Tigo, it’s a ‘free concert’! A free concert here is in the term that, one have to top-up the prepaid phone with a number of amount, in order to be given for a ‘free’ ticket. Yeah… it’s no harm, because the top-up credit will still belong to me for making calls.

As for this concert, one got to top-up thru their ‘EZLoad program’ at the Tigo head quarter. With a 20,000 Kips of top-up, a ‘normal ticket’ will be given and by top-up to 100,000 Kips, a such called ‘VIP Ticket’ will be issued as complimentary.

I went to Tigo head-quarter yesterday evening after the rain stopped. As I approached to the group of sweet ladies who are busy serving quite a number of customers at that moment, I then met Mr. Bounmmy, my old friend where we use to work together in the same company many many years ago. Mr. Bounmmy is the Customer Service manager of Tigo.

After a short chat with him and told him that my intention is to top-up my mobile just for a free concert ticket, then he asked me for how many tickets that I needs. While I am handing-out my 100,000 Kips for him, he took out a ticket and hand it over to me!

"It’s OK, no need to top-up! It’s for you free", he added. He know me well that, I am actually using ETL network where I am on a monthly bill payment and Tigo is just my second number. 100,000 Kips might be too much for me to finish off since, i am just using Tigo service mainly on SMS only. Without hesitate, I thank him for the free ticket and have to leave without a longer chat since my other friend is waiting for me in the car.

This will be my first experience with Tigo organized concert. The best part out of this is, this will be my first time as well, stepping into the Lao National Stadium after being here, in this country, for the past ten years!!

God bless the concert…!! LOL…!!



Thursday, April 3, 2008

I will back home soon!




I have not been back to my hometown for almost 3 years already which I used to, once a year before this. My last trip was about 3 years ago when my dad was hospitalized and later passed away at the age of 79. Since return back here at Laos, I have too much commitment with my job at the later years and failed to manage some spare time for going back. This is one of my many reasons that I had! Actually, deep in my heart, I’m really doesn’t have the feeling of returning home, especially when I try to imagine that, I am in the house but without my dad around…!!

I am the youngest in the family. When I was at home, I used to chat with my dad on every thing from personal matters to country politics. He is keen when we speaks on the recent politics development even neither of us are or been as a politician!

This trip home is too sentimental to me. I am taking the opportunity on my eldest sister’s birthday which is on the 5th of May to return and celebrate with her. I have no intention to inform her on my return, as to give her a surprise visit and celebration! She is the only one left in the house since my dad was passed away. My mum has left all of us, for more then ten years, and now my dad has reunion with her. My sister is a very strong lady, to me and all these time, since my dad is not around, she has been doing everything by her own, with no one assistance – maybe, if do, the neighbours. She is making her own decision on everything. I am really owing to her a lot…

Too much thing needs to be settled once back home. The first thing I got to do is to get my identity card renewed. The country was changing to the new ‘micro chips ID Card’ and I am still holding the old type. For sure, I will be compound for being late to convert to the new one, even one year of time have been given by the government for the citizens to make for the renewal. During that period, I was still in Laos. I hope my excuse will be accepted and will not be fine too heavily on this.

The “Inland Revenue” is another matter to make me headache! They had tax me back dated on my income, base on estimation! I already fax my explanation latter to them from here and any how, my ‘case’ is still in pending until I meet them personally for clarification. I am not liable for tax in Malaysia because I got my revenue in Laos and had has paid my income tax to the local authority here as according to their law. If they tax me, then I will be ‘double taxed’ which is too un-fare to me!!

About my leave home, actually, I still haven’t submit my leave application to my head office in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) for approval but my big boss will be coming to Laos in the middle of this month (April) therefore, I just request thru him. I don’t think it will be a matter! Further more, I am also needed to apply for a China visa. I can apply the visa from the China Embassy here in Vientiane, but since going back home, I have been thinking to get it done over there, in KL (Kuala Lumpur).

My Malaysian friend just informed me that, the Multiply Visa which is good for ONE YEAR is cost for RM100 only (RM100/3.2=US$31.25)! It’s too cheap!! It’s takes about US$20-US$30 for a SINGLE ENTRY visa, if I do it here, in Vientiane! (I can’t remember the actual price. I have not apply for a long time!) The single entry visa cost if apply in Malaysia is only RM30! (RM30/3.2=US$9.38). It’s only takes about 24 hours for the processing, as what been informed to me by my Malaysian friend. “Just get it done!” I told myself! It’s no harm for an extra visa in the passport!

After returning from Malaysia, I have a plan to go to the China border (Lao-China border). I intend to go there not because of getting the China visa (LOL!!) but, I already planned these for a long time. I will be going there for official and not for holiday. I got to do some ‘marketing survey’ for the office. Actually, I suppose to go there on late last year but due to some unforeseen circumstances, the trip is keep-on postponing until today. Hopefully, after returning from Malaysia, I can cleared off this trip plan from my busy schedule, as well in finding another good chance (perhaps I should called it as “excuse”) to ‘officially’ utilize my China Multiply Visa, by entering to China, from Laos side, thru the Lao-China border… yessss!!