Borort

This is my second time visiting Laos during the last couple of years and that was a very nice trip i could say. It is also another travelling experience in my life.

Patuxai monument, Vientiane’s “Arc de Triomphe”

Hard working often offers some rewards at the end.. and actually the trip to Lao this time was to conduct a training workshop for all GMSEENet members over the Knowledge Management Toolkit project. We had a very tough time preparing for this workshop and eventually it was quite successful and fruitful.

Workshop

From 24th to 25th July 2008, this one-and-a-half-day training workshop was held at the Lao-Japan Human Resource Cooperation Center which is located in the campus of National University of Laos (NUOL) in Vieng Chan. The purpose of the workshop is to provide the participants who are the members of GMSEENet (Greater Mekong Subregion Energy and Environment Network) the fundamental knowledge on how to use knowledge management tools for sharing the the information among partner’s universities in the region. Knowledge management tools are sets of opensource applications such as CMS, Webblog, Wiki, Digital Library..  which are useful for information and knowledge sharing. Participants are from different universities and institutions in Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.The trainers for this workshop are all from AIT, who have actively been working in the KMTK project and I am one of those.

Workshop

Departed from AIT by van at 9:30 pm on the 22nd, it took us around 10 hours over the 615km road to reach the Thai-Lao border. The border is in Nong Khai province, the north-east province in Thailand which is only about 24km from Vieng Chan.

A place in Nong Khai, Thailand

Our breakfast – Poridge (Jok in Thai)

It was about 6:30am the next day and we ate breakfast in Nong Khai before crossing the border to Lao. Nong Khai and Vieng Chan are separated by the Mekong river and connect each other by the Thai-Lao Friendship bridge.

Thai-Lao Border (Thai Side) – Imigration Check Out

Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge

Lao Side (Imigration Check In)

After checking out and checking in passport at both side we exchanged some money into Kip and continued our trip to Vieng Chan on other two vans. The vans were bringing us toward the hotel (Novotel) in Vieng Chan. It took about half hour from the border and we reached the hotel around 11:00 am.

The hotel that we stayed

Vieng Chan 

Once entering Lao, along the way, people lifestyle, scenery on both side of the road are quite similar to Cambodia and made me feel like visiting home again.

However my first impression in Lao, is the foods. There are alot of delicious foods to enjoy.

Nem Neoung Shop

Nem Neung (Far more difference from Nem Neung in AIT)

Lunch

Another delicious one

After checking in the hotel room, Khun Chort, a very nice Lao lady who facilitated for the workshop and who is also from AIT, had brought us to one food shop for lunch. It is called Nem Neung. The spcial menu in this shop is Nem Neung the most popular food in Lao.. and it was quite tasty..

To be continued..