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..

Fantastic moment in AIT after the rain has stopped.. A greenish scenery which makes my feeling warm and happy..

Green..

and living in green..

and everywhere is green in AIT..

I really enjoy life in AIT.

These are some of the good books that i suppose to read during this intersem.. I try to get the most from them..

Here comes the rainy season.. in AIT

.. and just thought and felt of sth ..

Last monday’s evening our advisor, Dr. Paul, had invited all of us as his advisees who had graduated and his project team go out for dinner.. The place where we went is along the Chao Praya river, not so far from AIT.. but I could not remember the place anyway. We really had a very good time to have talked and joint the dinner with him.

Since many of our Cambodian friends have just graduated from AIT and went back to home country, there are only fews of us here and make me feel that it is very quiet in AIT nowadays.. Hope there will be more new Cambodian students come to AIT in the upcoming semester.. 

Don’t know what to do.. don’t know where to go..

Just hang out around in AIT with some Nepalese friends.. and took some photos

In front of UFM coffee shop

With some Nepalese friends (Me, Kriti, Jagadish, and Natasha)

With some Nepalese friends (Anu’s in blue)

Water Lily

Evening scenary at one part of AIT

My bicycle, near football field

Football Field

Reflection – Red is around AIT these day..

Working hard does not always mean you can get good result..

After anxiously waiting for the release of grade, I was very shock with one subject when the result is not as what I have expected. Even though I have good mark in my midterm exam, we have put a very strong effort in our course project of which most percentage was provided (good mark for project version 1 and version 2) but it seems that those effort had no meaning at the end.. I don’t know why but maybe our group project was evaluated to be bad finally and including what i did bad for final exam..

I never feel upset like this time.. anyway i just try to forget it.. and try to improve for my next special study.

I hope I can do it better than this.. 

Two semesters have ended in the blink of eyes.. Hard times and happy times have passed for their first step.. The next step will also come through..

Study life is full of joy and fun but not always easy.. And the time that we never forget about this life is the tough times that we try to be good in our academic performance. And this is my first time to experience such great life after coming to AIT. Sometimes it is hard to describe the feeling in such situation.. it is about workloads that we need to deal with. But finally the after every stormy rain there come the clear blue sky and sunshine.

Here come a long semester break.. which mean we can have some times to relax. No feeling is as fantistic as the feeling after all the works and exam have been finished.

 Exhausted Night cos of workload

Night Stuffs

Group Work

Will sleep in the next morning

Project, Project, … Project Presentation

24hrs before project deadline

Project Report Review at 6.30am and wait for printing at 7.30am – whole night without sleep

Classroom becomming workplace in night time

Ah.. sunrise.. it’s time to go to bed (Good night Good morning)

Assignment

Cannot open my eyes anymore.. Sleep in class better than sleep in dorm..

Finally.. everything has been finished.. it is time for party again..

A lot of white hair now..

The only key to be success in AIT — Work Hard and Work Smart!!