Post for those who think Britain is the centre of the world.

I can’t bear to write about Grenfell Tower. Besides, I don't believe anything I wrote could approach the horror that so many families are living through. 

Behind that tragedy, the political shenanigans continue - both here in the U.K. and across the Atlantic in America. And there is a risk, with all the media attention on the comings and goings, that we believe we are the most important people in the world.

Meanwhile, riots continue in Venezuela. The country has one of the richest oil fields in the world, and still people are starving. The western press, at last, are following the riots - but will we ever really know how many people have died there?

Mugabe is still in power in Zimbabwe. It is a beautiful country with brave, resourceful people - who are still living from hand to mouth … if they are lucky. There is no freedom of speech - so can we ever really know how many people are dying of hunger?

Some years ago I went to Laos. It is the most bombed country in the world - there are more unexploded bombs there than people. They can be anywhere: beside the road, behind the villages, in school playgrounds. How do people carry on living with that?

Refugees still flee from Syria and conflicts in Africa. The lucky few are made welcome in new countries. Some find themselves in camps, waiting for some nameless authority to make decisions about them, as if they are no more significant than luggage. Many are wandering and frightened and alone. Nobody chooses to live like that.

As many of you know, I was in Malawi in the winter. It's the first country I've visited which left me pessimistic about the depth of the poverty and the lack of co-ordinated efforts to address it. Over eighty per cent of the population is deemed to be in need. My efforts to highlight the plight of Malawians will soon be published.

While we're busy (and we need to be busy making sure our politicians are accountable) people across the world are suffering. One of the things I've learned from my travels is that we all need the same things: enough to eat, somewhere safe to sleep, and to love and be loved. Surely those of us who can take that for granted can find the energy to think about men and women all over the world, from Grenfell Tower to Caracas to Lilongwe, who wake without knowing when they might eat again.

Winners!!

Two winners, as promised, in my little competition:

Jacqueline Pye - who got it absolutely right, when she said Hove and Brighton (I was actually in Hove, and looking towards Brighton).

And Terry Tyler, who came out of the hat first of those who just said Brighton.

I'll be in touch with both of you - and this is what you will win:

Another book?

Yes, another book - a real book in response to all those who have asked me to put my Over the Hill ebooks into print. So here you will find my adventures in the Himalayas, including a rather alarming encounter with a tiger, how I shared a room with a rat in Laos, and finally my salsa through Cuba.

But, some will say, these are all available as ebooks - and you are right. They are. But many people have asked for print copies, to put on their shelves, to share with friends, and so I've put these three journeys together.

So, you might be asking, if I've read the ebooks do I find anything new in From the Inside Looking Out. No - only a brief introduction. If ebook are your thing, then there's no point in buying this purely for decoration. (Aren't I shooting myself in the foot - suggesting people don't buy it if they've read the ebooks? Maybe, but I'd rather be honest with a shot foot than have you accuse me of implying that I've deceived you)

I've got the proofs, and it's at the final tinkering stage - so my winners will have to wait a week or two. But I'll get in contact both of you to get your addresses and send it off to you as soon as the final copies arrive.

One brave woman

Last week there was a bit of fluttering about my post supporting International Women's Day. So I thought I'd give you a snippet about one brave woman I met when I was in Laos. I met her in a cafe in Luang Prebang; I'd already learned some of the details about the bombing of Laos by American fighters during the Vietnam War.

I am gathering myself to leave the cafe when a small, olive-skinned woman walks across. She has piercing dark eyes and black hair pulled on back of her head.

            ‘Are you a professor?’ she says. It is a strange way to begin a conversation and I’m flummoxed. In my sweeping skirt and shirt that needs ironing I can’t believe I look like an academic.

            ‘I’m Carol. I’m meeting a professor here,’ she says. ‘To help with my research; into the psychology of Buddhism.’

            She has an accent from the west coast of America, and the eyes of someone from south-east Asia. Her voice is so soft I must lean forward to hear her.  She picks up a heavy book. ‘I think there must be something, in the psychology, that helps understand why the Laos are as accepting as they are. Buddhism, you see,’ – she struggles to find a page as if to prove her point – ‘is the only religion that does not sanction war. Which makes what happened here all the more terrible. The most bombed country in the world … and Nixon told us it wasn’t happening.’

It is a relief to meet someone as upset about this as I am. I confess my own struggle to understand why the Lao don’t hate us.

‘They never did. When I was here before – in about 1964, I think it was, at the start of the bombing, I was with a medical unit, doing admin, they were astonishing. We had places to stay, but the things we saw …’ She lets the sentence hang and I wait. ‘There were so many factions. We were at a dinner, with a General. His son loved a girl from another group. Three days later the son was brought into us with gunshot wounds – he was dying and I wanted to sit with him, hold his hand while he died. Like anyone would.’ She looked at me, as if for confirmation that compassion was permitted. ‘I was told to leave him alone; it wasn’t safe. No one knew if it was someone from the General’s side disapproving of the son’s choice of girlfriend, or from the other side wanting to upset him. If it was known I’d befriended him, well, they might have come after me.’ Now her look made sense.

She took a deep breath. Was she working herself up to say something even more difficult? ‘Americans were dying here too,’ she said at last, ‘though they didn’t know that at home. If they died here their families were told they were missing in Vietnam. Even now families don’t know if their loved ones died here.’

We arrange to have supper together before I leave Luang Prabang. We settle in a restaurant and our chatter is inconsequential for a while, but she is easily distracted and I feel sure she has something she needs to say. As our food arrives she leans across the table to whisper to me.

            ‘I read a dreadful thing,’ she says. ‘In my books, talking about the war here. That project, the medical project – it was part of a CIA operation. They never told me.’ Her eyes are wide with the horror of it. ‘I never knew, honestly I never knew. The CIA, here, in Laos, and the bombing.’

            It hangs, her confession, over our curry. She is not hungry and I play with my rice. I have no idea how to reply – or even how to think about it.

            ‘The CIA,’ she says again. It is as if she needs to say it over and over to help herself believe it. ‘I never knew; honestly I never knew. It’s only the reading I’ve done this week – I was young; nobody told me.’

            I have no idea if she needs consoling, or affirming that I believe her (which I do), that it is truly shocking. All of which I want to say but somehow it is so appalling that I can’t find the words.

            Our meal is soon over; we exchange addresses, hug, and go our separate ways, promising to keep in touch. I slip into a bar for a beer; she has given me much to think about. She’s asked about my writing – and knows I’ll tell this story. She has told me much more than the high and mighty of America might want disclosed. She will recognise herself here. The core of this story is as she told it. But I’ve played with her biography; I cannot put her a risk.

This is an edited extract from Bombs and Butterflies - there are links to the right of this blog if you want to read more. Or trot across to the website here.

Is Laos so different from Cambodia?

I thought you went to Laos, I hear you say. (Well, I don't, but you know what I mean.) My recent book, Bombs and Butterflies, is all about my trip to Laos last winter. So why the chatter about Cambodia?

Well, the cobra came up, so to speak, so I wrote about that. And I couldn't do that without pointing out that there was so much more to Cambodia than snakes and temples. But you're right - so here are some thoughts about Laos.

Laos and Cambodia are neighbours. They both wrestle the dialogue between ancient ways of thinking and the urgency of western ideas. They have both experienced trauma in living memory - trauma that runs far deeper than most of us could possibly imagine.

And yet, in spite of all that, Laos is hugely different. To begin with, Cambodia has had to come terms with Khmer murdering Khmer. They slaughtered their own people in their millions. Some of those who survived are traumatised - but they have had many children. And it is the children, young people now, who work their socks off to rebuild the country. Killing fields, they say - pah! Look to the future. I was in Phnom Penh for Independence Day and every young person in the city was in the central park, speakers blaring, dancing, singing, Rocking all over the World. It felt like a joyful two fingers to the past - they have a country to rebuild and no one is going to stop them.

In contrast, the devastation in Laos came from the air - from American bombing. Raids were sent into to Laos every eight minutes for nine years. (Can you begin to imagine that?). They responded by closing their borders, for forty years. Why wouldn't they? Who was there left to trust? Slowly, with the support of China, they are beginning to allow the rest of the world to peer through their doorways.

As a visitor (I hope I was a visitor, and not simply a tourist), it takes time to meet people, to find a language we both understand, to begin to engage with their experiences - which makes sense in view of such recent devastation. I found them to be kind and generous, and quietly welcoming. A young woman at a Homestay, who carried my luggage and helped me up and down the steps (I'm ancient by Laotian standards) even offered to wash my feet. It was humbling, when she knew nothing about me other than the colour of my skin, that she should go to such lengths to show hospitality.

And the countryside is astonishingly beautiful: mountains, rich with heavy green, impenetrable to the likes of me but no doubt a metropolis of wild life. There are villages reachable only by river - what better way to travel. And so many quiet corners to contemplate this lovely country and its brave people.

As some of you know, my camera was stolen just before I left, and so I have no pictures. But Laura Zera has also been to Laos, and came back with some wonderful photos that are on her blog - over two whole posts!! Here and here. She has given me permission to use her pictures on this blog - but that feels unfair, given that she took them and has been so generous. So do go and have a look. (And you can find Laura on twitter - @laurazera - she's some fascinating mental health stuff as well as the travelling. What a woman!)

It's launch day for Bombs and Butterflies

Phew - it's been a journey, getting this little ebook ready for publication. It's very different from Hidden Tiger - there were no cyclones, no terrifying brush with wild life (though I did have an interesting encounter with a rat).

The blurb -

Did you know that Laos is the most bombed country in the world? If Jo Carroll had spent more time with her guidebooks and less with a physiotherapist preparing her creaking knees for squat toilets she'd have been better prepared when she crossed the Mekong in a long boat and stepped into the chaos of Huay Xai. But bombs still lie in Laos' jungles, in the rice paddies, and in the playgrounds. While young people open their doors to new ideas and possibilities, memories of war are etched on the faces of the old.

What sort of welcome would they give a western woman, wandering around with her notebook? Would they dare let her peer into their secret corners?

Now, I'm off to buy launch cake. Chocolate or lemon drizzle? Chocolate and lemon drizzle? Meanwhile, So maybe you'd like to take the opportunity to have a little look at my ebook.

You can buy it on Amazon here if you are in the UK, and here in America.
You prefer Smashwords: here. And you'll find it here on Kobo.

One night in a Homestay, in Northern Laos

Soon, very soon, I'll put the links to Bombs and Butterflies on the side bar of this blog, and remind you of the various places you can find it.

But, while we're waiting for Kindle to cook it, here are two extracts, both set in the Homestay in a village near Luang Namtha. 'Nick' is our guide, and 'Lucy' one of the women I met on a bus.

A Homestay opportunity is one reason I’ve chosen an organised trip to the north of Laos. Finding a home to take you in, when travelling independently, has always seemed a little risky. This way I can spend a night in a village, catch a glimpse of rural life, and hopefully meet local people who will regale me with their stories. I have my pen and notebook ready.

There is a village walk planned, but first we must leave our luggage. . . I slip my shoes off at the bottom of a flight of wooden steps, and begin to clamber, steadily, upwards. Immediately a girl of about fourteen is beside me, taking my elbow. She smiles, steers me on upwards and into a large room. She nods, in a way that asks if I’m all right. She takes the weight off my pack as I slip it off. I feel a bit like an old person being helped across the road. Her motives are kind – and I can see her mother, behind her, grinning her approval at every step. And so I relax any grumpiness at the suggestion that I might need such assistance and accept it with good grace.

‘What is your name?’ she asks.

‘My name is Jo; what is your name?’

It seems her English lessons don’t run to replying, for her next question is, ‘How old are you?’

‘Sixty-two,’ I tell her.

She gasps; her eyes widen. She says something to her mother, who walks across and peers into my eyes. She calls down to a man standing below the house, and he runs up the steps to inspect me. The lass asks my age again, as if trying to make sure she heard right the first time. It is clear I should be dead by now.

I am, I recognise, an exhibit. But it doesn’t matter. In many ways it is an advantage; maybe I can use it as a way into conversations, find out how it feels to be really old here. Questions pile up in my head.

But there is no one to ask. The lass who helps me has exhausted her limited English. No one else in the family speaks a word. I am treated like a queen from a foreign land, when I would rather be able to put my feet up by their fire (metaphorically speaking) and swap stories.

Later, we gather round a camp fire to drink, Lao-style. A small plastic cup is filled with beer and the first person in the circle swigs it down. The same cup is refilled, passed to the second person – and on round the circle. As each bottle is emptied another is opened. And if the crate is finished, someone buys another. Maya has a hygienic hissy fit and will not drink. But the rest of us put Western germ-qualms to the back of our minds. Well, it’s that, or no beer. And it’s a convivial way to drink – though the pressure to throw it down, when you know that the person next to you is already salivating, is strong.

The Lao are very proud of their beer – known as Beerlao. It is made from rice, and is heavier than the hop variety. In fact it is so heavy it is like drinking food. Complan without the vitamins. Or any other goodness, for that matter. And it goes down particularly well round a camp fire.

Children hover behind us – they are never far away. Lucy and I play: we sing Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, and then Lucy stands up to show them I’m A Little Teapot, to universal applause. I flush with the joy of playing with children; and can’t resist that smug shiver which comes with making a child giggle.

It is your turn, we say to them, expecting Laotian rhythms and exotic finger-clicking. The children, led by one boy who has clearly done this many times before, clears a space; even the lads quieten to watch them. They sort themselves into a line; the boy on the end nods and, on his count of ‘one, two, three…’ they burst out with ‘Hey, Macarena’, wiggle their bottoms, wave their arms, sing the song and dance in a display many a party-goer would be proud of. Their spectacle complete, they puff, then look at Lucy and me as if to say, ‘Top that!’

Mercifully, Nick interrupts to tell us that it is suppertime.

What a wonderful new cover!

Confession-time. I emailed Mark with the title of the new Laos book as I knew it would be a pain to design a cover and couldn't face that look on his face that said, 'Oooh, I'm really not sure about this.' (He did reply with an email along those lines but at least I didn't feel a need to crawl away and think of a new title.)

It all went quiet, and then this happened:

Take a quick look.

Now look again ... at all those feathers in the butterfly wing ... no, they're not feathers.

(He seems to cook ideas somehow. They simmer when he's doing other things. And then - wham - thing like this appear.)

Where, you might be asking, is the book?  It's very close now - if you want to read the extract that makes sense of the title you can find it here.

And if anyone would like a copy to review, or a blog visit, then please let me know.

Can you write, with All That going on?

We all have times that are a bit full of Life, Ketchup times, when thinking gets a bit scrambled (I know, mixed metaphors, but what do you expect at times like these ...)

Yet I can write. Not made-up stuff. None of those exercises that suggest you imagine yourself on a distant planet now open your eyes and write about what you see. Not a hope of a once upon a time. Nor trying to imagine life as a man, or a person of colour, or a teenage girls with spots. No - any suggestion of 'pretend' and the imaginative half of my brain shot warning sparks. If you try to write any of this stuff down, it said, you'll see it's such twaddle you'll be convinced you've gone bonkers. (Maybe I was, just a little.)

But travel writing is not made up. The bones of the story are there. I could sit with my diaries from Laos know where I went, where I ate, which temples I visited, which wonderful people I met. (Just so you know, I never make up anything in my travel books - everything is as it happened, though some things are played with, just for fun.)

And so it has been possible to use the logical, clear-thinking, unimaginative half of my brain to find stories from my trip to Laos. To tell the truth, it was a relief, when I could find the time, to sit with my memories and the computer and discover that part of my brain was still working. Sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, the stories when down.

The first draft done, I read it through, expecting it to be rubbish. And surprised myself. It needed playing with, but the bones of my story had flesh on them now. All it needed was clothes. And so I edited, and edited, and then asked friends and critics to read it - still not convinced that, in my muddled state, this tale was good enough to publish.

But even my fiercest critic (you know who you are) insisted it's good. It's different from Hidden Tiger, but Laos is a very different country. With different ideas and people and stories. Though, like Hidden Tiger, this will also be an ebook - and for the same reason. It's only 30,000 words: far too short for print copies. (You never know, if I do a third trip, I might put them all together and print them - but that's a decision for another day.)

So I sent it off for a copy edit - and now that is back. The blurb for Amazon is in draft form. The cover is gestating. When I get back from Venice next week I'll take another look at the copy edits, knuckle down to final tweeking ... and formatting ... and marketing ...

And the title: BOMBS AND BUTTERFLIES: OVER THE HILL IN LAOS.

So, will I write a book about Laos?

I don't know.

Come on, I hear you say; you must know. You must have pages of journals, photographs (woops, sorry, you had the camera stolen.)

Actually, some people I met are sending photographs, so I'm not picture-less. And yes, I do have two exercise books full of notes.

This was a very different trip from my visit to Nepal. There was no cyclone. No tiger - well, actually, there were tigers, but tame tigers, which is definitely not the same thing at all. But at no time did my stomach go flippy-flop and leave me wondering how I was going to survive this time.

It was a trip full of questions - about the country, and how people live there now, after the years of bombing and then the closed decades of unremitting communism. It was a trip for gawping at astonishing scenery - mountains and rivers and waterfalls. Of listening to roosters at dawn and tree frogs as the sun set. A trip of wandering into local markets where there was nothing for sale but a few root vegetables and dead rats. A trip with monks rubbing shoulders with tourists whose behaviour can best be described as rapacious. A trip of wandering around towns and villages, trying to find someone who could speak enough English to answer my endless question, and meeting mainly tourists - a few, like me, trying to make sense of the place, and most of them young and looking for adrenalin thrills and parties.

My task, now, is to unravel all that and see if there is a story there. I shall transcribe the diaries and then begin to untangle them, pick out the highlights, look for stories, and maybe even draft a book. Then I shall show it to others - and ask, is this good enough?

Bear with me - this will take time. I'll let you know how I get on.

Me and the elephant, I'll never forget ...

After almost a week of rural Laos, Luang Prebang is a surprise. It is an old French colonial town – so remote that it took longer to reach here up the Mekong from Saigon than the journey from Paris to Vietnam. The climate is kind; the rivers are gentle; and there are plenty of temples for the pious.

There are few French expats here how – though there is a small, thriving community of Australians and New Zealanders running restaurants and hotels. The backpackers pass through, spending their days in a kayak or caving, and their evenings in the bars. And there are tour groups with suitcases who wander into the night market and barter for woven pashminas.

And me – well, I rode an elephant. Well, I would, wouldn’t I? I did my homework – I could have spent a day learning how to be a mahout, but was warned that some of those elephants work all day, every day. Elephants doing the shorter rides can rest from the afternoon heat. (I should add that I’ve met people who enjoyed the mahout training and felt the elephants were well cared-for.)

My guide arrived to take me – on a motorbike. Which was, um, interesting, and a little bumpy in places. I hadn’t expected a boat along the river to the elephant sanctuary, but – that was fine, too. The elephants wander through the jungle close to a waterfall. I lingered, taking in the music of the waterfall, and the astonishing milky-blue colour of the water. The air was sweet; butterflies hovered; the occasional bird twittered.

And so to the elephant. I clambered (there is no elegant way to get on an elephant) into the wooden seat on its back, and off we lumbered into the jungle. We’d not gone far when the mahout asked, ‘Would you like to sit on the neck?’ Well, wouldn’t you?

Elephant hide is rough, the consistency of wrinkled feet of octogenarians. And covered with tiny black hairs which are not-quite bristles. Where a horse’s head perks upwards, an elephant’s dips down – and so the line of sight is automatically down towards the ground beyond. I sat firmly upright. (There is nothing to hold on to but a loose bit of rope around her neck.) She flapped her ears, and for a wonderful moment I thought that was to hold me on – no, she was ascertaining that this was a complete novice on her neck and turned for home. The mahout shouted a bit and she trundled on her way.

Elephant shoulders are bony things. With each stride her shoulder blades swung from side to side, and her huge muscles rippled. Not being over-padded in the bottom department I felt every stride. When she veered to the side I thought I’d fall into jungle mud. When we went down the riverbank into the water I thought I’d topple over her head.

And when it came to getting off – that involved throwing myself onto the platform. (Though I did better than the lass behind me, who needed two men to lever her off!).

It was time to go home – I felt every throb of the diesel engine in the canoe, and don’t even think about the potholes on the motorbike.

But when can I do it again …

Why did nobody tell me Laos is so beautiful?

There are many secrets here in Laos. And the most obvious – nobody told me it is beautiful. Eighty per cent of the country is mountainous – not snow capped like the Himalayas, but rugged and mysterious and covered in a patchwork of jungle greens. There must be a metropolis of wild life in there, from monkeys to elephants to snakes to – tigers? There may, I was told, be a few tigers left; but much of this country is unexplored and may well be home to unknown creatures that would look right on the pages of Alice in Wonderland.

I crossed the Mekong, from Thailand, in a wooden longboat and spent my first night in Laos in a Homestay. We ate rice and vegetables – morning glory, pumpkin and river weed – on the floor with the family (and I learned that the Lao for pumpkin is mukfuk, which, after a couple of bottles of beerloa, I found unfortunately funny). We slept on the floor, under mosquito nets – I suspect these are a luxury for tourist use only. For the paucity of their lives was obvious when we visited a local market, with few vegetables other than something that looked a bit like a turnip, and for protein – mice, rats, and squirrels.

From the Homestay, I came to Nong Khiaw, a little village by river. My room – a hut, high above the water, with balcony and hammock. There is a stretch of sand by the water, and occasional tourists make it down to paddle, a few to wash or to swim. The water – a deep green – wears the colour of the jungle. It stumbles over rocks, but does not hurry. Longboats, with angry diesel engines, ply up and down, taking local people home to their villages, or upstream to fish. Birds (too few, they are eaten here) twitter and whoop. The air is sweetly clean.

The only boating trip for tourists did not run – there are too few of us here. I could, of course, go trekking. Maybe I could hire a bike and go the caves. Or I could climb a waterfall.

Or I could sit on my hammock, listen to the water, watch as the jungle on the opposite banks tints with orange at daybreak and falls into deepest green as the sun sets. Rise out of my hammock to eat, and maybe have a massage.

What would you do?

In praise of ...

Physiotherapists.

Have you ever needed physio? They tend to lurk at the end of long corridors; the entrance to their sanctuaries have no roses round the door. There are no fanfares. But without them I'd have seized up long ago (a dodgy back), been unable to lift a rucksack ever again (broken shoulder) and now I'm back again, with wrecked knees. If you've never needed one - lucky you. The rest of us know we'd be permanently crock without them.

All my physios have been women. I know there are men in this profession - please bear with me if I stick to the feminine pronoun here. And my physios have mostly been young. (They are getting younger ...) Their  capacity for empathy, for humour, for simply understanding the significance of information that you might drop by the wayside - is astonishing.

I blogged, ages ago, about my crumbly knees. My consultant hopes that phsyio (plus steroid injections - I wince even thinking about those) will keep the muscles in good enough condition to hold what is left of the bones together for a little while longer.

I have a quite different agenda. For if I want to go to Laos (and I do) I need to be able to use a squat toilet.

Yes, it's funny - I thought it was funny enough, when I came back from Cambodia a couple of years ago, to write a little poem:

NEXT TIME I’LL LEARN.

A line of doors, gunmetal grey, with flakes

of rust around the hinges and a fringe

of dust along the floor.

None can quite restrain the pongs beyond.

The creak of welcome.  And there it is:

a footrest to each side and the chasm –

well, it could be worse. 

I clutch my bag with one hand;

(not sure it would be safe plonked on the floor)

shuffle backwards.  Perch; deep breath; and down.

The sweet hiss of relief.

Now what?

My thighs begin to ache, my muscles twitch.

My knees forget the art of standing up.

I topple, just a little, hoping that the see-saw

will propel me upright, somehow.

Instead I risk reversing, slipping backwards,

sitting like a weeble on surprised porcelain.

My bag, now insecure, falls forward, empties

purse book pens passport bus ticket

on the damp patch on the floor.

And for a moment I fear I might follow it

to bang my head on the metal door

with a clang that will echo and

every woman in the queue will know.

Next time I’ll learn to squat before I go.

My knees are so much crumblier now than when I wrote this.

But my physio did not flinch when I set her the challenge of enabling me to squat. She did not even titter (well, in front of me she did not titter - she may have guffawed when I left). She simply smiled, put gentle hands on my sorry knees to show where the muscles seem to have collapsed, then gave me exercises, encouragement, and support.

I have joined the 'lower limb group' at the specialised gym in the physio clinic. There is the lass who fell of her horse and broke an ankle, who wants to ride again. There is the bloke who was knocked off his bike and broke his femur - he talks of road racing. There is the older woman who slipped, broke her foot, and wants to be able to climb stairs without pain so she can stay in her own home. And me - who wants to use a squat toilet. Together we grimace, and puff, and wince as we make forgotten muscles do what they were designed to do, and do it over and over again. Alongside us the physio is quietly encouraging.

Now I can get down, and (imagine a fanfare) get up again. I can go to Laos.

What have physios done for you?