UNUSUAL HAIR SALONS

Washing, cutting and curling in hair salons can cost RM 120 to RM 400. The expensive ones have a better ambience and they serve you tea but one can do without the extras and save some money. But the hair salons I encoutered in Laos were so simple and reasonable priced, yet the hair dressers got the job done well and to the customers satisfaction. Imagine a hair salon in the wet market besides ladies selling spices, vegetables, baguettes, chickens and motor cycles. The water for washing the hair is stored in large plastic drums. The customers have their hair over hanging make-shift plastic wash basins. The hair dresser uses a scoop (red scoop as seen in the drum) to pour water over. Nothing fancy. The water from the plastic sinks flow through a attached tube straight into the drain.
I found the scenes totally incredible. If someone had asked me to start a hair dressing salon in a market, I would have thought it impossible with a hundred cannots - Where to get the water? Electricity for the hair dryer? Sinks? Inlets and outlets? Basically IMPOSSIBLE.

Yet, these girls have made the IMPOSSIBLE, POSSIBLE with a bit of ingenuity and preserverence. I will admit I have been spoilt with too many conveniences and with that maybe I have also become a little less creative and more lazy. Too comfortable with piped electricity, gas and water arriving at homes with just a flick of a switch or turn of a tap. Visiting Laos has awaken me, made me think about how lucky I am to live in a developed country. To leave my comfort zone and try things that I had in the past thought to be impossible. To take less and give more.