Tuesday 31 May 2011

Driving North through Laos

We soon left behind the bubbling rivers running through the valleys between the improbable hills and started climbing, dear old Gertie keeping up a steady rumble.

With the big drops over the edge and the occasionally pot-holed nature of the road, it is tremendously reassuring to have such good drivers. One of them, in particular, spent many years driving road trains and those big trucks my uncle Rob likes; and you can tell.






















The whole time we are driving I can hear my mother's voice. Put your book down and look out the window. Think how lucky you are to see all this amazing scenery. As I kid I would dutifully look up for the space of a couple of pages and then slip back into the book as soon as I could.

Where the majority of the landscape in Thailand was flat flat rice flat flat rice rice flat, here the ferns make fractal patterns up the sides of the cliffs. Little villages cluster along the roads, clinging in the edges and corners of the mountains. Children play mysterious children's games. Sometimes there is a monkey.























Up in the mountains it was really cool, quite chilly and I was glad I had the wrap I carry with me everywhere in case of sun or modesty.

Of course it was that weird chilly where you look at the thermometer in Gertie and it says 27 instead of 35.



2 comments:

Jayne said...

The mountains are very surreal looking. Very beautiful. It was minus 1 in Woodend this morning. It was white with frost and stunning. I was very thankful of my ski gloves this morning :)

BigMal said...

We even had ice on the footbridge over the Merri Creek in Northcote this morning.

Ceels you have a beautiful writing style. Have you ever considered writing a book? Birgit