Kuang Si Falls, Luang Prabang

We went on a little tour today to a nearby waterfall. I sort of didn't want to go and then when we got there I felt quite dirty about it because the cost of the tour didn't actually cover the cost of entry to the falls.

Then, as we walked up the winding clay track, I tried to be positive about how much cooler it was up there in the hills amongst the jungle next to the river. We walked past Lao families sitting on giant woven plastic mats with picnics and white people posing in not enough clothing and swimming areas full of screaming, splashing Lao children.

I was walking in a fog of 'why the hell did I come here' when we came to a spot higher up than most people had bothered to walk.

Because we were all going to be swimming, I didn't take my camera in case someone nicked it while we were frolicking trustingly in the mountain waters, so you are going to have to imagine.

There were water bugs that skipped away across the surface in a panic as we swam into them. Little fish that nibbled our ankles. Motes of water dancing in the air above the falls. Little zippy blue dragonflies and squidgy mud between our toes. We were in a pool with stands of bamboo and sandy brown rocks and sun dappling over pale jade water. Because I didn't have my glasses on, you also have to imagine a romantic blur of afternoon light and short-sightedness.

It was blissfully cool, Claire even got goosebumps. My temper improves enormously when I am blissfully cool, so I am going to go wash my hair and then go play nice with the new kids who arrive on the trip today.

The end of a trip.

This stop is the end of one of the legs of the trip. We left one passenger (Larry) behind in Vang Vieng (deliberately, he was catching a plane back to Bangkok, it is not like we forgot him or anything). In Luang Prabang we will lose five of the seven 19 year old (or so, a couple may be younger) boys and one other gentleman (Keith). And four people will join us tomorrow.

Although we travelled together for just over two weeks I know very little about the boys apart from they are hysterical. I didn't get any shots of them recreating Tomb Raider in Angkor Wat, and the battery died in my camera as they started saying goodbye to Gertie, but here is some evidence from my phone.

So, goodbye to Euan.
























Jay, Andy, Ted and Ali.

I will especially miss the double act that is Ted and Ali. They went to school together and, I believe, are off to Uni together. If their friendship survives this, I imagine they will be friends for ever.

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.

Vang Vieng

 Gertie, parked outside the guest house in Vientiane.



















The view from our guest house in Vang Vieng.

I am in an internet cafe in Vang Vieng. Some of our group have gone tubing, which sounds pretty horrifying to me (in no small part because my lovely travel doctor at home mentioned some of the things that swimming in the rivers can bring you. He is not an alarmist and has travelled a lot himself – if you are in Melbourne and need an excellent travel doctor, let me know).

I am trying to keep my feet off the floor to avoid the ants. There is not much I can do about the gentle rain of Daddy Long Legs from the ceiling. I can hear Friends playing nearby, Monica is upset about something and her voice is … penetrating.

 

If you walk out side and look up the road, there are more of those improbable mountains that look like they've been drawn by a kid. Bursting up from a flat horizon. I have tried taking a photo, but have neither the skill nor the camera to manage anything decent.

A town where I am embarressed to be Australian

We arrived in Vang Vieng this afternoon, though my computer doesn't believe it, my computer thinks we are still in Vientiane.

I would love to show you some photos, but the internet is a little slow, which makes it challenging. I am also having trouble seeing facebook and things that make life feel normal.

And life in Viang Veng is anything but normal. Here are a few things that people have said about this town:

The chilled-out town.

What a town would be like if it were run by 19 year olds.

Full of Australian girls in tiny bikinis.

Every cafe in Vang Vieng shows Family Guy or Friends.

It is all eerily true. And then the sun went down and all these scantily clad drunk people covered in paint appeared (many of them Australian). They had been tubing, the main tourist activity for the town. On the plus side, the wall to wall tourists mean there are plenty of those delicious banana pancakes around.

A hundred metres away is jungle and banana plantations and rural Laos. We are in a valley surrounded by those unlikely hills that shoot straight up out of the rice flats. Beautiful and crass all rolled together.