I arrive at the border at 6, just as they are opening. The crossing is fast and soon after, with a pair of Swedes and an Irishman (sporting a 'masturbation is not a crime' t-shirt) I take a tuktuk, a three-wheel motorised taxi, to Vientiane.

Vientiane, the capital of Laos, is not exactly what you would expect of a capital city. The streets are almost empty, not very wide, just regular two-lane roads with soft, unpaved sides, the road from the border looks as is it is the most representative anyway, we go past the Polish, French, and Australian embassies, and the UNICEF office.
It is the time of the morning alms-gathering rounds of the Buddhist monks, groups of them march down the road and the locals, mostly women, kneel in front of their houses waiting with food to offer it to the monks. Buddhism is the main religion in Laos, all men, after finishing school and before starting work are expected to enter a monastery and spend some time living as monks. In the past it was for one year, now two-three weeks are enough.
We soon are in the city and find a guest house.
I unpack, take a shower and then go for a walk. The very centre of Vientiane, marked by a little square and a fountain is a short walk away. I visit a bunch of temples, a museum of religious art, then just walk around talking pictures.
The tallest building I see in Vientiane is five floors high, the city has a rather antiquated sewer system. The sewage flows in gutters covered with concrete tiles, there are places where the gutters are open - for maintenance or whatever, there are very few street lights and you have to be very careful.
Bus ride no. 1, gates of hell...
I get to the bus station way ahead of the scheduled bus, to my surprise there is one I didn't know about and it's just about to depart. I put my backpack on the roof and board the bus. I'm one of the last passengers and there are no seats. I brace myself for four hours of standing on a bus.
The bus starts and soon Vientiane is left behind. The bus hauls ass doing at least 80 km/h chasing every smaller vehicle off it's path with a resounding roar of the horn.
An hour and a half passes fairly quickly, to my relief someone disembarks and I can sit down. Soon after that the plain disappears and we enter hills, the speed drops to 20-40 km/h.
Suddenly a wizened gnarled grandma sitting next to me starts spitting and then vomiting on the floor (and my foot too but I don't want to think about it), then thankfully her companion gives her a plastic bag to use. A baby a few rows in front wails loudly, has been doing so for the last half an hour, the mother tries to calm it down but fails, the baby wants to scream not eat.
The bus brakes sharply, a herd of water buffalo is meditating in the middle of the road, just round a blind corner, the bus almost hits one of them.
All the windows are open but it doesn't help, the air is hot and sticky with the smell of stale beer (see: 'grandma' above)
All of the sudden a most beautiful sight. A lake, surrounded by hills, dotted with tiny islands, with a bunch of fishermen's boats, outstanding.
The road is getting worse, but thankfully we're almost there, Vang Vieng, my next stop, is just around a few corners.
Vang Vieng
Wooden huts, dirt roads, paddy fields, an occasional fisherman, melancholic water buffalo, two tiny temples, even tinier hospital, surrounded by spectacular limestone hills.
That's Vang Vieng proper, when you lose the crowds.
Unused airstrip and a small cement factory - these would be the only signs of civilisation were it not for tourists who came for the scenery.
Now we have the Internet, pizza places, Scandinavian bakeries, bicycle/motorcycle rentals, organised tours, money exchange, Western films on TV in the restaurants.
The owner/manager of my guest house (USD 1.5 per night for a single room with attached shower) is another grandma, this one has bleeding gums and looks like she has just had a drink of blood. When I meet her she smiles a broad bloody smile, the sight is somewhat scary, if it weren't for my laziness I'd perhaps look for another place to sleep.
I leave my bag in the room and go out.
Vang Vieng is still pretty, surrounded by fields, with a little river running through it, with super-scenic limestone hills all around. Accommodation is cheap and plentiful, the locals nice, children still greet me with 'sabaidee' not with 'hello.'
I cross the river, tried to wade through but it was just a tad too deep, instead I have to use a makeshift bridge, with a toll booth right in the middle.
I wander around taking pictures, visit a cave, then retreat to the village and have a pint of Laobeer in Sunset Restaurant watching (d'oh) the sunset. Then a film starts and I leave.
bus ride no. 2
Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang - the nightmare begins.
Slightly less than 400km, over seven hours. My estimate is that only 20% of the distance, and it feels like much less than this, consists of straight stretches of the road that are 200metres or longer. The rest is just curves, curves, and more curves.
The north of Laos is just hills, the road hugs the slope, the bus is constantly just metres away from gaping ravines, very very deep, a plunge into one of these would probably be the last ever accident for all on board. The passengers pray or go to sleep, I'm not sure which approach is better.
Tens of tiny villages dot the hills, poor beyond belief. Most of the houses are made of some sort of reed mats, not even wood, with thatched roofs. The villages are usually the places where the road is straight for a second so the bus accelerates, old people, children, ducks, turkeys, dogs, chickens, piglets, everything that moves and has been wandering around on the road is sent flying for cover on the pavements.
There are lots of children everywhere. Everyone is working, even the smallest kids. Most of the people seem to be engaged in gathering a kind of grass of which brooms are made, gathering firewood, older kids help their parents, small children take care of even smaller ones.
The driver is constantly leaning on the horn, going 'beep, beebee, beeeeep' before every curve of the road (read: every few seconds). At first it annoys then I realise that since he's doing this he's probably not sleeping. We travel pretty fast, way too fast for my liking and for common sense, until a close encounter, almost a head-on, with a huge truck makes the driver slow down.
Every now and again there are warning signs - falling rocks. In a few places the road is covered with rocks or red earth from rock and mud slides. Two or three times the road is reduced to only one half of its width, the other half gone into the abyss.
At one point I see a dent in the asphalt and a boulder the size of a small car on the side of the road.
Finally a large valley opens in front of the bus, way below the road. Someone says, 'it's Luang Prabang.' I'm almost there but it takes another 22km of zigzagging to get to the bus station.
Luang Prabang
The seat of the kings of Laos until the revolution of the 1970s, Luang Prabang is a small town of maybe 30 thousand people, sleepy and slow. It is on the UNESCO world heritage list. Full of temples, tiny streets are lined with French colonial buildings, the mixture is really pretty. I wander the streets for two days, watch the locals make paper from bamboo, carve little wooden statues of the Buddha, do some weaving. The villagers from the hill tribes come to Luang Prabang to sell their wares, food, or souvenirs. It is quiet, there are just a few cars on the roads, the loudest sound is the ringing bell in one of the Buddhist temples.
But the sign of the times again, there are entrance fees to the temples (I refuse to go on principle, and also - you've seen one, you've seen them all - so I do go in, but only to the most important ones), tribesmen demand money when you photograph them wearing their traditional clothes.
On the second day I decide it is time to move on. There is only one bus a day to the place I want to go next so I decide to go to the bus station and buy the ticket for the following day. It is almost an hour's walk, I like walking so I don't spend money on the taxi. I get to the station, the bloke in the ticket office tells me that two months ago the company serving the routes to the north of the city moved to a different place. I go there, it's another hour, only to be informed that it impossible to buy tickets like this, only on the day of departure. Typical Asian way of thinking, I asked in a tourist information office, then the first bus station, they answered the questions but to mention that I can't buy tickets in advance - that's beyond them. This pisses me off so I go to a bar and spend the rest of the day drinking beer and scribbling in my diary.

The next day I get up early and walk to the station. It is still pretty much dark when I arrive but I want to get there early so that I have the seat.
I buy the ticket, am informed that on this particular day there is no direct transport to Luang Namtha. I can get to Udomxai and try my luck there.
The bus turns out not to be a bus but a big passenger truck, there are two benches at the back and a baggage rack on the roof. I forget to take my wind stopper from my backpack before its loaded onto the roof and for the next five hours I suffer. I'm not protected from the elements, the wind is rather chilly and the morning mist adds to the discomfort. But I'm too busy trying to stay in my seat, the roads get worst as you go north, and now we - the passengers - have a sort of competition going on: who will and who will not fall off the seat when the truck hits the next pothole.
More hills, even higher than the ones a few days before. For some half an hour the road is so high that we are at the level of the clouds.
Five hours, two stops and countless bends and potholes later we arrive in Udomxai.
It looks like a prosperous village but is in fact the capital of a province. There is a minibus to Luang Namtha but I decide there's no hurry. I find a guest house, and with an Israeli guy I came with from Luang Prabang go sightseeing. The only place of any interest is a little hill with a stupa on top, and a panoramic view of the Udomxai's two streets below.
We return to the guest house where we meet two more people and spend the rest of the day swapping stories.
Luang Namtha
117km takes 5 hours to cover. It would be less (4 hours) but it rained during the night and in two places we have to wait until the mud blocking the road is removed.
The road is almost entirely just a dirt road, it is paved in only a few places. There are police checkpoints every 40-50km, they are routine, just checking the drivers papers, but still take some time.
We arrive shortly after noon, get a room in the first guest house and go looking for the Internet and a tourist information office. After an hour of walking and asking everywhere someone tells us there is no Internet in this city. There are also no street lights, no public transport of any sort, not even tuktuks. Electricity is switched on only for four hours a day, from six to ten at night.
Another hour passes before we find the travel agency offering treks in the area, day tours to the hill tribe villages, etc.
We arrange a day trip to a bunch of villages for the next day, then walk around until the darkness falls and we retreat to the only restaurant in town.
The next day we go trekking, there are two guides and six of us tourists.
The first hour we walk through paddy fields, now unused because its not the season. We try to walk on the little 'border walls' not the fields themselves, its pretty difficult, the walls are almost a metre high and only a foot wide, taking in the scenery is impossible, I have to watch where I'm putting my feet.
The first village is pretty cool, the civilisation hasn't arrived yet. The second and third are different, there are motorcycles, tractors, even a satellite dish or two.
We have lunch in the second village, traditional Lao food and we have to sit cross-legged and eat with our hands. The food is similar to what I eat in China, mostly consists of vegetables, there is some meat, probably (hopefully) chicken – I've eaten strange kinds of meat before, but I like to know what I'm eating.
After lunch we enter the jungle. It is hot, very humid, and slippery as hell, it rained the previous night. The guides stop every now and then showing us various leaves, flowers, and roots, these are things we ate back in the village, also there are some plants used as medicine, spices, and whatnot.
The next morning at 6a.m. I'm woken up by the scream of a loudspeaker. The policemen from the station just next to the guest house decided to treat everyone in the half-mile radius to some patriotic music and to the news.
I get up, pack up, and head for the bus station. The station is a mess, no one knows anything. I end up asking every driver where they are going, finally find the one going to Boten, the border with China. The minivan fills up fast and we depart. It's a two hour drive, should be relatively painless.
We get a flat tire within five minutes. We are stopped three times by the police, this time the checks aren't routine. We are in the 'golden triangle,' the area of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar where the vast majority of the world's opium and heroin is produced. The cops check the passengers' documents, search bags, I am spared that but still have to show my passport.
I get to the border. The Lao side - no problems whatsoever, the Chinese side - not so smooth. I am talking to the passport control guy while he's leafing through my passport, then he realises that I live in China, not just travel there. He asks me for my 'green card' (a small booklet showing that I am really legally employed in China).
The problem is, I lost my green book literally the day before leaving Harbin for my holiday. So I decide that my command of Chinese has just been fully used, every next question I am asked I answer with 'wo ting bu dong' (lit. I hear but I don't understand). The guy summons his superior, more questions, more talk between the two, finally, luckily, they let me go.
(It would be interesting, sort of, if they didn't let me in... stranded in no-man's-land between Laos and China, not able to get into China, without Lao visa (and not able to get one), hmm...)
04.2002