2 months around Southeast Asia...

VIENTIANE

Christina joins the little outing, a nice Austrian girl who practises about 134 extreme sports. We rent 3 bicycles (after they tried to palm off one on me without brakes...) and start cycling around and sweating, sweating and sweating... Vientiane is a small city that Michael likes a lot and where he tries to act as our expert guide, but, poor him, he gets us lost at every corner...and I think there are more mosquitoes here than in a pond along the Amazon river... But here you breathe the true air of this Asia in which, every time, I leave a piece of my heart... The hours pass slowly and pleasantly among smiles from the local people, baguettes and croissants still today symbols of the French colonial past and visits to the few cultural things the capital offers. Saturday morning spent in what is considered the Laotian national monument. The Pha That Luang.

Golden Wat where it is said a bone of the Buddha's hand is contained. Now I wonder, something that even those who follow the Christian religion must have already thought: but if every city, town or place of worship has a "little piece" of some saint or important person, were these poor souls reduced to mush?

VANG VIENG

After the merry outing, we endure 4 little hours of bus. Bearable but fundamentally a bit uninspiring. So we arrive at Vang Vieng, a village lost among the Laotian hills. The road to get there is nevertheless interesting because it passes through dozens of small villages all rigorously made up of bamboo huts. Children running around and hens too (long live avian flu!) make them even more fascinating.... Arriving in the village we find a double room for 1.50 dollars each. Incredible, but being without a bathroom we opt for luxury and pay a good 3 dollars. In the evening we throw ourselves onto a small island formed along the river, famous for being a meeting place for these backpackers, whom if they weren't all American, English or Australian I could even tolerate, but, my God, I really can't manage, the Yankees especially...

But we like it, a bit commercial-subversive, but the products EXCELLENT... First real day in Vang Vieng: The breakfasts and the various lunches and dinners for 2 dollars are worthy of note...and after 2 hours of haggling over a tuk-tuk we spend the day in the jungle bathing in a small lagoon. Endless relaxation... At night we have the much famous "happy shake" and..........and as if by magic it's the second day. We set off for an all-day tour: - kayak / tubing / swimming and cave exploration Beautiful and fun. Nature here is the mistress. Mountains covered in luxuriant tropical vegetation with shapes that defy the law of gravity accompanied by spectacular sunsets....

LUANG PRABANG

...and Laos continues. Having left the American Vieng Viang, we head further north, in the direction of China. The almost six hours of minivan leave my arse shaped like a seat but my soul full of memories. The road is one of the most beautiful I have ever had the luck to travel. Up and down mountains high and completely covered in green, passing through small villages made up of no more than 6 or 7 huts where, I wonder, what meaning life has for them. Time here does not exist. Luang Prapang is a small city of just over 25000 inhabitants, but given its past as a capital, it has been inscribed as a world heritage site since 1995. And its more than 30 temples clearly explain why. We rent the usual bicycle and ride around among the local people who always have a smile for us. Truly incredible. Dining on the banks of the Mekong at sunset is something that simple words cannot explain.

Here life flows as it did 150 years ago... We visit temples, we go into the jungle to see with our own eyes the hidden wonders of what is rightly called the hidden pearl of Southeast Asia. The children who greet you, the women who smile. Every day this world is more beautiful. Now I'm going to have dinner for 2 dollars. And then to daydream about this fabulous country...

MEKONG RIVER - FROM LUANG PRABANG TO HUAY XAI

After leaving, besides my heart, Luang Prabang and its people and after spending the last day bathing in the waterfalls found in the dense forest around the small city, we prepare to cover I don't know how many kilometres along the Mekong river, along which we will reach the border between Laos and Thailand, in the far north of the two countries, close to the golden triangle. We don't know exactly how many kilometres, but we do know the duration of the "little trip": 9 hours a day for two consecutive days. Description of the boat: - Wooden vessel eaten by woodworm and never put back in order. - Seats also wooden where the space on which to rest two arses has the same area as a ping pong racket. - In addition to the 324 people crammed in, we also load on about fifty sacks of mysterious content... The day passes reading books and enjoying the panorama of my, by now beloved, Mekong.

"ADMIRING THE MEKONG RIVER AS IT IMPETUOUSLY CARVES OUT ITS BED CARRYING ITS MURKY WATERS WITHOUT REST IS AN EMOTION THAT ONLY THE MOST ATTENTIVE EYE AND THE MOST SINCERE SOUL CAN CAPTURE"...but where did I read that?!?... It must also be said that the more we go into the forest and the further north we go the colder it gets. But cold as we could not have expected (hand towels on us to keep warm and exchanging puffs of breath...). At 6 in the evening we touch land at Pak Beng.???. Nothing in the middle of nowhere. We sleep in a single bed for 1 dollar each among animals and lads who offer us opium non-stop and we eat terribly. And the next day at 8.30 we set off again. By the 16th hour of little boat even my "beloved" Mekong begins to feel a bit cramped to me. I begin to talk to myself and Michael with a group of natives (which is practically the same thing)...

So we arrive at HuayXay, right with that half hour of delay that means the border is closed. And I reckon all this is well prepared, so that we spend more dollars in Laos. But at least I get the satisfaction of paying 4 dollars for 3 to sleep and arguing heatedly with a couple of Laotians...and in exchange we will have the worst dinner since the beginning of the trip: chicken at least 7 years old, which all in all is even better, at least 7 years ago there was no avian flu yet...

So we leave Laos. Beautiful, indeed very beautiful, as someone rightly christened it, the true hidden pearl of Southeast Asia…