We have a mini van booked to the Lao border. Tales of border scams are rife and it’s common knowledge you need to bribe the guards in order to get the visa stamps you need. The bus leaves dead on 10am. Our tuk tuk arrives dead on 09:45 all is good. We’re dropped outside a cafe which doubles as the mini van stop. A few fellow passengers are waiting and we sit and chat. A Belgian, a Dutch, a German who’s lived in France so long he considers himself French, a couple of Swiss a Portugese a Slovenian just a nice eclectic bunch.

I discuss the liklihood of bribes and passport scams and suggest if there’s a consensus to pay for someone to gather passports and get visas for a few dollars I’m happy, on the other hand if we want to do it ourselves we should just stick together.

It’s now half past the dead on 10 am departure time. Kim asks “when will the van arrive” “in 13 minutes” is the precise reply. It’s 11 am and swelteringly hot, all of the bus station/cafe staff have disappeared, a van arrives from Kratie (further South) a couple more passengers for our bus to the Lao border and on to the Islands at Don Dett, Don Khone (where we’re going) and Pakse (another 4-5 hours Northward)

Being our fellow travellers for Pakse have at least a 7 hour trip in front of them plus whatever time the border formalities take time is now getting a bit tight. Trying to find accommodation after dark out here can be a tad perilous at the best of times. Beside the cafe is a car park, a lone van has been sat there since around 10:30am. Just after midday, a hammock stirs in the trees at the back of the car park. What appears to be a small, dusty bag of laundry emerges scratching head, testicles, arm pits, he opens the van door, starts the motor..... “Lao!” he says.

The usual huge fuck up and yet another sweating man arrives wearing no top, it could even be our friend from Siem Reap for all I know. He shouts, gesticulates, we’re all in, but no luggage. We need to pile it, almost van roof high down the aisle between the single window seats and the double benches. God knows what happens if we need to get out in a hurry. The roads toward the border are just about “made” but we’re bumped around mercilessly as we hammer along the road, presumably trying to make up two lost hours in the two hour trip.

We get to the border. It’s just like you see in the movies, two guard houses and a red and while pole across the road STOP! Written on it. The van vears to the left into a car park.... “Lao” says the bag of laundry, scratching his balls with one hand and lighting a fag with the other. An officious little man comes out of yet another cafe/van stop. “All those for Lao, site here” he shouts and indicates a large table, “all those for Cambodia....on the bus” he indicates the bus we've just got off. A group of tired looking punters get up. Presumably they’ve been expecting their bus since midday, they grab their bags, rucksacks, water bottles, stretch and walk toward the van.We assume, should we take the proffered seats, that the “officious little man” will want to take all our passports and in return for the visa fee plus bribes plus $5-$10 for his trouble will meet us at the Lao side with our visas duly stamped. To his disgust we all ignore him, strap on the rucksacks and start to march across the frying pan hot, dusty car park toward the guard house. “ok,” he shouts after us, “bus in Lao goes in 30 minutes.....you better be ready”.

The guard house is empty, we duck under the red and white STOP! Barrier and walk toward an office building built in trad Cambodian style. There are 3 little windows. We bend to look in the first, our passport with exit visa are requested, a fingerprint pad is indicated and one by one we proffer right hand fingers, left hand fingers, both thumbs. Sometimes the images are captured, sometimes clearly not, either way, a fist emerges through the window and indicates the next window.

Our passports are held out of the window one by one, ID page uppermost, as ours emerge we approach a disembodied voice.... “2 dollar” What’s the point of arguing? It’s f*cking hot and the bus may not wait.

Out of Cambodia and into no mans land. Another guard house, a uniformed guard is inside, in a hammock. He points toward a building without raising his head. The Peoples Republic Of Lao border post. 3 more windows. We approach the 1st. A piece of paper emerges, the usual request for passport details etc. Next to the window is the Visa price list. UK nationals $35. I hand over $70 for us both along with our completed entry form. “Seventy two dollar” I show him the error of his ways using some small beads, an abacus, counting on fingers and eventually the calculator app in my phone. “Seventy TWO ! Dollar!” I pass in the $72 “next window” Everyone from our bus has now paid and completed forms. After 10 minutes passports start to emerge 1 by 1, there’s clearly confusion, lots of shuffling around, fumbling in pockets. Our passports are shown through the window, I approach, try to get the passports, they’re snatched back..... “two dollar each” For fucks sake!

We’re in Laos, we trudge across the border to another parking area where there is a mini van. “Don Dett, Don Khone” says the driver. “Yep” we say and bundle on. A few of our fellow travellers are missing, I assume they need a different bus as they’re going to other destinations. The bus is jammed full and we start to drive off, 4 or five paniced individuals run out of a building opposite waving at us to stop, our travel companions! The driver is refusing to stop! We’re insisting, he’s getting very flustered banging the steering wheel.... “I’ll come back for” he’s shouting. “yes, but we need to tell them” he simply can’t understand, they’ll have no choice but to wait an hour, what’s the point of telling them? He stops. We let the others know he’ll be back in an hour and off we go into Laos proper.

We’re dropped in yet another dusty bus park. “Boat, 5 minutes walk” says our driver. There’s an ATM here but little else and we make millionaires of ourselves (10,000 kip to the pound) and walk down to the river bank.

Eventually we’re bundled into a long tail boat and take the 20 minute trip out into the mekong where we beach the boat so our companions can unload at Don Dett. Kim and I have another 20 minutes to travel to an neighbouring island, linked by a bridge, Don Khone.

We do the usual balancing act trying to walk a plank with our luggage and we’re in the streets of Don Khone. After Cambodia, it’s blissfully quiet. It’s been a frantically hot, stressful day, there are no roads here, just tracks. At a junction sits a bar and restaurant it has no customers but it has fans whirring. We order two “beer Lao”, large ones. The bottles are frosty as are the glasses....”This guy understands travel” we think. The beer is one of the best I can remember. Suitably refreshed we bundle our bags up the dusty dirty track to where we’re staying. I think we know within 10 minutes that we will be extending our stay!

We have a bungalow, the walls are very thin, if the guy next door farts we know about it, but outside the door is a veranda with rattan table and chairs, then a few steps to a deck over the river. To our right an old French style bridge, 5 or 6 stone arches, stained by time, hung with creepers, it could be crossing a village river anywhere in the south of France but for the jungle that hugs it on either side. Looking left the broad river flows on, mirror like, swifts and swallows graze it, white egrets flap, fish roll, a couple of fishermen huts peer out from among palm trees growing at angles from the banks. Kids fish with round throwing nets from a couple of canoes, tropical flowers and orchids glow in the evening sun which, now resembles a great orange ball, the air is filled with bird sized butterflies, we may move here!

We’ve indeed extended our stay from 3 to 5 nights, could happily stay longer.

A sweltering walk around to Don Dett which is the next island takes us to the area favoured by younger travellers. It’s hardly party central, bucolic, laid back, hammock town. It’s a great walk and we stop off now and then for a cold beverage overlooking the Mekong. Right round the island is a tough ask in this heat, but we make it and for a reward drop into the wonderfully cool pool next to the river.

Exploring Lao food later, papaya salads, river fish soup and curry cooked in coconut, mango smoothy to which is added fresh coconut milk tipped from a tree fresh green coconut, natures lemonade, christ it’s good! Fish cooked in banana leaf the obligatory fried kashew nuts with thai basil and chicken.

Here’s a thing though. You order something, then they set about preparing it. There is no way a nose picking teenager will arrive within 3 minutes as a “PING” dies away, saying “Here’s your Irish Stew” If you want anything stew like you’re going to need to invest 45 minutes! We order fish soup and some papaya salad and 5 minutes later watch as the cook crosses the road to a vegetable stall, chooses papaya, onion, string beans, next door, she wrestles around in a chest cold box and comes out with a large river fish, walking back toward where we’re sitting, she grabs a coconut from a pile at a street stall next door. She disappears into the kitchen, we can smell wood smoke as she lights the fire pots on which our meal will be cooked.  We hear the sound of chopping, a big cleaver on to a wooden block, cutting vegetables as fine as with a spiralizer, most times...... you can taste the love.... I’d almost forgotten what that tasted like outside of home! They’ve only had 24 hour mains electric here for a couple of years.

Half an hour in the other direction gets us to stunning Li Phi falls. A huge complex of waterfalls with beaches in calm pools with sand to make the Costa jealous!! Amazing scenery, more wild orchids. We watch amazed as fishermen use thin traceries of bamboo to criss cross the enormously powerful falls to access nets which they’ve left strung across gorges where water is funnelled. It’s death defying stuff. Near where we’re staying thre is an old locomotive, it looks for all the world like a throw back to Stevenson’s rocket. The story is written around it of the French, desperate to link their colonies in southern vietnam with China without encroaching on Siam (Thailand) or North vietnam where the Brits were. The tale of their attempts to navigate the Mekong from Saigon to China with steam boats and then trains is simply amazing. It’s impossible to imagine the hardship involved, negotiating rapids, waterfalls disease, hostile natives. The tally of deaths from dysentery, malaria etc is just tragic. 

It’s been a while since we’ve left a place before we wanted but this is definitely one of those occasions. What’s more we finally have the kitchen staff trained to cook hard boiled eggs and egges over easy and the bar guy knows I like my Pastis served with the ice on the side rather than with the spirit. Nevertheless, here we are loaded into a longtail boat. We’ve gone for luxury! The whole boat to ourselves for $30 for a 2 hour trip upstream to Don Khong (with a G not an E)

The journey makes leaving Don Khone just a little easier. It is a stunningly beautiful trip. Past tiny communities and fishing villages weaving through the islands that dot the river. This area in english is called 4000 islands.

The Mekong here is very wide indeed and flows round islands big enough to hold small villages or so small they hold just a tree or two for a hammock or to shade some fishing. I’m sure it has it’s moments but in general, now in this the dry season, life here looks bloody idyllic. For kids, providing they’re not hungry, it must be heavenly.

Don Kong comes into view on our left, the tiny town of Champasak on the right.

We chug to a rest at a landing stage and manhandle the bags up the steps, the boatman lays himself out in the shade at the back of his boat and settles for a pm nap. It’s around 13:30. It’s still blisteringly hot but a wonderful breeze blows in off the river, our boat engine has stopped we stand on the bank in complete, and utter silence! There is not a thing stirring here! Just the odd bird noise, it’s like going back 50 years.

They don’t bother to check us in to the guesthouse. Kims name is on a white board.

“Is that you” says a large Lao lady in a 50 marlborough a day growl.

“I’m Canadian” she says. “Hmmmmmmmm” we say.

Luggage dumped we walk along the river bank. The accommodation here looks surprisingly swish, all timber and brick built, some of it wouldn’t look out of place as Spanish Hacienda, all look deserted. The quiet is overwhelming! Nothing moves here. Every now and then a longtail chugs by on the river but that’s about it. Some goats wander around as do chickens, a couple of puppies, the odd cat. We cross a couple of very rickety (as in, we’ll need the headtorch later) timber bridges and eventually reach a couple of cafe/bars.  We grab something to eat and drink in some of the most beautiful scenery you can imagine.

Opposite is the town of Champasak, backed by hills topped by a white temple and a very large golden budha which glistens in the sun. The river is a light green reflecting sun dazzles, white birds flap across it, they are mirrored white in the river surface and the green of the river is reflected on thier breast feathers....I swear I haven’t taken drugs!

For dinner we get some fish in coconut curry, sticky rice and salad, we can see the kitchen girls labouring away, chopping, mixing. A couple of beers, then back to the complete silence of the Don Khong night until we’re woken by cockerels, greeting a sun which rises out of the river like a golden glowing biscuit, just dunked, lifted from a cup of milky tea silhouetting the fishing boats which already dot it’s surface.

We’ve booked our boat and bus transport to Pakse as we need to head North toward Louang Prabang, then Chiang Rai in Thailand to meet my sister in just under a months time. It would be nice maybe to try and stick here for a few days but it’s crazily quiet. As we walked around this morning we discussed how we can just about remember when life was this quiet at home, dim and distant memory, when not a single one of my friends families owned a car!! I’ve just spent a few hours through to midday writing this on an over the river platform with a typical Lao “Gull wing” roof line which sweeps down to almost ground level. The only sound? A few birds and a kitchen behind me where they cook over an open fire pot, need it hotter? More wood. It’s beautifully shaded here, Kim’s booking our next stop, the river is right in front of me, lined by reeds, small islets dividing the mirror like stream, maybe a mile wide here. On the opposite bank, jungle and palms, the odd orange roof peering out and away to the left Chamapasak and its golden Budha, tomorrows first destination before the bus to Pakse. Whatever next? All of a sudden, travel is good again!

The trip across the Mekong is interesting as usual. We’re deposited into a very slim, very low, slung boat by our “skipper” Mr Phoumery. Little more than a canoe to be honest but sporting a longtail engine, the boat rocks about alarmingly as we try to load ourselves and the rucksacks, the sides of the boat look perilously close to the waterline. We dugadugaduga across the stream with the boat leaning precariously as it motors into currents divided by small islets. On the other side we need to clamber out onto a sandy bank and scale a steep sand bank. With our luggage and the heat it’s no easy task. At the top a couple of farm buildings, a feral cat or two, some loose chickens, a couple of dogs growling, rolling, play fighting in the dust. A motor bike pulls up, it’s indicated that one rucksack will sit in front of the driver and we will ride pillion. Mr Phoumery kick starts another motorbike for himself and Kim and off we go along a cart track, raising dust and flying chickens as we go. We havent been on the back of a motorbike for a long time and found it quite exhilerating!

We sit at the top of the track where it intersects a road and wait for the bus. We talk to Mr Phoumery, he has 3 daughters, no son. He tells us he had a son in the 1970s but then, just after the war there were not many doctors and little access to medication. His son at 2 and a half caught malaria on Don Khone island, we have been there, seen the “hospital” Mr phoumery mimes his son lying back, closing his eyes and stretching out his arms, crucifix like. He doesn’t have the words. We have none but allpat our hearts.

The bus is a small 20 seater and we’re forced to sit apart in a tin box full of sweating Germans. Apart from the obligatory fag and pee break the next 2 and a half hours pass without great incident. The scenery becomes more rural and again we’re struck by how difficult it must be to survive here.

We’ve noticed on the road (and probably mentioned) that communities seem to specialise in products which they sell at the side of the road. In Thailand I recall passing about 2 miles of stalls selling only brooms fashioned from reeds. In Cambodia we passed at least a miles worth of sticky rice sellers. (Rice sealed into bamboo with banana leaves, topped up with sweetened coconut milk, or even better Mango and coconut milk and left over charcoal for an hour or so) Here we pass 2-3 miles of watermelons, I mean heaps upon heaps of them! Every stall has several hundred and there are dozens upon dozens of stalls, more watermelons than can ever be sold? We pass a mile or two of barbeque chicken sellers. The spatchcocked fowl spitting and smoking away filling the air with smoke and the aroma of sizzling, charring, sometimes char-coaling chicken skin.

Dropped outside a “bus office” in Pakse town, we try to get our bearings working back from the river to where our lodging is supposed to be. We want to walk if only to spite the tuk tuk mafia. They really don’t grasp the British Psych. Pushing onto the bus getting in your face shouting “tuk tuk papa?? Where you go? “ is almost guaranteed to ensure I’d rather crawl than get in their vehicle. They follow us down the bus steps, try to grab our luggage and shove it into the tuk tuk. We now let them carry it, then snatch it back before they can load it up.... ”No thank you sonny {I’ll give you fucking papa}.......... we’d rather walk”.

The hotel (Sinouk) is a bit of a French colonial throw back complete with ancient elevator with two hand closed layers of latticed metal through which you can look as you ascend or descend in ultra slow mo. The room is all timber panelling, and once Kim has again bullied them into upgrading our room, perfectly comy.

What can we tell you about Pakse? Probably best you don’t go there. It’s touted as a sort of transit hub but transport North is pretty difficult. After a days fruitless search for a van to Savannakhet we swallow the bitter pill that we need to take a public (Chicken Bus) and it’s going to be 5+ hours!

To cheer ourselves up we make our way to a tiny Italian run place. It has a “secret garden” an absolute delight. Tucked away behind a terrace of businesses an out door kitchen labours away making and cooking fresh pizza, roasting chicken and lamb chops!!!! And serving a creditable glass of wine. It’s great to have a break from noodle soup, red, green, yellow curries, Fish amok, papaya salad and the like.

Everything we own know and love is bundled into a tuk tuk outside the hotel. The owner of the place stands on the steps to make sure the driver knows where we’re going and waves us off, she disappears in a haze of heat, dust, black LPG fumes and early morning alms collecting, saphron clad monks, already holding up umbrellas against the sun.

The ride through Pakse is jolting as we rock over half made roads, catching our breath as we pass a garbage collecting truck, watching all the early morning ritual of a small Lao town. The driver pulls over in front of what looks like a derelict builders site hut. People cluster around it like a crowd in a disaster zone, waiting for sacks of rice, bottles of water. The tuk tuk driver is shoving our bags toward a huge pile of sacks of mangos.... “Savannakhet” he says. “Oh Goody, it’s our bus”!

Entering the bus is like stepping into an oven, there is no AC. This is balanced by the fact that there are few windows, the front door won’t close and the covering for the skylight is absent. The seats are that kind of leatherette which encourages sweat to pour from every pore in any proximity to it in the coldest of weathers, today it is 40 degrees. The wind coming in through the open windows feels just as if you have opened your fan assisted oven to check on your roasties after 25 minutes on full belt. All of the seats, and I mean all, are broken such that the seat back flies back to a laying position with the slightest pressure. Within very few minutes the inner sides of the bus are virtually to hot to touch. Our fellow male passengers, just to improve matters, seem to have the bladder capacity of ants. We can hardly move 200 meters without someone having to get off and water road side bushes. Couple this with the usual Lao fashion of eating a meal every eight minutes which means we stop at every roadside stall or grill for someone to buy some noxious, part incinerated, unidentifiable bit of a long dead animal of some description and we soon abandon all hope of meeting the advertised 4 hour trip time. Look, it’s the journey, not the destination right?

In all fairness, much Like when Kim and I traversed India in shit strewn, fly blown, roach and rat infested trains, it will be days like this that we remember, not the flight, bus or boat trip that went by in non descript comfort. If we wanted that we could just pop to Milton Keynes every now and then.

The heat is extraordinary, it batters the side of the bus like a hammer. We’re the only westerners on the bus and our fellow passengers manage to fall into dozes even as they are flung about by the uneven roads. We pass the usual row upon row of stalls. Every now and again the bus will pull over, passengers scramble for the exit to take a pee, stretch tired legs, massage numb bums, their path blocked by a dozen or more, usually women, who want to sell bits of fruit in plastic bags, bits of some kind of barbequed meat on sticks or spatchcocked whole chickens which are so thin, you can't  help think they are road kill, bags of eggs, chicken egg, duck, tiny quail eggs. Given the taste out here for eggs which are filled with a not quite ready to hatch embryo, we pass....

Tiny villages roll by outside, just a few huts raised on stilts against the Mekong breaking her banks. Every now and again we pass a huge mansion like place, secured behind barred fences and gates, clearly some are doing OK out here, we wonder what it is they do and why they choose to live out here. Once past the village there is mile after mile of low brown scrub. As we loop back toward the Mekong, rice becomes the obvious crop of choice. It lends the landscape a stunning iridescent green under the early PM sun. Trees take on a deep green and water birds flap about, backed by a range of mountains that will march with us now all the way down to the border with Thailand, which follows a line straight up the centre of the Mekong itself.

We’re eventually dropped, stiff as boards, sweat soaked, numb bummed at Savannakhet bus station and surrounded by the tuk tuk guys. We ignore them, head for the shade of the bus station seating and try to map the hotel. We’ve chosen carefully! 5 minutes walk from the bus station and 15 minutes walk to the Royal Thai Embassy and consulate where we need to undergo the two day trail necessary for obtaining a 60 day Thai tourist visa.

Finding the hotel is a doddle, we check into what is probably one of the biggest rooms we have ever stayed in. We could play tennis in here.

We get a whatsapp from Kim’s sister Julie, it’s sooooo lovely to see and hear from her albeit we are totally shattered. We have a small balcony and watch a baleful red moon rise over Savanakhet before setting out to find beer!! Food!!!

We’re wandering around a night market, trying to distinguish between bits that have come from the insides of animals and bits from the outsides as they smoke over charcoal, next it’s identifying what the animal was. We’re saved by a Lao guy with reasonable english and the only person in the place who has availed himself of a photo menu! It’s weird because this town is renowned as a border crossing and somewhere that expats can use for “Border runs” (Cross from one country to another to extend visas on re-enttry) so we expected at least a smattering of English but....No....nada, not a fucking sausage unless it’s a Lao “sour sausage”. MMMmmmmm Our friend helps us to choose some chicken and pork washed down with a cold Tuborg and the day catches up with us, rather like a mugger, it creeps up behind us, cudgeles us into a coma. ZZZZzzzzz

We get all our documents together. We may be asked to prove we have means of exiting Thailand?....

Boat tickets from Koh Lipe to Langkawi in April?....check.

Accomodation in thailand? we’ve a hotel booked in Chiang Mai.....Check.

Passports valid for 6 months?....check.....

Two clear pages in passport?....check....

Two photo copies of passport ID page?.....check.....

4X passport photos?.....check.....

Two completed application forms?....check.... in Blue Ink?.....check

2000 thai Baht? Oh Fuck!

In cambodia they wanted dollars when all we had was cambodian Rhiel in Vietnam, dollar not dong, in Lao, dollar not Kip, in thai consulate in Lao what do you know, they want Thai Baht.

We find a bank. I can’t believe being where they are that they are not asked 5 times a day but when we enter the bank and say we want to buy Thai Baht with US dollars we’re met with such mystified expressions that I run outside and check we’ve entered a bank not a Vacuum cleaner repair stall. Nope, it’s a bank alright.

We’re getting good at this now, we share a moment, take a few deep breaths, make the charades signs for “Play” and “ACTION!” We illustrate history from the dawn of time, the big bang, swirling vortices of star dust, colliding stars the birth of time itself, we cover primordial mud, the rise of the great lizards, their downfall, the rise of the primates, the emergence of mankind, we veer off to discuss the great religions and creation myths, the loss of innocence, the great wars and civilisations, the industrial revolution, the fall of agrarian and hunter gatherer societies, the creation of borders, protectionism, nationalism, the rise of socialism, capitalism and the power of currencies, globalisation, international trading systems, border security, citizenship, protectionism, the need for visas and therefore the need to swap one foreign currency for yet another currency, neither of which are the currency of the country in which we find our selves, which means that we cannot use the fucking ATM that you keep gesturing at in order to get the wherewithal to go to a country where we can get a decent Tom Yum soup.......

We pause, tears flow, we dab our eyes, holding hands we bow low to our audience who weep, cheer throw flowers, the Savannakhet branch of the VPM Farmers exchange bank has never seen a performance like it..... 2000 Thai Baht? will be 450,000 Lao Kip.

At the Thai embassy we stand in line. There are of course 3 windows, only one (of course) is open. The queue isn’t too bad, we’re maybe 25 people back but the heat is remorseless and the structure carefully designed so as to offer no shade whatsoever to anyone who is forced to wait here in this little sun trap. There’s a little market outside selling photographic, photo copying and downright forgery services to anyone who can’t muster the necessary bail of paper work.

We’re more than a bit nervous, failure here means another stop in Vientiane in Laos as our last chance to get the visa we need. In Cambodia we were refused outright! Not even allowed to enter the embassy. We shuffle our paperwork, photos passports, its our turn. The guy on the other side of the glass flicks through our passports, uses a pritt stick to stick our photos to some paperwork, takes our 2000 thai baht and passes us a bit of paper with the number 37 on it.....the meaning of life?..... The Universe?.....everything? “Come back 2pm tomorrow” he says.

The walk back to the river is long and stiflingly hot, we zig zag across the road trying to find shade. We decide to stop off for an iced coffee at what looks like a nice place, almost european. A long outdoors bit with benches, shaded, overhead fans whirring, leading to glass doors that promise ac. We’re looking at the coffee menu when a guy in the driveway next to us starts slaughtering chickens. Not quick with a knife, slowly, wringing knecks, the birds make a horrific noise, two are already laid, twitching next to where we would be drinking our Frape, knecks at weird angles, smears of blood stretching across the concrete drive way, a third is meeting it’s maker, a tiny Lao guy, shoulders working as he twists, this way, then that, crouched on his haunches before the cage, the victim is squawking and croaking like tiny tim, gargling ball bearings while trying to yodel, the other inhabitants of the cage are sending up a chorus of sympathetic screeches, fluttering wings, all in all just like an Wednesday at COSTA. We loose our appetite for coffee and anything else and move on.

We keep to the sun and make our way to the river bank. To our Right the second and newest “Friendship Bridge” linking Laos to Thailand and magnificent Massaman Curry and Chicken and Cashew nut, to our left the river bends slowly away from us taking the Thai border with it. There’s a climb down the bank to a platform on the river where a lady boy serves us a couple of beers before we wander back to town to get tickets to Thakhek, our next stop.

Probably the intense heat but by 9pm we’re tucked up, a bit of a read and heading toward Nodworld when the phone goes. It’s brother in law Pete phoning to tell us what day it is in England.

“Hello-ooo, is there anybody there?.......

Can you hear me?...

It’s Wednesday here, what day is it there.....over”

“Wednesday” “Oh. It’s 3 in the afternoon here, what time is it there?......over”

“10:30” “In the morning? .............over”

“No, at night” “Ok see you soon......over”

“what the fuck was that about”.....says Kim

“Night Kim Bob” says John.

So back to the thai embassy, we join a very long queue in blistering sun shine, hand over our chit with 37 written on it and our passports come back through the little glass window complete with 60 day single entry Thai visas, simple as that!

A couple of celebratory beers are in order and we sit in very hot sunshine with a couple of beer laos.

Tomorrow Thakhek, then Vientiane, then Vang Vien, Luang Prabang, Pak Beng, then Thailand and Jan and Pete. We just cannot wait!!

We’ve paid a little extra for a minivan, the deal is you get a 12 seater but normally you get to do the distance in about 75% of the time because you’re not constantly stopping to pick up local passengers and usually have other tourests.  In most cases the minivan is a tad more comfortable as well with maybe a vestige of AC and a chance the driver will drop you off near your hotel as opposed to an out of town bus station with a half hour trip to wherever you’re staying.

The minivan that clatters to a halt in a cloud of dust, flies and dislocated hubcaps is an unbelievable sight. It seems to be held together by the bungees which loop over the roof keeping some netting in place, which is also supposed to hold steady crates of god knows what and our luggage. The vehicle is already packed with passengers all of whom are old Lao women with the exception of a family with a new born and a man grasping a live cockerel. All of the old women are clearly strangers to Persil and despite todays 40+ heat they all wear coats on top of their trousers and pull overs and inexplicably cardigans buttoned across their coats. I’m sure they all had lovely smiles back in the days when they had teeth.

The windscreen of the van has previously been smashed, it appears to have been glued back together with something resembling bathroom filler. I doubt the driver can see. It doesn’t matter too much as we seem to spend the next 4 hours and 120 Ks of unmade road in second gear.

We stop every 6 or 7 minutes to either cram on more passengers or to feed the ones we have. I appreciate that for you, gentle reader, bat wings, frog, the foetus from an egg, griddled tarantula and chicken kneck sounds like something from a halloween party. Here it’s a menu.

I look to my right, across my fellow passenger, a 70 year old woman, she sits with a chicken leg in her mouth. Not a chicken leg as you are imagining right now, a nice, plump, drum stick. Oh noooo, she has a leg in her mouth, the clawed foot poking out between her lips as she sucks, thoughtfully, on what I can only assume is a bony chicken calf, moving it from side to side in her mouth like like a teenager moves a toothpick.

The driver point blank refuses to take us any further than the bus station when we get to Thakhek and we barter in the blistering sun with a Tuk Tuk driver who agree a price then loads his vehicle with supplies for a few stalls which he drops off on the way into town.

In fairness Thakhek is very beautiful. Our hotel in a lovely old french colonial building is right on the banks of the river. We can see across to Thailand on the other side of the mekong, glittering and sparkling like the tart she is. We have a great whatsapp with friends Steve and Pod who’re in Spain. Truth told, home sickness has hit hard recently and we miss everything about home, being understood, cool weather, decent beer, a pub, all our friends and family.

We’ve only pulled in here to break what otherwise would need to be an overnight bus trip to Vientiane. We’ve agreed to avoid an overnight if possible as of course Kim can’t sleep and instruct the driver at the same time.

Thakhek being lovely is a real bonus and we enjoy a days chilling by the Mekong. Sitting at a river bank lean too bar, feet up on a balustrade, on top of a long drop to the rivers surface, next stop Thailand, nursing an ice cold beer lao, as the sun drops like a blood orange behind a Thai temple complex’ glittering roofs, turning the river copper and gold, lighting the trails left in the water by swallows as they dip the surface is a memory that we try to lock away, perfect, peaceful, a world away, from....what? Everything we know I suppose, the humdrum.

Much as we’ve missed home recently we always come back to the same thing, once we’re home we’ll want to be back here in magical unbelievable moments like this. We’ve had so many, problem is finding the time to assimilate them, we must take a holiday!!!!

The trip to Vientiane is advertised as 7 hours! We’re braced for this to overrun by a couple as we bounce over the 20 minute unmade track in a tuk tuk to where the bus pick up is. It’s a spine jolting trip made no better by the fact that all our worldly goods are perched on the roof of the vehicle and we imagine at every hair pinned, jolting bend our rucksacks bouncing into the dust behind us.

Bloody hell, we’re at the bus station and the bus actually looks fit for human transport. The driver then does the entire 6 hour stretch straight without stopping apart from dropping off some supplies, sacks of mangos here, box of chickens here, a (I kid you not) large net of crabs wriggling and scampering within the confines of the netting sack to get away from the fierce sun.

We have a good haggle with a tuk tuk guy to arrive at a price for the half hour trip to “backpacker central” in Vientiane and we’re delighted with the hotel. Not promising from the outside, but through reception and we’re in a genuine oasis, lined with palms and fruit trees, surrounded by balconies and housing a wonderful, cool, swimming pool, clear, clean and looking magnificent after a dusty ride and 6 hours on the red dust road from Thakhek to Vientiane. We buy a bushel of icy beers and sit on our balcony as the sun sinks.....

Ventiane is a cool city. It has a real buzz about itself, the combination of old French colonial architecture and wonderful ancient temples and watts, the bustling river front, thronging markets and laid back coffee houses just gets under your skin. We have the usual errands, getting laundry done, checking out the local eateries and drinkeries. A great walk through the city in the stifling heat taking in a series of eye boggling temples, the Lao cultural museum, a turn round the underground market then back to the pool as the temperature races comfortably past 100.

The restaurant choices here are stunning. Everything from street food to top notch food. We tend more toward the streetfood types and enjoy some amazing meals in side street places which cook up world class noodles and rice dishes then lurch into the odd comfort pizza for a full on wood fired, made in front of your eyes, pepperoni. We go into a riverside bar and restaurant and grab a couple of seats. The menu promises a small taste of home in the shape of pork chops. A duo are setting up to provide entertainment, their sound is delivered to the audience by 4 pairs of very large ceiling mounted speakers set at 3 metre intervals from the stage, one pair every 3 metres, angled down to deliver maximum volume. The guys only have acoustic guitars and they’re plugged directly into the PA system. When they start they are ear splittingly loud. We spend 5 fruitless minutes shouting directly into the faces of two nonplussed staff members to see if the volume could be adjusted to 747 at take off levels. This is not possible, we are told. “Would you like me to show you how to do it” I say, gesturing toward the mixer which holds a volume slider.

“This will not be possible” they suggest we move further away from the musicians.

“they, are not loud,” I point out, “the speakers are, and, if we move further away we just get nearer to the next set of speakers", "also”, I gesture to the restaurant, “we are your only customers”

They simply can’t comprehend.

Our chops arrive and we sit hunched against the racket, eat, leave the money on the table and stalk out.

Swearing our way down the marble staircase of the hotel with our rucksacks and two day bags, they’re getting heavier or we’re getting weaker! We flop in reception not wanting to venture out into the baking heat of the Lao morning until we have to. A tuk tuk arrives and again all our worldly goods are bundled onto the roof and we’re packed into the back for a hair raising 20 minute ride through the city and onto the unmade road that leads to the “bus station” a flat expanse of dust and rocks with a 15 seater rippling in the heat haze.

Vang Vieng

The trip to Vang Vieng is more of the same, continuous road works and a bus that rocks and jolts over half made surfaces. The trip’s long, hot and dusty until we start into the huge limestone mountains of the Vang Vieng region. It is impossibly beautiful. The mountains rise, shear sided from jungle, looking for all the world as if they’re a set from “The Land Time Forgot” or any one of Speilbergs Jurassic park movies. Mist tends to hang in the jungle canopies and the limestone cliffs puncture the mist layer, which catches sun and moonlight in an unbelievably dramatic fashion. Say what you will about Vang Vieng, you can’t argue that its not genuinely beautiful.

What we will say is that the last 12 years haven’t improved the place. Development seems to have been unchecked, and hotels of a scale which the place simply can’t manage. Huge chinese (of course!) owned hotels now loom over the river, part of which seems to have been reclaimed for more development. We’re sitting having a riverside drink when half a dozen mini buses pull up in clouds of dust, they disgorge around a hundred chinese, shouting gesticulating, posing for snaps 40 odd long tail boats come hammering around the corner of the river, the noise and fumes are just horrendous as the tourists are loaded up and raced off on a cacophonous journey up and down river.

Once they’re gone the river settles into an idyllic place, crossed by bamboo bridges, the hut camps on the far bank start to light up with strings of lanterns, the grills at the riverside eateries start up and the smell of food cooking is everywhere. We’re reminded of what we loved about this place, until the chinese hordes roar back along the river and fall tumbling into the river from their long tails, progress can be a bitch.

Our hotel here is tiny, run by a couple of brothers (we think) who spend most of the day asleep in hammocks in the building which will eventually house the kitchen for a restaurant. They’re amazingly helpful in pointing us toward things to do, places to eat. There’s a Thai restaurant here that serves us a meal that’s just magnificent. We haggle for a 5 hour round trip by tuk tuk into the jungle to find a waterhole. The trip is ridiculously bumpy but the scenery is astonishing. Through tiny villages, at one point we stop and give a lift to 10 village ladies all off to a wedding. Laden down with golden baskets of goodies they wave the tuk tuk down, bundle in with us, giggling and smiling, we make conversation as best we can. 5 minutes later we drop them in a neighbouring village where crowds are gathering for the nuptuals, they stand in the middle of the road waving to us until we turn a corner and are out of sight.

The waterhole is tucked under a huge limestone mountain which trails creepers down across the waterfalls which feeds the pool. It’s a pretty heavenly spot. Enterprising Laos have set up shop to sell spicy/sour barbecued lao sausage and cold beer. Swings and trapeze are provided to jettison you into the cold pool which looks perfectly clear, full of fish, and young people.

Back in town after a hike along the river we watch the sunset into the mountains as hot air balloons set off into the mist layers, which cling to the sides, settling into the jungle clad sides. It’s beautiful, while it lasts, more longtails are coming, buggering up the very thing most western people would come here for. The Chinese on the other han seem to love it. I do wonder if, however, when they get home they can distinguish one photo venue from another? So self absorbed do they seem to be.

Luang Phrabang

The old capital of Laos is called Luang Phrabang. It was a highlight on our trip out here 12 years ago. Can it possibly be as beautiful as we remember? Will they have fucked it up? We needn’t have worried Luang Phrabang is possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. Almost, I don’t want to tell you about it, in case it gets too crowded. To put you off, the trip to get there overland is arduous.

We’re all packed into an early morning minibus, yet again tickets have been sold with scant regard for the actual number of available seats. Even when the bus is entirely full and all circulation space crammed with luggage, the muppet driver goes to yet another hostel where 4 more passengers await with what looks like a welsh dresser each for baggage.

The passengers cross the dusty road to the bus, the driver slides back the door to reveal the crammed compartment he left 5 seconds ago, he looks around as if expecting more seats to magically appear, looks suspiciously at passengers, as if suspecting them of occupying too many seats. Things start getting heated when he starts trying to re-arrange the luggage. “look, you’re not going to get another 4 people and their luggage in here” “two more hotels yet” he replies. “For fucks sake” we respond, “you need a bigger bus”. Heated road side phone calls ensue, another bus will come and finally we set off to Luang Phrabang an hour late.

The road is pretty bad and at times it feels as if it’s driving upstairs, the climb is virtually vertical as we clamber up into the mountains. The views across the mountain clad mountains are lovely and orchids and rhododendrons are blooming everywhere. Eventually after around 3.5 hours we get to the peak, where there’s a pitstop type place with food, water, toilets and it turns out we all have to get out of one bus and into another to make the downhill journey. We can only assume the first bus didn’t have brakes!

The second half of the trip is just the first half repeated but facing downhill. After just over 7 hours of boneshaking we’re deposited on a side street of Luang and follow our phone for the brief 10 minute walk to the guesthouse.

It’s as usual, swelteringly hot but we find the place without a missed turn and settle into a wonderful room overlooking a small garden and amazing looking pool. We can’t wait to get to the riverside to see if things have changed since 2007.

The streets are narrow, clustered with teak buildings, golden glistening temples, wind chimes, incense, in around 200 meters it feels as if we’ve journeyed back in time.

The river looks stunning in the pre sunset light, crowds are gathering for the money shot of the sun sinking into the mekong, river side restaurants are opening up and happy hour bars are touting for business. The road has the river on one side across which are jungle clad hills, and shop houses line the other. All timber, two level places, business at groundfloor mostly and living over, beautiful balconies with ornate wood and metalwork ballustrades strewn with red, white and purple bougainvillea, shuttered windows peeping out onto the street.

Luang Phrabang is very, very beautiful indeed, at the risk of ruining the place, you really should try to get there once in your lifetime.

A 40 minute drive from town centre are Phi Falls. A stunning complex of waterfalls and rock pools, the limestone cliffs make the water look as if it is glowing. The pools are deep enough for swimming and you can scull yourself under the cascading waterfalls and get immersed in icy mountain water before drying in the sun under the forest canopy. We splurg on a restaurant here. Carpe Dium has been constructed on a series of small falls so that a number of platforms over arch the river and rapids. It’s an incredible setting and granted, a salad and river fish cost about the same as a family car but really, really worth it.

A day walking around luang is just a fantastic experience. There’s been a city here since the 8th century, the 16th century Watt is a staggering work of architecture, every street seems to reveal something utterly spellbinding. To top it all off, years of French influence mean you can stop off for top class coffee, baguettes, wine. Placed on a peninsular at the joining of the mighty Mekong and the Nam Kha rivers, the whole centre of town is a unesco heritage site and you can see why. By day the place looks grand, ancient, by night, it sparkles like a town from a fairy tale.

From Luang we need to make our way to the thai border at Huay Xai (Hu-exy) where we can cross and make our way to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. Last time we were here we did the trip in the opposite direction by river (down river) It was quite an experience, so this time we decide to try it up river, what could go wrong?

Throughout most of SE Asia there’s a devil may care approach to health and safety when it comes to travel. I’m sure if you come here with Hayes and Jarvis or the like you’ll be immunised from it all. We, on the other hand find ourselves perched, precariously, on a single plank spanning the gap twixt sand bank and bow of a rice barge in the post dawn light; the plank bending down toward the fast flowing river under the combined weight of ourselves and everything we own, a crew member studiously ignores us, smoking a fag.

We’ll be on the boat for 2 days, 2 whole days, 07:30 to 19:00 each day engines roaring, river rushing, dodging rapids, periodically swinging to the shore picking up, or dropping off monks, motor bikes, children, baskets of chickens, mangos, watermelons, loads of matresses, gasoline, the entire commerce of the river region.

Villages turn out to wave us past, kids drop moons, scampering in and out of some of the shallows, the river is encroached by jungle, we can see some is burning, land clearance maybe or accidental fires, odd parcels of land have been cleared, here and there farmers huts perched high on the mountainside, we can only guess at the hardship involved in life out here and wonder about the seclusion of the occuopants of these odd, solitary huts.

The half way stop is a village, pak beng. It pretty much exists to service travellers on this route and comprises guest houses and restaurants. A cloud of business owners throng the sand bank and you need to contend with their constant “Where you stay? Look at my hotel, come to my restaurant, bar etc” as you try to again, tightrope walk across a plank, from a rocking boat to an almost vertical bank of soft, very deep sand.

Trying to negotiate this climb with heavy bags, the sand giving away under your feet, sweat dripping into eyes, running down back in 100+ degree heat, while being pestered by half a dozen kids selling rooms, beads, sisters brothers....why, I almost let my new found budhist calm slip and tell them all to “fuuuck offff!”

Pak Beng has grown since we were last here, off the grid the town was powered by generator and power was turned off at 9pm. Now they’re on grid, mind you, you can still get an adequate room for less than a fiver and an enterprising indian family has set up a tandoori restaurant where we get goat and aubergine with naan bread before hitting the hay. Delicious!

Next morning, just after dawn, either side of the dust track that they call the main street is waking up. Charcoal is being lit under barbecues on which chicken, bananas, pancakes etc will be sold to travellers making their way to the boats.

A number of offerings are being prepared in small bowls and women take them into the street, kneel and bow their heads as a line of saffron robed monks walk down the track. They stop at the offerings, offer a prayer in thanks, move on, followed by 2 or 3 hopeful dogs.

The smoke from the cooking fires rises and merges with mist which is crawling down the hills through the trees on this and the far side of the river. From where we’re having our coffee we can look straight back down river to where it carves through the mountains, back toward Luang Phrabang. I recognise the process the passngers on the boat into Laos are undertaking.

Marched to a small police hut with their papers before boarding the boat. They’ll go into the hut, face a desk behind which two officers sit who look at you for 10 seconds before waving you out the door.

No such nonsense for us, we’re off up river once we have again negotiated the sand bar, plank to moving boat horror.

It’s a loooooong day! Magical as it is to travel this amazing river through such wonderful scenery, it starts to pale after 4 hours, after 6 hours the bum is numb and if some one draws your attention to another fucking bird, rapid, fisherman, forest fire I swear they’ll go over the side. After 8 hours we’re getting a little testy, “Why aren’t we there yet?” Finally after 10 hours we pass under the friendship bridge between thailand and Laos and we have just about 45 minutes to go until we get to Huay Xai.

Kim has blagged us a hotel on the river bank, we can see it glowing from about a mile away, not the glow of friendly twinkling lights but rather, the glow of the luminous yellow the owners have chosen to paint the place.

It’s right next to the landing place and would be convenience itself were it not for the fact that we moore to two other rice barges across which we have to scramble, fully laden, before again facing the plank.

It’s a tough uphill scramble to the hotel entrance, trying to un-crick muscles, legs, back after the journey.

Reception is a small hut with a window in it. A lady has seen us coming as we approach she walks past us, takes off her shoes, enters the hut, closes the door, opens the window and says “Ye-ess???”

We need to explain that we’re guests, she can’t seem to grasp the concept. Eventually we get there by showing her the agoda page. We need to pay on arrival, in cash is best, to avoid the 3% mark up for credit cards. She also offers a transit across the border to Chaing Rai, it looks good value so we book it. She then tries to check us into the hotel again, she’s “forgotten” we’ve paid. I have to lean across the counter and point to the pile of Lao Kip by which time she’s forgotten we’ve paid for the transfer and she now wants more money because she uses a wrong exchange rate (we need to pay for the transfer in thai baht). Kim holds her hands behind her back while I punch her, show her the exchange rate, the Baht, the Kip and tell her “we’re going up the pub”.

There’s not a lot here but we do find a restaurant, a trio is setting up out doors where we eat a lovely meal and listen to what proves to be a great little band.

In the morning we again have the huge priviledge of watching the sun rise over a steamy mekong valley, mnajestic, beautiful, unforgettable.

We have a kettle in the room, I fill it, bite open the poxy little coffee sachets, got to plug it in. It’s a 3 round pin plug! Sockests are all two pin....fuck it! I stomp up to the office, no one about, our friend from the night before is washing her hair under a tap next to a garage. I show her the plug, I can’t get her to understand....... “Do you mean we’re the first people to stay in that fucking room and point out you can’t plug the fucking kettle in????” (I’m feisty in the morning if I don’t get caffine). She takes the kettle from me, walks into the garage, taking out a pair of bolt croppers she cuts off the 3rd pin, she hands the kettle back and walks back toward the tap to rinse her hair.

Drinking coffee we can look down on where the boats are moored, crewed mostly by families, they’re all coming to life. Mum, dad, kids, waist deep in the river, washing hair, bodies, clothes, laughing, chattering all getting ready to face the day.

We bundle our stuff up to the junction with the road. Another very long line of monks visit the businesses there. This line so long that it’s being controlled by police who stop traffic. A flat bed truck follows the monks so that all the offerings can be collected, chanting, praying, incense, it’s a lovely.

Farewell to the Mekong as we wander down the street off loading our last kip on some beers and peanuts. A tuk tuk picks us up and we bump up to the mainstreet, we get dropped at a coffee house, hang about for 20 minutes then get back, in the same tuk tuk and drive toward the friendship bridge and the border.

Last time we were here we did this trip in tiny boats, putting across the rivers current with water sloshing over the sides so some things have improved! The border formalities are ok, the little hitler behind the desk insists we put the FULL address of our lodgings in Chiang Mia in a box just about big enough for my initials and seems happy with the totally illegible result and we’re in Thailand!