Perceptions of Laos

... With crude chopsticks that could double as crutches, we eat spicy noodles under Vientiane's very own Arc de Triomphe adorned with the plaque: "never finished... due to turbulent history... a monster of concrete" - it appears the Laotians are self-critical...

... but relaxed. So very relaxed. The only 'time' in this country is determined by one's mood: time to sleep, time to eat, time to swerve the bus around the buffalo milling in the middle of the road...

... the roads: ever windy, they are thoroughfare for machine and beast alike. Even in the capital, tuk-tuks can share the road with cows. The rivers are shared by boats, bathers and water buffalo...

... and roosters. No need for an alarm clock in Laos - either the country sets a record for roosters per capita or we stayed at the wrong places. It does make the dinner decision easy though; revenge tastes like chicken...

... but we made the most of our early mornings to watch monks flow in a file of orange robes down the streets of Luang Prabang, the cultural and buddhist heart of the country, situated on the Mekong...

... about 6 hours of winding road south is Vang Vieng. Our English skills are coveted in this land where the kids are hungry to learn. This manifested in our presence at a village evening school of 60 eager kids from three separate ethnic tribes. Very cute... very hard to leave...

... and similarly in a temple in Luang Prabang, where we were invited into the inner sanctums (literally the living area) of novice monks who wanted to chat in English (and in Japanese with Jeremy) ...

... and then the slow trip westwards, as our wooden vessel plied it's way up the Mekong to the border town of Huay Xai. But not to leave the lovely Laos. Rather, to bring out the conservationists in us (read: to act like little kids zooming on steel cables 150m above the forest valley, living in a treehouse; dawn monkey stake-outs and a whole lot of trekking - more on this to follow)...

And just like that, with a swift long-tail boat to the Thai side of the Mekong, it is over.