...bus, bus, LAOS, buuuuus, Luang Prabang

Yes, there was more to come. Two buses on consecutive days took us down to the Lao border and across, which was quite exciting for those of us who'd had a sheltered upbringing, but otherwise fairly uneventful. You can buy 30-day Lao visas for 35 dollars at the border, although some nationalities only had to pay 30. Do they not remember the days of servitude under the French?! The luggage on the bus was interestingly stowed though, to say the least.


The six of us then stayed at the first town of any note, Luang Namtha, where we sampled the first Beer Lao (of many - mmmmmmmmm), ate baguettes (OK, thank you France) and then said our farewells the following morning.


Nathalie and Emilio were heading west towards Thailand, where they have a date in a couple of days with some friends on some undiscovered island in the south. Cloggies Kim and Ewoud were hanging about for a couple of days before also heading west for an expensive slice of eco-tourism called the Gibbon Experience (have a look on google), which we would have also done had it not been all booked up by the time we decided to come to Laos. But our destination was Luang Prabang to the south, which the smiling man in the ticket office assured us was six hours away - a mere pittance in the scheme of our recent bus odysseys.

What fools to believe a word of it. Nine hours later we rolled into a bus station, only to find out that it was a fifteen minute tuk-tuk ride to town. All of which is leading up to saying that we arrived in our first destination of any note in Laos fervently wishing we'd stayed in China, with its wondrous rail network.

Luckily, Vishnu or Krishna or someone had obviously taken pity on us - salvation was at hand in the form of an Indian restaurant just in front of our guesthouse, which served us the most delicious curries and naan bread. If you've been reading this blog you'll know I've been loving the food in China, but eating it twice a day does test the patience a little, so something that different was very welcome. Yes, I know we should be trying out Lao food, but give us a break, we've got a couple of weeks yet.

Having recovered from three more days on buses, Laos seems to be a good choice for a break from China. It's so quiet! And so undeveloped. Every village we passed on the bus was made entirely of wooden houses on stilts, and Luang Prabang, though Laos's second city, has no building higher than two storeys and far more palms than houses or indeed people. I think we'll be staying here for a few days yet...

Some of the food on offer at the lunch stop on our journey south reminded us of the more exotic dishes of China


We preferred to be reminded of Leeds and Bradford


View down to the Nam Khan river, with Luang Prabang on the right (yes, there is a town down there)