Riverside

I don’t like making sweeping statements about an entire nation, but it seems to me Lao people like to sleep. Walk into a market and half the stall-owners will be asleep under their tables, or at least their children will be. We saw a man splayed out in the middle of the road, head under his lorry, snoozing – as if he just got bored fixing it and fancied a nap. If a shop or café is empty, the owners will nod off. If you need help, or want to buy something, people are happy to oblige; if not, they’ll just carry on sleeping. It’s not surprising the currency is called Kip…

Laos also seems like a very fertile place. There are squidgy babies everywhere, dangling from their mums’ hips or dancing naked in the rain. Then there are bumbling puppies, flimsy kittens, velvety calves and wobbly ducklings to make you smile all over the place.

After our visit to the jungle, we spent a few days winding up and down the Nam Ou river, staying in pretty wooden villages in picturesque valleys. First stop was Nong Khiaw, a tranquil little place sandwiched between jagged karsts which glower down at the river. Clouds of white butterflies swarm around the muddy banks, children splash and giggle in the water and longboats glide past.

An hour up the river on a longboat is Muang Ngoi Neua, more remote and more delightful. Electricity is scarce and farmyard animals are plentiful; there’s very little to do except gaze at the mystical moonlit mountains fading into the horizon. The moon was so bright we could barely see the stars. We walked an hour or so away from the river along butterfly-strewn paths and sleepy paddy fields to an even more remote village to eat garlicy noodles, play petanque and laugh at bouncy little children.

After all this time in the sticks it was time to investigate a Laos city, so we caught a bus down to Luang Prabang, a charming cluster of shuttered French villas, glittering wats, wide, flowery streets and tempting restaurants splattered on a peninsular between the Mekong and the Nam Ou. It was no less pretty and peaceful than everything we’d seen so far in Laos. We ate delicious cheap food from the night market, hired bikes to swoop between river banks and got completely drenched in a rain storm. We gorged ourselves on crepes and baguettes, a welcome change from sticky rice.

Our last day in Luang Prabang me, Joe, Jean-Phillipe and Anne-Laure decided to cycle 35 km to some waterfalls outside town. We’d been told it was mostly a flat road, so we snubbed mountain bikes for the cheaper gearless ladybikes. What a mistake! Gentle hills were agony on those heavy lumps of metal, and with the midday sun blaring down, the three hour journey almost killed me. The waterfalls were worth the journey – cold, clear turquoise water, nibbly fish and rope swings for the brave people. After basking in that for a couple of hours I stuck my bike on the roof of a tuk-tuk and chugged back to town. Joe and the Frenches made it back on the bikes though, crazy fools.