Chiang Mai.

I had a funny three days trip to get here in Chiang Mai from Luang Prabang.

The first two days were on a boat on the Mekong with the first night in Pak Beng and the second in Huay Xay; two villages for which the definition “forgotten by God” applies incredibly well, especially for the first one: one mole, one road and less than 20 buildings constructed on an hill just  30-40 meters over the river. Really a one-night-city, in travelers slang, but we had a nice evening with some guys from Germany and France (oh, you should have seen their faces when I said: “I’m from Italy”!!!!).

The third day was like:
1) wake up early in the morning
2) spend more than 2 hours to change some money (I strongly recommend to never, never, be without cash in northern Laos, especially on Sunday…)
3) cross the Mekong (check-out from Laos, and check-in in Thailand)
4) find a Tuk Tuk (more on Tuk Tuk here and here) to get to the Chiang  Khong bus station
5) get on the bus for Chiang Rai
6) and on another bus for Chiang Mai
7) have a really good dinner at “Da Stefano“, recommended. have an intensive shopping session at the Chiang Mai Sunday-night market.

Luang Prabang.

There’s a particular kind of energy in all the country, I feel it as a mix of optimism, pride and confidence in what they will be able to do (Lao is in development, so a lot of transformations are taking place). Even if in many parts of the country houses don’t have electricity and water, even if many roads need to be built and many other to be repaired (yesterday the trip from Vang Vieng – 170 km – took us 7 hours), even if they are conscious of how far is their life style to the western people one, even – at the end – if the entire country has many troubles and the road to the economic development is long and uncertain.

But the contrast between the country’s conditions and the people’s mood is really impressive. All the country is smiling all the time. Young folks are the great majority and children…, oh children are simply everywhere. Every person you talk to is so kind (and often with such a low voice tone) that sometimes you feel embarassed. I can’t say why (is not a sort of Nationalism), but I have the sensation they feel like players of the same enormous team that is slowly, but continuously, getting better.

Vientiane.

On Monday we had another hardcore bus trip: 9 hours (with a unique 10 minutes break) for 457 km…

Anyway, we are in the capital (the second time for me) and we are enjoin it. Even if it’s now so strange seeing so many western people. Yesterday we spent the morning in a market doing some shopping. I bought two shirts for 7$ and other two for 6$, shorts for 5$. With other few dollars I was able to buy some presents for my family. It’s so funny to bargain with Lao merchants and how do they laugh earing me speaking some Lao words! Nicola had troubles with wearing sizes, I couldn’t see an asian guy with comparable dimensions yet…

The city appear to be quiet, so different from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh in which people are continuously playing their f…..g klaxons (and you how many cars and bikes are always runnings on the roads in asian cities…). French influence can be noticed everywhere (much more than in Savannakhet), from writings to art and monuments and, of course, there are a lot of French restaurants.

Tomorrow we move (guess by which mean…). I hope to be in Vang Vieng in the afternoon.

Savannakhet, Laos.

It took us 32 hours to get in Savannakhet from Van Don Island: it was a mission!

The first taxi took us at 8.00 am at our bungalow and was directed to the port, we planned to take a ferry and then to look up for a bus to Hanoi. On the road the driver saw a bus, made it stop and said (literally): “To Hanoi, good for you”. At 3.00 pm (6 hours on the bus let me read more than 200 pages of a book I’m loving: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. I strongly recommend it) we were in Hanoi and, after a city trip by taxi, we were in the right station to leave Hanoi and go to south.

The desired bus to Dong Ha officially didn’t exist, so we decided to take the one for Da Nang (estimated time: 14 hours) and asked the driver to leave us in Dong Ha thinking we would have been there at 5.00 am and we would have found the bus station open. We were wrong as we arrived at 3.00 am (other 10 hours and many pages of my book…). Fortunately the bus driver managed to stop the bus were a mini-wagon was starting to Lao Bao, were we would crossed the border with Lao. During the road the driver bring on the bus an incredible number of people and stuffs, with a peak of 20 I think. I can’t explain how we were pressed!

At 6.00 am we were at the border, that opened one hour later. At 9.00 am we got on another bus, and at 4.00 pm we finally reached our destination.

Cua Ong, northern Vietnam.

I feel like on another planet. We can’t find anyone who speaks english, finding rooms and meals is becoming an hard task: this is so amazing! People look us with a strange curiosity, Nicola says we are like stars. And it’s true, seems that they had never seen a western face.

Anyway, Vietnamese people are always extremely kind and happy to know us (even with the communication barrier): at the end of a nice dinner in restaurant (each one of us payed less than 4$) the owners (a family I think, but they were so many and of so different ages) offered us to sit down at their table and join their tea break. It was funny, they were interested in my tobacco and in the strange way I roll my cigarettes, we ended up with a cigarettes roll up work shop!

Tomorrow will be on Van Don island: I’m dreaming a bungalow on the beach.