Lovely Laos

Can there be a better way to start the day than cycling alongside the Mekong? Well, maybe yesterday trumped it as I was sitting on an elephant meandering through pristine jungle in Laos.

I am in Luang Prabang for a few days, with Lori, as I needed to renew my visa for Cambodia and had to leave the country. Good excuse eh? I have wanted to visit Laos for years, ever since I was at the Golden Triangle many years ago and looked across the Mekong at, what was then, a forbidden country. Luang Prabang has UNESCO World Heritage status and is a total delight. It is situated at the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam River and is surrounded by forest covered, spectacular peaks - a welcome change after flat Cambodia. When the plane was making it's descent it was hard to imagine there was going to be anywhere flat enough to land.

LP is a beguiling place of gentle, smiling people, stunning old houses, many beautifully restored, marvellous scenery and the most somnambulant atmosphere you can possibly imagine. There is a curfew that seems hardly needed as by 9.30 most of the town is hunkered in for the night. The people here are so laid back you wonder how anything ever gets done and yet, it works. It is clean, orderly, nobody is trying to sell you anything, the tuk tuk drivers wait patiently for you to approach them, there are no beggars, little traffic and beauty all around. It is a good example of how tourism should be handled; if only it were so in Cambodia.

The per capita income is only slightly less than Cambodia and yet there does not seem to be the destitution that one sees there. There is poverty and yet, somehow basic needs seem to be met in a way not seen in it's neighbour. In the countryside villages even obviously poor houses look clean, well swept and are without all the rubbish that so pervades Cambodia. I have not seen a single filthy child here; they all have shoes, clean clothes and seem well looked after.

Laos has had it's share of troubles, of course there was not the Khmer rouge genocide here, but it was bombed relentlessly by the US during the Vietnam war and had many years of conflict from an iron fisted , communist regime. Thousands of people were sent to 're-education centres' and many, if they could, escaped abroad. It is estimated that 25% of the population of LP alone left the country. Ithis is a trend that is only just being reversed. It is also interesting to see the Russian flag flying next to their own on so many buildings here in the town of many huge monasteries and, what seems like, thousands of Monks.

I could go on and on about the sheer fabulousness of LP but will, instead, urge you to visit and see it for yourself. Do not hesitate, just come. Think of sitting by the river with a glass of cold beer Lao in one hand a good book in the other and a plate of scrummy fried river weed with chilli jam in front of you....bliss.

Tomorrow Lori and I will return to SR and heat and dirt and work. I will be very interested to see what has happened to the washing station while I have been gone. I fear it will not be good.