Back in Luang Prabang

The bus ride from Muang Sing to Luang Namtha zigzags along the bottom of a steep sided valley covered in thick luxuriant jungle. Which sounds lovely. Except that the already full bus went on a little detour round the back streets of Muang Sing to pick up a man with a sack and a hoe, then did another little detour to pick up another man with a sack. Then we headed back to the hospital to pick up a girl with an intravenous drip attached to her arm, the other end of which was attached to a bottle, which her mother was obliged to hold above the grl's head for the whole two hour journey, lurching round corners at top speed. Most of the passengers had to get out in order to fit the patient and her mother in, then, somehow or other the rest squashed themselves into the remaining spaces.

The bus set off playing local pop music, the passengers chatting loudly. Then gradually, as we started to go round the hundredth bend, the chatting was overtaken by communal retching. Those with window seats vomitted out of the windows, those without vommitted into plastic bags. I didn't see whether the poor woman holding up the intravenous drip bottle joined in the vomitfest or not. I daren't turn round.

The bus journey from Luang Namtha to Luang Prabang took eight hours - eight hours on roads that for the most part had no tarmac. In some places they were building the roads. Sometimes the traffic ground to a halt while buldozers shunted backwards and forwards, shifting huge piles of earth. The scenery was spectacular, when we could see it, through the thick clouds of dust that the convoy of busses, trucks and cars stirred up, rattling and bumping along theses beaten tracks. Steep, green forest-clad hillsides, blue mountain peaks, thatched roofed villages, lush vegetation all around.

I have found a cheap hotel in Luang Prabang. It is truly basic. But the seating/restaurant area outside is completely surrounded by banana trees, palm trees, flowers, vines, green leaves of every kind. A very tranquil place in a back street between two temples.