Amelia's Asian Adventure

When we were hunting for a hostel on our first arrival in Phonsavan, we passed by an NGO office in a white painted building on the main street. It was the local branch of the Mines Advisory Group International -or “MAG” for short. Before coming to Laos, I had just a vague understanding that the country had been affected by bombing during the Vietnam war. Aside from a few fuzzy impressions and the pointed warnings in the Lonely Planet not to stray off the beaten paths due to the hazard of unexploded bombs, I knew very little about it. We were all keen to learn more (and let's face it, there's not much to do on a weekday evening in the back of rural Laos), so we went down to the MAG office on our first night there and joined the motley handful of western tourists on plastic chairs for the screening of a documentary. The film was called “Bomb Harvest”. It turned out to be one of the most confronting and compelling docos I have ever seen.

In the next 45 minutes we were to learn about the “secret” carpet bombing of Laos during the Vietnam war. About cluster bombs and a million civilian casualties. And, about the shocking legacy of that campaign -the thousands of tons of live unexploded ordinance still littered across the country in the present day. Did you know about that? I didn't either. Now, I know this is a travel blog and not a political commentary. But, I want to write something real about it here because: what I learned about Laos had a huge impact on me. Because this story is one that I don't think most people in Australia ever hear about. And because I really believe it is a story -not just a deeply compelling human story, but a live current issue- that desperately needs to be told and heard and acted upon.

This story started in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. Sharing a long border with North and South Vietnam, Laos was right next door to the bloody conflict between the US and North Vietnamese Communists. Although Laos had a small Communist movement itself, under the 1962 Geneva Accord, the international community established Laos as a neutral country and prohibited the presence of foreign military troops there. Nevertheless, Laos' neutrality was violated by both the North Vietnamese and the United States. The North Vietnamese used Laos to infiltrate troops and supplies into South Vietnam via the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail, a secret supply route that ran through eastern Laos on the way to Saigon. The United States wanted to destroy this crucial supply line and suppress Laos' domestic Communist movement.

As a result, in 1964 the US launched a massive covert aerial bombing campaign against Laos. Between 1964 and 1973, the US conducted around 580,000 bombing missions in Laos. American B52 bombers dropped a planeload of explosives on Laos on average every eight minutes every day for nine years -a shocking total of around two million tons worth of bombs. This dizzying total works out to over half a ton of bombs dropped for every human being in the country -making Laos per capita the most heavily bombed country in history.

Aware that the bombing was a blatant breach of the Geneva Accord, the US conducted the operation in complete secrecy, without the knowledge or approval of Congress or the American people. (This was despite the fact that at a cost of around $20 billion, the Laos campaign was the largest and most expensive paramilitary operation ever conducted by the US.) Because the campaign was secret, the US could and did flout an extensive list of international laws and agreements on humane warfare and the protection of civilians in armed conflict. Non-military targets such as temples, hospitals and villages were attacked free-for-all. We saw blackened Buddhas standing one-armed in the bombed out shells of temples, and craters in the school playgrounds. As if deliberate campaigns against civilians were not bad enough, the US also used Laos as a “dumping ground” for bombers returning from unsuccessful missions in Vietnam. Because it was risky for planes to land while they still had bombs on board, returning pilots with unused weapons just dumped their explosives over Laos on the way back to base in Thailand.

As you can imagine, the impact of these bombings was devastating. During the nine years of attacks, about a million people -a third of Laos' tiny population- was killed, injured or made homeless. Thousands of people were displaced by the bombing, fleeing to cities to escape the planes. Many were driven to join the Communists fighting the US in Northern Vietnam.

This bloody history has real and continuing consequences in Laos today. Many of the bombs dropped on Laos were cluster bombs. These brutal weapons consist of a large bomb casing full of hundreds of tennis-ball sized “bomblets” designed to scatter over a wide area of ground on detonation. They are most commonly anti-personnel weapons -ie, they are designed to kill people, not destroy building or military installations. Neutral Laos had barely any military personnel or installations anyway, so unsurprisingly the vast majority of casualties from the bombing were civilians -villagers, farmers and families caught indiscriminately in the blitz. [Interestingly, following a long period of campaigning, the use of cluster bombs was prohibited under international law by the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions because of the severe and disproportionate effects of these weapons on civilians.]

Up to a third of the cluster bomblets failed to explode on impact to due technical malfunction. Known as “unexploded ordnance” or UXOs, these bombs are now are lying scattered all across the country just waiting to go off. UXOs include big bombs, mortars, cluster munitions and submunitions, and landmines. Most are highly unstable and deteriorated. They are easily set off by impact or movement -such as being stepped on, hit by a plough or shovel, or tossed by a child at play. The extent of the contamination is appalling: a 1997 government survey found that of Laos' 18 provinces, ten were severely contaminated by UXOs and five moderately contaminated.

In Phonsavan where we stayed, the presence of bombs was everywhere. Not just in the white lines painted on the ground to show you where to walk or the MAG signs telling you to seriously (!) keep off the grass. People had used bombs in every part of their daily life. I saw meter high shells stacked upright to form garden picket fences; big bomb casings in a new life as water troughs, book shelves and vegetable boxes. Even the keyring for our hostel room was a bullet from an American machine gun. Obviously these munitions scraps were inactive, but it was incredibly eerie and disturbing to see how ubiquitous and unremarkable a part of life these deadly weapons had become. The locals thought it was normal to cook their dinner in missile shell casings. I took pictures, feeling slightly sick. The bombs are literally everywhere -in the fields and forests, under the roads and between the buildings and hidden in the school playgrounds. Some the people know about and avoid. Many are hidden, until a foot or or a shovel or a curious child comes by.

Accidents are almost a daily occurrence. Mostly they occur when people are farming and their shovels or ploughs set off bombs hidden underground. Around 300 people are killed this way every year, with many more severely injured and disfigured. I certainly noticed more than the usual number of cripples and amputees in the market and on the street. While more than half of victims are killed instantly, survivors generally suffer severe wounds, burns, blindness, or amputation. Many can never work again. This is a huge problem in families already under strain of poverty, particularly if (as is often the case) the victim is the father and breadwinner. Sadly, a large proportion of UXO victims are children. Cluster bomblets, known as “bombies” by the locals, look just like a ball or a piece of fruit and are tempting toys for kids. Children are also drawn into collecting bombs for scrap metal to sell in order to help support their families or pay for their education.

The bombs have ongoing consequences reaching belong the shocking human toll. According to MAG, UXO contamination is one of the primary factors limiting long-term development prospects in Laos. With an annual GDP of less than $13 billion, Laos is one of the very poorest countries in the world. It is mainly dependent on agriculture, with subsistence farming providing some 80% of total employment. The problem is that a huge portion of the country is contaminated by UXOs and is simply too dangerous to use for farming or building. People cannot grow food to eat. Arable land cannot be cultivated to support much-needed economic development. State infrastructure projects such as roads, housing and irrigation schemes, are stopped in their tracks because of the prohibitive cost of clearing land of bombs first.

Desperate farming families have sought new ways to earn a living. Collecting and selling scrap metal from bombs has become a prime new source of income. The metal used to make US bombs is of top quality. It is therefore highly sought after by Vietnamese scrap metal merchants. People collect scrap metal debris in the forests and fields, often trying to dismantle live big bombs to take the valuable metal casings. Obviously, this is extremely risky work. Hundreds of deaths and accidents occur due to the scrap metal trade. Up to 50% of these victims are children. Already under-resourced hospitals are stretched to the limit to cope with new incoming victims, plus the ongoing care needed by bomb survivors .

The only way to make the land safe is to send teams of bomb disposal experts to locate, dismantle and clear the explosives. In 1996 the Laos government set up a national UXO clearance program called UXO LAO with assistance from the United Nations. The program is funded by donations from around the world -and it was good to find out that Australia is currently one of the biggest donors. A parallel program is run by MAG International, the NGO we visited in Phonsavan. They do extraordinary work training new volunteers and conducting disposal operations. It is incredible and horrifying work -life and death every day. Most of the local volunteers have barely had a high school education, yet they can keep their cool dismantling an unstable 400kg warhead with the most basic equipment. When you are working with live bombs there are no second chances. I was interested to see that the new bomb teams included two all-women teams in such a male-dominated community. Promoting community awareness is also a major project -what the dangers are, how to recognise them, and what to do when a UXO is located. The progress is very slow. Because of the sheer volume of bombs around the country, there are simply not enough teams to go around. At current rates, it will take 180 years to clear Laos of UXO.

People speak of Laos as a forgotten backwater of Southeast Asia. To some extent it is. Everyone knows about the war in Vietnam and the genocide in Cambodia. But who talks about Laos? Who even knows where this country is on the map? But there are real people living there, and they deserve a chance too. The politics of the past stole the lives of one generation and have damned the future of the next. 180 years is a very long time! The more I learn, the more I see that the US and the West have done some really dirty outrageous things in Southeast Asia. It shocks me that people can do things like that to other human beings. And walk away, or turn a blind eye. I want to do something about this.

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If you're interested in finding out more about UXO contamination in Laos, these links are a good place to start:

Filmmaker's website for the documentary “Bomb Harvest”: http://www.bombharvest.com

“Bombies”, another excellent documentary: http://www.itvs.org/bombies/story.html

MAG International website for Laos: http://www.maginternational.org/where-we-work/where-mag-works/lao-pdr-/

UXO LAO -the Laos government program: http://www.uxolao.org/

I: Phonsavan
We took a minivan east through the mountains towards the town of Phonsavan. The minivan was more like a private car, and quite spacious and comfortable especially for the cheap price we paid. The trip was about 6 hours, mostly through tortuously winding mountain roads. Other travellers we met always complained about long bus trips and the hours wasted in transit. But, I never really saw that time as wasted. There is so much to see outside of a bus window! All through the trip I could never just plug myself into an ipod and go to sleep. I was always too busy seeing whatever there was to see as we whisked away through the countryside, not wanting to miss a moment. We covered so much ground and passed through so many different regions on public transport. Some of the very best views and sunrises of the trip I saw from a bus window while everyone else slept.

The trip to Phonsavan was no exception. The scenery was just incredible. I had no idea how mountainous and remote Laos is in the north. The car wound its way up through hairpin narrow roads through towering mountainsides cloaked in jungle. Squeezing past other battered vehicles on the road -crowded utes stuffed with passengers and baggage. We felt privileged to have our own car. We passed the occasional isolated village with bamboo stilt houses of the most basic kind. Farmers with oxen, women in headscarves working, pigs and naked children playing in the dirt. Dust and animals everywhere. But for the most part the land was really undeveloped. I started to understand why -how could you possibly clear and plant such steep mountainsides like that with so basic facilities? How would you clear and stump and get a plough up 60 degree slopes like that? In this lush fertile jungle land it seemed there was not much arable land to go round.

We arrived in Phonsavan in the afternoon. There's not much to say for Phonsavan itself. It's a very poor one-street town in the middle of nowhere. The town itself has little to offer -tourists only go there because of its proximity to the famous and enigmatic Plain of Jars. It was the sort of deadbeat remote place where groups of men sat along the dusty street smoking and drinking all day watching the occasional motorbike and tumbleweed rolling past. We didn't see any women at all. We did the rounds of all the hostels but had trouble finding a room to sleep three. We ended up at the only triple room in town, in a dingy, seedy hostel above a nightclub. Us three girls felt a little uncomfortable; avoided the bars and made sure we were always inside by dark.

We went to find some food in the local wet market. It was an extraordinary bustling place (and, as it turned out, this was where all the women were, working hard over market stalls and hot stoves). Nobody spoke English, but they were very friendly. I got the feeling they hadn't seen enough tourists there yet that we were still a novelty and not an annoyance. We bought unidentified noodle soup by charades. Yummy peppery broth served with really strange strips of white rice flour paste set in large round basket trays and sliced like fat noodles. We walked through the market, absorbing all the raucous sounds and smells and bustle. Delicious piles of tropical fruit, freshly grilling bananas and giant lizards in cages being sold for meat. Live fish flicking frantically in buckets. Of course there was no refrigeration, so the butchers placed their cuts of meat out raw on the tables waving newspaper over them to keep the hordes of blowflies off. Certainly makes you think twice about what you're eating. We bought a selection of yummy Laos snacks that looked like the Malay nyonya desserts, some mangoes and a bunch of mangosteen, my favourite.

We got back to the hostel to find that the water was no longer working in our bathroom. The bathroom was already pretty gross to begin with, having open sewage and a giant bin full of smelly grey water collecting under the sink. Now, I can handle dirty bathrooms, squat toilets and showering with a bucket if I have to. But in tropical temperatures having NO WATER AT ALL is downright unhygienic. There is nothing worse than being out all day in the sweaty roasting heat and dust, then coming home and finding you can't wash your face, flush the toilet or clean the grime off your hands. Dettol and wet wipes only go so far!! We complained to the owner, who didn't manage to fix the problem (and more to the point, didn't seem to care). Feeling rather down about our new digs, we cheered ourselves up with a girlie slumber party on the lumpy iron beds... eating the tasty Laos snacks we bought at the market, doing each others' hair and talking about boys and life and travel and what it's like to live in Australia and Korea and Malaysia. The water was still not on the next morning, so we packed up and checked out at 7am. We went back to another place we'd seen the night before -ended up sleeping three girls together in one big double bed. Lucky we were small! The room was tiny, the floor damp and the guesthouse owner permanently stoned, smoking his bongs in a hammock with a mangy kitten and a cloud of mosquitos buzzing roud. But the shower worked! I got to wash my hair.

Luang Prabang is an ancient city located in northern central Laos. First established by Thai-Lao river peoples in the 6th century, the city has weathered a colourful history of kingdoms, conquests and foreign invasions. The town used to be the centre of the ancient kingdom of Luang Prabang, which existed from the early 1700s until the Communist regime took over in 1975. A long period of colonial domination by the French has left a lasting impression on the city, from the curious fusion architecture of the old buildings to the crusty baguettes and cream cheese you can buy from the hawkers on the street. Geographically, LP is built on a little peninsula between two branches of the river. The old town is centred here along the water, although the rest of the city extends much further out than we initially realised.

In 1995 it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today, it is a genteel and comfortably relaxed tourist town, its graceful wide boulevards lined by pretty old buildings in a blend of colonial and Laos traditional styles. A temple on every corner. Slender Buddhist monks in their orange coloured robes and shaven heads passing picturesque on the street in worn sandals and black umbrellas. Curious little shops brimming with hill tribe handcrafts and silk; secluded riverside cafes selling pancakes and iced coffee and mango shakes. Old women with yokes carrying heavy baskets of fruit and bean curd. Big square drying racks on the street with tessellated patterns of rice crackers and other unidentifiable foods baking in the sun. Bicycles and travel agents and backpackers and western cafes. Four wheel drives and donkeys. It's a place I think I could live in for a while, as long as I had some work to do. I can imagine it as a writer's retreat -somewhere to disappear to and stay for a few months or a year, completely out of the way of normal life and with the space and pace for creativity.

We spent the first day wandering the town and visiting its many extraordinary temples. For “many extraordinary temples”, read “another breathtaking gold encrusted monument on every single street corner”. The architecture was quite different to the Thai temples. In Thailand the temples were tall with pillars in colours of red and white. Here the temple roofs were built sweeping and low, almost to the ground, in dark timber and tiles. It was so peaceful and cool inside, a welcome relief from the ridiculously hot weather on the street. The paved temple courtyards became glaring white furnaces in the sun. We walked with umbrellas and long skirts to avoid burning. In the afternoon we wandered to the other side of the peninsula where we found beautiful views of the river and the locals swimming and playing in the water. Crossed the water on a random rickety wooden rope bridge. This was where the locals lived, we discovered, in brown wooden stilt houses with bamboo roofs and chickens and toddlers running in the sandy yards. Cool drinks at a little cafe/bar run by an Aussie woman married to a local Laos man, now with three beautiful Eurasian children in tow.

In the evening we watched the sunset from the Phu Si temple on the hill overlooking LP. It was a beautiful spot (well, if you could avoid the mozzies and bullants). Lina, ever daring, climbed the tree in her long peasant skirt. Kay met a Korean student and talked a long time. At the bottom of the hill was the local night market -an incredible treasure trove of local handcrafts, wood carvings, silk; street sellers with their wares laid out on mats. So many hawkers and tourists and pretty things to buy it was overwhelming. Prices in US dollars not nearly as cheap as Thailand, though we bargained hard. I could not resist buying several lengths of stunning embroidered silk for dressmaking projects when I get home. Totally inspired by the beautiful hand embroidery -Laos traditional designs in geometric stripes and patterns, thick heavy silken thread, bright primary colours. As a sewing person I could see just how much skill and time and effort would go into creating one of these beautiful things. I went back to the room and sketched designs in the back of my notebook for when I get home.

The next day we hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us to the Kuang Si waterfalls about 30km south of the town. There is one large main waterfall and then a series of smaller falls cascading down the hillside, connected by a series of breathtakingly blue pools and lagoons. The combination of the striking blue water, the granite rocks and lush jungle vegetation was so idyllic it almost didn't look real. We arrived early before the other tourists got there, and took a steep hike up the hill to the top of the main falls where there were spectacular views of the surrounding landscape. On returning to the bottom we refreshed ourselves with a dip in the blue lagoons. The water was cool and so clean. Lina and the girls found a rope from one of the high trees and went swinging Tarzan-like into the water. The rain came down around lunch time. I had delicious bamboo noodle soup and fresh coconut to drink, with the tropical rain pelting on the thatch roof outside. [ed note: noodle soup and fresh coconuts in their many regional variations were to become my absolute favourite signature dish in the weeks to come!] Beer Lao banners and the Beer Lao calendar girls in their traditional outfits on every wall.

On the third day we decided to hire some mountain bikes and ride out into the countryside on the other side of the river, to see what was outside the town. Unfortunately for us, it started raining in the morning. Not deterred, we crossed on the ferry and pedalled off down the rough country roads. Of course, being in the countryside out the back of Laos, none of the roads were sealed -just roughly cleared tracks of soft red dirt through the fields and paddies. As you can imagine, once the rain came down all that soft dirt turned to thick mud. All of us being stubborn cookies, we perservered for a few kilometres until we were bogged so deep that the bike wheels simply couldn't turn anymore. Trying to turn back, we spent a painful hour or two struggling through the mud bogging ourselves progressively deeper in the muck.

After a while, a farm truck came past slipping and sliding in the mud. It got a bit bogged and we helped the two barefooted drivers push it out of the mud. After a bit of negotiation we packed the two smallest girls with their bikes into the back of the truck. Two others made it out of the mud and managed to ride back to town. But, unfortunately one of the chains broke and we couldn't fix it. So Lina and I, soaked in mud, ended up having to (literally) carry our 20kg bikes back the few kilometres to the town. The locals were rather amused at the two tall mud-caked white women hefting bicycles along the road. By the time we got back, the bikes were too revoltingly covered in filth for us to return them to the hire shop, so we took them down into the Mekong and washed them in the river with our bare hands, just like the locals. It was quite an experience. I laughed very hard. I haven't got so absolutely filthy covered in mud since I was a kid! Despite the dirt and frustration and sore muscles from having to carry the bikes, it was a good day. The sun was shining and the scenery was beautiful. Shame my sneakers got ruined though (really brings a whole new meaning to the words “feet of clay”).

The next morning we had to say goodbye to the Swedish girls who were returning home, all too soon. These girls are really extraordinary people, and we had been friends for the duration of my stay overseas. It is hard saying goodbye to dear friends when they live on the other side of the world and you don't know when you will ever see them again! At least when I left Melbourne I always knew I was coming back. Well, I am planning a trip to Sweden sometime, hopefully in the not too distant future.

After the Swedes left, we began feeling very restless. We were meant to wait in LP to meet up with another two friends who were coming from Vietnam where they had been volunteering for the previous two weeks. We killed a day or two checking out the remaining sights round LP -the very beautiful royal palace, a few more temples, a boat ride to the Pak Ou caves where hundreds of ancient disused Buddhas are stored. But, we were quickly getting itchy feet and keen to see more of this beautiful country. In the end, we decided to meet Tina and Nina a few days later and detour into the eastern countryside to a place called Phonsavan. With a revived sense of purpose, we booked our tickets and were on the long bus into the country early the next morning.

The story begins in Chiang Kong, northern Thailand, where I last left you, at 5am in the morning with a rooster crowing outside and six sleepy but excited girls packing up for an epic river journey. Leaving Thailand behind, our next destination was the old city of Luang Prabang, Laos. We chose to take the long journey south on a two-day slow boat down the Mekong River. The Mekong is one of the great rivers of Asia, running all the way from the Tibetan Plateau through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, all the way to the lush Mekong Delta in south Vietnam. It forms the lifeblood of the Southeast Asian riparian nations and travels through some of the most scenic landscapes in Laos. I'd studied the Mekong Basin in my environmental law course and was really excited to see the textbook pages come to life.

The Mekong actually forms the border between Thailand and Laos at the northern corner of the country. To get to Laos, we crossed the river on narrow wooden motorboats painted brightly in red, yellow and green. It was our first land border crossing. Coming from an island continent, the idea of being able to cross countries with a simple 10 minute boat ride still seemed rather novel. Groups of squatting locals watched amused as the string of foreigners toiled painstakingly up the steep sandy riverbank to customs, laden with packs, food supplies and cushions for the hard boat seats. Long queue for visas on arrival. Realised too late we got ripped off by the official for visa fees.

Once cleared, we piled on to the long wooden boat that would take us on the two-day journey south to Luang Prabang. It was a hardy old river boat, some 50m long, in orange coloured wood and a cheerful blue roof. Windows all along the outside. Inside, row after row of simple greying wood plank benches with too many passengers squeezed, perched and draped across them, their baggage shoved in wherever it would fit. There was not nearly enough space for the 100-odd people crammed inside. We cheerfully made do, sleeping on the floor and somehow improvising space to stretch cramped legs.

All the passengers were foreigners, mostly young. (These days the locals have forsaken the slow boats for suicidal speedboats that cover the distance in half the time, but 10 times the risk factor). It really was a motley crew on board. Lots of young gap year kids; a bunch of 20-year old American girls wearing hotpants so short even I was embarrassed. A dusty older Aussie tour guide who spent the entire journey nursing a Beer Lao and a cigarette, reeling off drawled travel stories like an old pro. The blond Dutch boys with their big smiles smoking and hanging out of the windows to take photos or catch the breeze. That clueless couple from the guesthouse. It astounded me how stupid some of the tourists were... the brash guys who jumped in the Mekong for a swim (!), and the girls walking around braless in halter tops and hot pants. Too many chain smoking, over drinking, too loud westerners with an absolute lack of shame or cultural sensivity... really made me wonder how the locals see us, and a little ashamed to be a part of the whole tourism bandwagon.

I ended up perched on a bench near the window next to a very large (and fortunately very interesting) ex-military guy from Israel. We whiled away the long hours listening to the creaking of the boat absorbed in great conversations about Israel and war and politics and life, his photography and my travel plans. Met up with him again a few times along the road in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

We travelled about 8 hours on the first day, with no stops. I haven't spent much time in boats before, so despite the crampedness felt at peace. I loved the slow rocking pace, the chugging engine and the cool breeze in my hair. And the views were just divine.

Giant jungle-clad mountains crowding by the river banks, atomic shards of rock looming rakishly out of the water. Green sloping hillsides with mist settling gently in between. Lotus flowers by the riverbanks. The occasional pointy fishing boat serene in placid waters, then the calm broken by the roar of a speedboat engine roaring past, the rickety contraption bouncing off the water, its passengers hanging on tight wearing motorcycle helmets. Every few hours we would pull into the bank to pick up a new passenger or drop off cargo they kept loaded on the roof. Young Lao children would run down the steep banks and clamber aboard with baskets of snacks and beer, calling “Beer Lao! Beer Lao” in their high voices and bargaining cutthroat for extortion prices.

On the evening of the first day we stayed overnight at a tiny rural village called Pak Beng. As we pulled into the riverbank, almost on cue the sky opened up and started pouring with sleeting rain. Once again we struggled up the steep slippery banks like colourful turtles with ponchos and umbrellas. The older couple struggling impossibly with their suitcases on wheels. Everyone soaking wet, muddy and tired. I had to laugh at the whole situation -it was just fantastic. Glad my camera was waterproof, I took lots of pictures as we half-jogged to dry rooms in our hostel.

Pak Beng is a tiny one-street river village, pretty remote. There is a road but it looked like most traffic in and out came by the water. The locals bathed right there in the muddy brown river. There was no electricity in the evenings. I had buffalo curry for dinner in the "restaurant" downstairs. In Laos they serve sticky rice with all the food. You take it from the cylindrical bamboo basket and make ball shapes with your fingers and dip it into the curry. It's pretty good. A diverse range of semi-feral animals came and begged as we ate, plus some of the most enormous flying insects I've ever seen.

With no electricity, we slept early. Anna was feeling sick and the rest of us a little jumpy. We'd been warned of thieves slipping into rooms at night and razoring bags etc. I slept hugging my pack with a torch in my hand. The night was so dark -aside from a few small gas lights from the village it was absolutely pitch black, without even stars. It makes you realise how much light there is in the cities -it's never really dark there. It was kinda scary. Slept fitfully, alert to every sound.

In the morning we woke early and took a walk into the village before boarding the boat at 8am. It was pretty amazing -stilt houses of wood and woven bamboo, startlingly basic. Animals everywhere. Not your average farm animals but super-athletic-built chickens with really long legs and lean figures! Cute friendly children who waved and followed us curious down the street. A fantastic wet market brimming with mountains of fresh greens and vegetables and dogs and chickens and babies and you name it what else! Lina and I shared a fantastic Laos noodle soup with delicious peppery broth for breakfast.

They gave us an even smaller boat for the second day of the trip. Hard to describe how cramped it was. But accustomed now to the rhythm of the journey, I relaxed like a cat in the sunny window soaking in the scenery and the peaceful river rhythm. Late in the afternoon, as we were travelling the last mile, the weather turned bad. The river was much faster and choppier in that stretch. We sailed straight into a rough rainstorm with a lot of wind. As the rain sleeted into the boat, we quickly rolled down the tarpaulins over the windows to keep dry. The driver started yelling loudly and gesturing wildly. We suddenly realised what he was saying -the wind was so high that if we kept the tarps down over the windows, the flat bottomed boat would roll. Quickly pulling the tarps up again, crouching drenched on the benches. The driver somehow steered the boat into a safe place on the river bank and we sat moored to wait out the storm.

After a seemingly endless wait, the weather cleared and we could cross the last stretch into LP. We arrived just as dusk was coming in. One final trek up the slippery banks into a eager throng of waiting touts trying to get us into their hostel, taxi or tuk tuk. Too tired, a little disoriented in the dark, we paid too much for a tuk tuk to the hostel. Roasted river fish and Beer Lao for dinner at the street food market, surrounded by noisy hawkers, cooking smells and glowing lights. We were finally there.

The slow boat journey was one of the biggest highlights of the trip. It really felt epic -the distance we covered, the incredible landscapes we passed through. This was what I had imagined Southeast Asia to be. Laos was and is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever seen. At the same time, it was somewhat confronting to see how incredibly basic the lives of the Laos people are. Such simple houses, fishing and farming economy, so remote. Everything tied up inextricably with the river Mekong. The river was the source of food and water and transport, it was a place to work and wash and play and hunt and bathe. City girl getting a first view of a totally different way of life, bound up so closely with the environment. Loved meeting all the fellow travellers on the board, feeling the spirit of youth and adventure and camaraderie. Every moment was vibrant.

Despite my best intentions this blog has remained empty for the past couple of months. I suppose that's not such a surprise -doesn't everyone start a travel blog with grand plans and then stop writing on it the moment they actually start travelling? I tried, for a bit (believe it or not!). I have many drafts saved on here of impressions half formed and anecdotes speedily sketched down, ideas that somehow never materialised into post-able pieces.

There were a few reasons... all the standard ones, of course. Infrequent internet access, glacial connection speed, not enough time or energy... plus of course my inability to operate keyboards that only type in Thai script or navigate Windows in Chinese characters (I know there is a button somewhere to change the language setting, but if you can't read the toolbars to find the button it sort of defeats the purpose).

The bigger reason though was just a personal decision. There was so much going on and it was amazing. I just wanted to experience these things while they were happening. For once, without trying to record and analyse and reframe things into words. I felt like my poor camera... whose zoom lens seemed not quite big enough, and pixels not quite vivid enough, to really capture and do justice to these extraordinary things in its view. So, I just opened my eyes and let it happen. Took some little notes the old fashioned way. And lots of pictures. Thought really hard and read books and asked questions and absorbed as much as I could handle. That was enough for the moment.

Now though I am back in Melbourne -for a while, anyway. I arrived back a few days ago now... Hard to describe the ups and downs of goodbyes and hellos -all at once the sadness of ending a great adventure and a great camaraderie, and the happiness of returning home to family and friends. I'll be staying for a while to rest and recharge before heading off again later in the year.

That said, now I have had some time to settle down and digest it all, I feel like writing again. The entries to follow will be a mixture of the notes I took along the way, the impressions I remember, and a little of the hindsight I have gained. Plus of course the photos, which I am now able to upload again since I have my laptop back!! A record for myself, as much as for anyone reading this blog.

So, here is the story of my trip. Readers be warned! There's a lot to tell...