Simon & Rosie's Travel Journal: Welcome To The Lao People's Democratic Republic

Despite having had fun exploring a giant western style mall (a sight which we had not seen since China) and then seeing the new Bond film, our brief initial visit to Thailand's capital left us with food poisoning which, sadly, followed me tenaciously all the way to Laos. The welcome cleanliness of the Thai sleeper train was somewhat wasted on me as I lay shivering in my bunk, my stomach cramping, my temperature soaring and my joints aching with every clatter of the track beneath. Seventeen hours later, another long border wait and a brain rattling tuk-tuk ride, we finally arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, exhausted and feeling very, very ill. Luckily there is not much to see or do in Vientiane as the first thirty six hours of our stay were spent with me huddled up in bed and Rosie making life-saving trips to the convenience store for bags of ice, pots of jelly and Gatorade. I did however manage to get out of the hotel during the second evening and we met up with a lovely French couple whom we'd first met in Vietnam in October.

Three nights of illness later and our second spring board stop on the way to our actual destination in Laos disappeared in a cloud of dust behind us as the not-so-V.I.P. double-decker coach weaved and swerved along the narrow mountain road towards Luang Prabang. Eleven hours of bumping and jolting, with frequent chirps from the box of chickens in the luggage rack downstairs, brought us rolling into town in the cool moonlight, with frequent blasts of lightning illuminating the growing stacks of cloud above the hills which hug the town.

Being a UNESCO World Heritage site, it goes without saying that the place is just beautiful. Set on a lush green peninsula separating the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, it is a treasure trove nestled among the jungle, of candle lit bars, of chic Parisian bakeries and of brightly coloured Buddhist temples - their gilt rooves shimmering against the dark outlines of giant palm leaves, their grounds dotted with monks wrapped in deep orange robes. Riverside restaurants balance on fragile wooden platforms; creaky old structures which hang precariously over the rust red waters on tall bamboo stilts, the strange and exotic plants and animals of the jungle lurking far below where the undergrowth of the riverbank rustles, chirps and slithers constantly.

On all sides of the town, the deep jungle lies just across the river in thick impenetrable layers. Giant mountains topped with immense slabs of granite wedged into the earth tumble down from the heavens to the water's edge, their outlines constantly converging and crossing, falling and rising, creating stacked layers of verdant countryside broken only by the snaking river, each softened by the increasing distance and silver blankets of wood-smoke which streak across the tops of the valleys like cobwebs. As the sun sets behind the tallest mountain, a starburst of light spreads out across the vista in golden beams which dance along the dense green edges of the highest peaks and turn the muddied waters of the river to incandescent sparkles of white. With the horizon exploding into a furnace of colour, an eerie half light descends on the valleys below, plunging us into the cool air of the evening as the candles and fairy lights of town flicker in to life.