My group and I spent a few days travelling on the mighty Mekong in a dragon boat. A rain front caught up with us at nightfall, just before we reached our accommodation outside the city.

Only the next day will we see how beautiful the bamboo huts actually are.

It’s already quite late. We go out to eat something in town. We get fish and a hot pot.

This is a large pot into which you throw vegetables, meat and whatever else you want and cook all of these things in a broth. This was served with sticky rice, which you can knead and dip in sauces.

For fun, we have a competition where we mold small figures out of the rice balls: Mickey Mouse, polar bears, snails, cars. Of course, the works of art are eaten at the end.

Finally, I stroll through the night bazaar. The night in the huts is filled with an orchestra of sounds from all kinds of animals in the jungle around us.

The night before, we usually order what we would like to eat the next morning and at what time. There is a selection of bread, pancakes, sausages, fruit and tea.

Breakfast is wonderful. At eight o’clock the family brings us breakfast on the veranda; we can eat our meal sitting on little cushions and at the same time watch the rain, or the chickens racing on the lawn, or the others crawling out of their huts, tired of sleep.

Nothing is planned for the day. We want to hire someone to show us Luang Prabang and especially the famous craftsmen’s quarters. One of our tuk-tuk drivers agrees to do this and takes us first to the blacksmiths’ quarter. Here, craftsmen forge tools, scythes and machetes.

Each house has an anvil attached to it and as we walk through the muddy streets we see the men working together on the hot metal with hammers; everyone helps each other, the men do not compete with each other but support each other in their hard work.

In the silkworm quarter we can follow the path from the silkworm to the silk scarf. We are given a large plate of silkworms and shown how to twist the cocoons into threads and wind them on a spinning wheel. The threads are dyed and woven on looms to make scarves, blankets or skirts. The whole family works on this. Even the small children weave small ribbons out of the threads. The fabrics are very beautiful and feel very soft. I find the fabrics with great patterns at the market.

Afterwards we walk to the papermakers’ quarter, where we can watch a woman collecting ground bark from a tree, leaves and flowers in a sieve in water, spreading it out in the sieve, then letting it dry in the sun to produce paper that is used for lanterns or pictures. We then visit silversmiths and schnapps distillers. Only Kevin and I dare to try the schnapps when the guide hands us a goblet of rice schnapps from a closed amphora that has been set up to ferment.

Finally, we take a look at some of the many temples in this district. They are beautifully decorated, financed by donations from wealthier citizens, whose names are then of course written under the artworks they sponsor, and usually there is a Buddha depicted blessing the respective family. It is similar in many communities in Central Europe.

After eating noodle soup with chopsticks and visiting an internet cafe, I decide to stroll around Luang Prabang for a bit. I pass the old palace and take a look inside. On the other side of the street I see a staircase that leads up the mountain and disappears into the forest. Like in an enchanted forest, the old staircase, decorated with nagas and covered in moss, leads up the mountain.

There are trees with the most beautiful flowers, in white, yellow and purple, and butterflies. Every now and then a small praying mantis even lands on my arm.

There is a small temple on the top of Phu Sih, and a few monks look out into the valley. There is a magnificent view of the valley in which the small town of Luang Prabang lies, with its forty temples and the palace, the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, which meander through the mountains that lie hidden in the clouds around the valley. The town is in the middle of the jungle, and there are still many trees in it. There is no other road out of the town than the river. There are only a few adventurous routes over dirt roads through the forest to the villages in the mountains.

I enjoy the view for a long time, then decide to go back into town to the market. In front of the stairs I greet a young man and he speaks to me: “Sabaidih baw?” – “Khoy sabadih khop chai. Sabadih baw?” – “Khoy sabadih khop chai. Data mang…” I didn’t understand the rest, my Lao isn’t good enough and I tell him that. He thinks it’s great that I can already do so much. He introduces himself as a student and explains that he used to be a monk too, but only temporarily so that he could go to university, where he is studying English and history. He points his finger at the exact area and explains the temples. He shows me a small hidden staircase that leads down the other side of the mountain. There is a large golden Buddha in a niche. He then shows me the entrance to a small cave. It is actually closed, but he speaks to a few people, says I am a friend, and they open the entrance for me. I even have my flashlight with me.

The small stalactite cave is damp, water drips from the ceiling and collects in small puddles on the floor. At the end there is a small altar with Buddha statues. The cave is a private prayer room for the monks.

He shows me several more places on the mountain where the monks meditate, other small temples and the monks’ living quarters. At the foot of the mountain I have to say goodbye to my guide again. It is now afternoon and I want to go to the market. I give the young man three dollars and he is a little disappointed because he had hoped for a little more to get the money he needed for English books. But I assure him that I enjoyed his tour so much and that it was so professional that he could easily get the money together that same day. Later I advise the girls who also want to go up the mountain to look out for him, but they can’t find him or the hidden stairs.

I first have to go through a few temples and residential complexes before I get back to the “main street”. There I meet Jane, Mia, Bryan and Glen, with whom I then move on, have cake and then have dinner. Here too it is interesting to watch the geckos on the walls hunting for insects, although you have almost gotten used to the “company”. And finally I enjoy the night bazaar. There are works of art and of course all kinds of silk fabrics, scarves and shawls on offer. There is also a long alley with kitchens in which chickens, ducks, fish and indefinable innards are prepared. I get a lot of thought when a saleswoman offers me a chair as if I were an old man while Glen is haggling with her over the price of a scarf.

We want to take a tuk-tuk back to our guesthouse. But the tuk-tuk we chose has trouble starting for five minutes and we’re already thinking about looking for a new one until it finally starts.

Glen and I have a little fun with the guesthouse family and at night I have funny conversations with him about what kills backpackers in Australia (a lot).

We enjoy our breakfast on the veranda again: baguette (a relic of French tradition), fruit and tea. We also watch the interesting activity of ants. There are small ones that are just one millimetre in size, even smaller ones that are just half a millimetre in size and finally I discover the smallest ants I have ever seen, with a “size” of perhaps just a twentieth of a millimetre, just visible to the naked eye. Two chickens are chasing each other in the meadow.

It is really idyllic!

But we also want to take another look at the royal palace. We grab a couple of tuk-tuks and meet Mr. Wong again, who shows us around the old palace of the Laotian kings. The Laotian monarchy was ended by communism; the last royal family disappeared, but was not really popular with the people.

The palace consists of protocol rooms, throne rooms and the royal chambers. Gifts from other countries to the royal family are also on display, such as a moonstone from America or a boomerang from Australia.

Next we want to visit the famous Kwang Xi waterfall and find Asiatic black bears and tigers there. In the evening we eat at the guesthouse. The family makes us a barbecue, rice, salad and sauces. We enjoy red wine with it. A little dog provides some fun as it romps around us and poops on the carpet. There is even some red wine and it gets so funny that Ewen suddenly appears in his kilt, stands in front of us and belts out the Scottish national anthem. As a true Scotsman he is of course not wearing anything underneath! He claims.

At ten o’clock we go with the women from the guesthouse to the “disco” in Luang Prabang. At the entrance we are greeted very warmly by a uniformed bouncer, who hardly seems to want or be able to prevent anyone from entering. The disco is a large room with a small dance floor in the middle, a band plays on the stage, tables and sofas are set up around it, and a bar offers expensive alcoholic drinks. The staff all wear smart uniforms. After we get something to drink, we sit down at a table. The band plays some kind of schmaltzy tunes and hits, mostly Laotian but also a few Western ones. Apart from us, we don’t see any Westerners in the whole club; the people seem a bit surprised by us, but they happily include us in the dancing.

But the band also takes breaks every now and then and lets the system play real disco music, Laotian and Western. A strange Laotian dance in some of the songs is the “Lion Dance”. Everyone dances a kind of foxtrot slowly in a circle in sync. But there is no real discernible atmosphere. Apart from that, people jump around like in European discos.

Glen quickly made contact with a girl who then pulled him and her friends to a table in the back and darker part of the disco. The girl I was dancing with also seems to be a friend of Glen’s girl, because she pulled me to the same table as Glen and everyone was happily surprised when they saw that Glen and I were friends. There were three girls at the table, and Glen was patted and kissed by his girl. Two girls “looked after” me, the one I was dancing with and a friend of hers, who was also sitting at the table and didn’t understand a word of English. Somehow we managed to communicate, because I found out their names were Phil and Lam. They were very amused by our hairy legs. At half past eleven, however, the disco was already closing and all the lights were on. I told the girls that it was Glen’s birthday in half an hour.

While our companions leave, we stay with the girls for a while. In front of the door, they make inviting gestures: they point at us, at themselves, and then put their hands together on their temples, inviting us to sleep with them.

Glen is torn and is struggling with himself. I tell him I’ll follow him, whatever he decides, it’s mainly about him. Glen turns down the offer with a heavy heart, but can’t find an answer when I ask him why. I have to struggle with myself a bit too, but decide to stay with my friend. Glen exchanges his email address with his girl, then they speed off on their motorbike. We drive back to the guesthouse in a tuk-tuk.

When the others asked him why he didn’t go, Glen replied that he didn’t have an alarm clock and we would have to leave early the next day to catch our flight. The poor guy will have to endure jokes about alarm clocks the whole trip.

So the next morning we are back in our huts, enjoying our last breakfast on the veranda and giving Ian our luggage, money and passports. He can load the luggage onto the plane and get our tickets for Vientiane using our passports.

As I said, it’s Glen’s birthday today and Ian has organized a chocolate cake for him too. Before we leave the guesthouse, we say goodbye to our host family. We have grown very fond of each other over the four days. The son ties friendship bracelets around our arms and wishes us good luck and health on our journey.

My journey continues with the group by plane. From the small airfield we take a propeller plane to leave the jungle and get to the capital city of Vientiane.

Luang Prabang remains in my memory as one of the most beautiful places in Asia.