After our stay in Vientiane we head south towards the Vietnamese border. Our long journey in the rented minibus takes us along the “main road”, a small highway that is the only paved road in all of Laos, with the exception of the cities. We drive for seven hours through a landscape of jungle, rice fields, jungle, mountains, jungle, villages, jungle, valleys and waterfalls in the distance. There is no traffic.

Nevertheless, the driver honks at every bend before using both lanes at high speed. We stop briefly after a few winding mountain roads and reach a plateau from which we have a magnificent view over the highlands of Laos. According to a sign, it has been declared a national park. Rows of rocky peaks and jagged rock formations rise from the forested mountains. There is no sign of human existence for miles.

In the afternoon we arrive in a village where we will spend the night. Our driver, Mr. Ki, lives here. He and another family will host us. The village is simple, there are only fishermen and farmers. And not much to do. There are countless children here who play with each other and with us. The fishermen have special boats here: they have sawn discarded tanks from American planes in half and converted them into seaworthy boats. We accept the offer of a boat tour and sit three at a time in a boat. Sitting in the front, I feel like I’m on a torpedo. The boatman slowly maneuvers past the children splashing in the water and splashing us until he revs up the engine and roars with us through the river landscape. There are still fishing boats on the bank near the village. But we quickly leave them behind. While the mountains appear on the horizon, we speed through a landscape of islands, bamboo and trees. Trees rise from the middle of the river. The banks are filled with the sounds of birds and insects. In front of us a fish jumps into the air and catches a dragonfly. As the sun slowly sets we drive back.

I wander a little further through the village. There is a large bridge over the river for the south road, but only a few villagers use it on bicycles and scooters. I sit on the railing and watch the sunset over the river. In the reflection of the sun, a fisherman in his boat tries to catch one last fish.

Back in the house, Mister Ki is already cooking. The kitchen consists of just a small fireplace and a wok above it, in which he prepares all kinds of vegetables and noodles. The meal is great: there are small dumplings with a strongly seasoned meat filling, beans, spicy noodles and sauce, and of course as much rice as we can eat. And there are small sweet bananas and water on the side. We eat on the carpeted floor of the room that is open to the outside on two sides. It is already eight o’clock, pitch black, and the monsoon is just setting in in full force. Water is pouring down from the roof. The rain is so loud that we have to shout to each other to hear anything.

People’s food is so delicious!

Normally, tradition prohibits hosts from eating with their guests. Only Mister Ki makes an exception for our sake. However, this means he is the only one on the trip who does so.

We play cards until about ten, then the last family member goes to bed. The women stay in this house, we have to go to the other one through the rain. They have prepared a few sheets on the floor and mosquito nets for us. We see a few cockroaches scurrying across these.

In our sheltered loungers, Kevin and I flick a few bugs at each other before we try to sleep. Brian skillfully stops us from doing that. I’m “lucky” enough to sleep right next to him. That means I can hit him every time he starts snoring. But that happens about every fifteen minutes, so neither of us really gets any sleep. Pillows and bottles even fly from the other side of the room.

The next morning, poor Brian has to put up with biting comments about his snoring, which continue to accompany him throughout the trip.

Normal houses consist of only three rooms: the main room where we slept, a smaller bedroom where the whole family sleeps and a kitchen. The toilet consists of a small house that serves a few families.

It is nothing more than a hole and a tub of water with a ladle.

After a quick wash, I go back into the house for breakfast. There is some kind of cake, bread and fat, bananas and tea. We say a long goodbye to the families again, then we have to move on. The weather is nice and sunny now.

On the way we can enjoy the last impressions of Laos, the forests and mountains. A few more passes separate us from Vietnam. At the border we also have to say goodbye to Mr. Ki. We are warned about the arbitrariness of grumpy Vietnamese officials. Ian is visibly nervous. He has already had his experiences. He takes care of the exit for us, which is no problem, he just has to hold our passports under the nose of a Laotian official, who stamps them one after the other. In the meantime we change our last Laotian kip into dong (15,000 dong = $1) and head to the immigration counters with our luggage. We first wait at a counter. Here too we have to give the officials $1 “extra tax” per person. After the first of us, however, an extra official comes over who collects our passports and stamps them for us, which means we can continue straight away.

We thank the unexpected helper and move on to the next step. Our luggage has to go through an X-ray machine before we can enter the country, and we also have to collect a certificate that proves that we are in good physical condition. With our completed forms, the certificate and the baggage confirmation, we have to go to a counter where they take these pieces of paper from us, stamp them and give us back the form that we will need when we leave the country. With these and the passport, we are finally allowed to go to the border post, who goes through everything again at a leisurely pace and then wishes us all the best. Ian breathes a sigh of relief; things have never gone so well.