Plus de 7h pour faire 168 km. L’efficacité laotienne. Et encore, on avait pris un bus VIP, allant une heure plus vite que le normal. Et qui est plus confortable. Enfin tout est relatif, c’est aussi du confort laotien… Départ à l’heure, à 19h30. 19h32, premier gros coup de frein. Tout le monde vole sur le siège de devant. Mon voisin de derrière me propose une corde pour m’attacher au siège. Question de sécurité. Ca va être long ce voyage… Et pas de tout repos. Arrivée à 2h sur une ancienne piste d’atterrissage. Depuis Darwin, c’est la deuxième piste dont on ne sert plus pour l’utilisation principale. Désaffecté veut aussi dire abandonné, même si les bus débarquent leurs passagers ici. Donc pas de lumière. Le premier contact avec Vang Vieng se résume donc à traverser une ancienne piste d’atterrissage par une nuit noire sans lumière avec les sacs à dos après 7h à se le défoncer, justement, le dos, dans un bus en mauvais état sur des routes de montagnes délabrées. Enjoy. Heureusement qu’on a rencontré des gens bizarres sur le chemin, dont un gros rasta appelé ‘princesse’, pour en ajouter une petite couche, histoire de. Finalement, on a quand même trouvé des hollandais qui ont pu nous faire rentrer dans leur guesthouse, parce que forcément, on n’avait rien réservé, et qu’à 2h, tout est fermé. Et, chose importante, avec eau chaude !

La journée suivante était prévue pour de la détente, avec le fameux tubing de Vang Vieng : une grosse bouée noire, une rivière avec un peu de courant, et plein de stands et leurs bars avec tremplin de plongeon intégrés. C’est bien sympa, mais quand même totalement surréaliste dans un pays où les gens pêchent dans cette même rivière pour se nourrir. Ou se lavent, comme cet enfant qui se brosse les dents devant les bouées…

Between Vientiane, the capital, and Luang Prabang, a former capital, is Vang Vieng. A few kilometers, less than 200, but a fabulous trip of 7 hours. Shaking, uncomfortable, the bus is also braking as hell really often. Maybe why after a few seconds in the bus, on of my neighbour proposed me a rope to tie me down to the seat! Not possible to sleep at all. Fortunately, the bus dropped us, during a night without moon, on a former landing strip. With the backpack and everything, it’s pretty tough to find the city. Especially since we haven’t booked any room. After a couple of weird meetings (imagine a big rasta of 100kg called ‘princess’, totally smashed in the middle of a street while everything is closed with two strange girls as well). Finally we managed to find a place to sleep, luckily with hot water (to be noticed, it was only the second time since the beginning of the trip) before going tubing on the Mekong the following day. Bit weird, cause everything is done for the happiness of backpackers, as if you were in another country, but Laos is one of the poorer country on Earth… Let’s go back to tubing, the principle is simple: you are dropped on a part of the river with a big black lifesaver. The current is supposed to drive you back to the town. You just hope that there is enough current and sun, because it is winter. And every now and then, you stop to a bar and to do some big jumps a few meters above the Mekong! Fun activity, but we felt uncomfortable to have fun and drinking beers while other where just trying to fish in the same river. And people here are so disrespectful of everything, many act as if they were the only kings of the world, assholes.

            If I spoke earlier of winter, it’s because we experienced it. And trust me, when the sun starts to hide behind a mountain, when you are all wet and have nothing more than your swimmer, you start to paddle like a fool… Once back on the ground, the warm shower was welcomed. Afterwards, we went to have a couple of beers, and we met a couple of English, doing almost the same trip as us since Pak Beng. The night was cool, but we haven’t been that close to prostitution before… As we were talking, we saw a couple of girls, apparently local coming next to the fire. We were sat on a bench, not too far from the fire, discussing quietly, sipping a beer and trying to recover from the efforts of the afternoon, when one girl sat on my foot, shaking her ass on the rhythm of the music and one other just stuck to my side. Nico, you would have loved it :-). After a while, Luisa went to speak with us and saved us, and the game started again with another group of guys… Anyway, in Laos, everything closed early (11h30 by law, but often at 10), so we went finishing the night with another group of English, pretty nice. Before borrowing some communists flags in the streets :-p.