laos... i have been to so many places, and yet it does not seem enough... far from enough! starting in houay xai in the north, were i cross the mekong for the very first time, small and dusty, like nearly every town in laos, a fact that i am soon to learn, but do not know at this time; the dust is a nice change from unhealthy air filled with exhaust fumes or being over airconditioned. here i can breath air filled with natural dirt, even in vientiane, the capital, i breath more dust than fumes, a magic relief from over-civilisation, or so called civilisation - a word mostly used as an excuse to destroy nature; a carte blance for destruction, disrespect and unresonable development in the name of progress, for the good of mankind, a good that leaves no future, a good that blindly destroys the world we live in, all to gain a few dollars, for the profit of a few; a high price to pay for the ultimate death of mother nature and all her infants! luk as they call them in thai, noi in laotian - two languages i love, two countries i adore, especially laos, with its air full of dust and its flair of simplicity.

walking through houay xai i absorb the first bit of laos: the first baguette, the first caffee lao, changing money, waiting for the boat that is going to carry us down the mekong, to the ancient capital of louang phabang. here in the north the mighty mekong is less wide, as if caged between the mountains. the wooden boat is fine, one of the largest i have seen on the mekong; long, slender, low, with two rows of short wooden benches designed to hold 48 people, now holding so many more that there names fail to fit on the passenger registration list, never mind, or so it seems, their bodies on the limited space of the boat. miracelously we manage to fit everybody including all there luggage on bord, squeezing on benches, chairs, platforms, in storage, on steps, and engine room... all on board we left on our first leg of the journey bringing us to the once sleepy mountain village of pakbeng, which now serves as the stopover point for the journey south, which lead to the contraction of a long row of guest houses and restaurants servicing the endless stream of backpackers on their one-night-stay.

the next morning was even colder. the morning mist, and draft on the boat make the journey chilly, and i am freezing by the time i arrive in luang phabang, the ancient capital of laos, the town of history and wats. the list is endless:

the oldest - wat xieng thong
the place of books and learning - wat pak khane
the only one of its kind - wat khilli
the famous windows - wat that
the sacret hill - wat phou si
the thai style buddha - wat mai

louang phabang is alive with history, and living people alike. the heart of laos, the land of morning mists and screaming pigs, pigs that come down the river by boat and know that there life is going to change, and that change means death. today, just it was pushed screaming onto the back of a truck with his fellows on deathrow, a pop bellied pig stood by the ballustrade overlooking the mekong, looking long and quiet at the mighty river and the far bank, as if to say is farewell to her home and place it grew up in, or as if to wish to be far from here, at the other side of the river, away from the town that turns her into people's dinner. there is something very deep about animals that know that are about to die, they radiate some sort of ultimate understanding, some deep truth and wisdom. but laos is also the country of warm people, the land of calm and quiet, and - surprisingly enough for a country that has experienced so much of destruction, violence and death brought by american bombs in recent times - also a land of peace. an inner peace radiated by the people and their ways, by the monks forever walking the streets, even the mist shrouded sun in the morning and the spectacular sunsets at night. i know i will come back here, i even think i would like to live here, absorbing the calm that is so different from the rush of the metropole i reside in, singapore, the city of safety, rules and reliability, but also of stiffness, coldness and narrow mindedness. a coldness of people that is a stark contrast to the coldness of the chilly monring mists that engulf laos' mountains at this time of year. it is rather a coldness of the heart that chills me to the bone.

two weeks later, breakfast in pakse, in the south. the same noodle soup stall, one of a million in laos, and me loving noodle soup and not finding a single one without meat or meat stock in the entire country... the journey here brought me through the quiet capital vientiane, down south always along the mekong to thakek and savannaket and via the remote highland towns of xekong and attapu to pakse, our place of focus in the south. from here we expored the ancient khmer ruins of wat phou, a day trip that made us use every single form of public transport available in laos; tuk tuk, songtaeow - 40 people, 20 sacks of rice, 13 bags of fruit and veg, 3 live piglets, 9 boxes of electical appliences, and 4 backpacks in one! - ferry, motorbike - 3 on 1 - hired songtaeow - 2 in 1 - hitching a lift on a charcoal lorry, and motorbike sidecar taxi, an eventful day... pakse was also our place of departure, the place from which we crossed the border to thailand, but only after we had been down south, the very south, to don khon, one of the thousand islands in the fanning out mekong, where it creates quiet islands full of wonderfully simple people and many water buffalos and where it shoots over cliffs and rocks as a dramatic border to cambodia.