Feliz 2010!!!! Happy 2010!!!!

Sentimientos encontrados. Angkor Wat es, sin lugar a dudas, uno de los lugares del mundo más fotogénicos ……y a la vez más fotografiados. Ocurre como cuando uno llega a Nueva York por primera vez, esto es, que mucho de lo visto te suena. Sea a través de algún documental o leyendo algún National Geographic todos hemos visitado virtualmente alguna vez Angkor Wat.

El complejo arquitectónico es inabarcable y eso que hemos estado 4 días. Los templos laberínticos y profusamente decorados se extienden en un radio de 40km₂. Hemos visto unos 4 o 5 al día algunos maravillosos otros no tanto y aún nos quedaron los más alejados a más 70km del centro de Angkor.

Pero, y aquí está la nota negativa y recurriendo de nuevo a un símil, Angkor Wat se ha convertido en una especie de París que hay que visitar, sí o sí, para todos los turistas de los países del sudeste asiático, en este rincón del mundo, los más numerosos. Recuerdo que me comentaba Carlitos al volver de China que lo que más le había sorprendido era el número de turistas chinos visitando los distintos lugares emblemáticos de su país. Pues aquí, ocurre lo mismo, chinos, coreanos, vietnamitas, japoneses….llegan en centenares o millares y en grupos organizados de 50 o 60 personas. La consecuencia de esto es que a la hora de visitar los templos has de mirar siempre el número de autobuses que hay a la entrada. Si ves mas de uno mejor decirle al conductor de tu Tuk-Tuk que te lleve a otro lado. De entre los templos, el que se lleva la palma en sentido negativo es el Tha Prohm que National Geographic hizo tan famoso con la foto del monje saliendo por la puerta escondida en una maraña de raíces. En este sitio hasta han tenido que poner una plataforma para que estos turistas no se subieran por las raíces de los árboles. Así, que nos gustaría mandar el consejo siguiente: si queréis visitar Angkor Wat hacerlo lo antes posible mientras aún quede algo…..Lo peor de este turismo organizado es que además dejan poco dinero en Camboya ya que se alojan, comen y beben en sus hoteles. Se trata de hoteles que empresarios chinos y coreanos han ido abriendo principalmente en la carretera que comunica la ciudad con el aeropuerto. Hoteles que destacan por su arquitectura ecléctica dando como resultado final que parezcan un Salon de Bodas tipo Lord Winston pero de 5 o 6 plantas…..

Pese a todo esto, hemos disfrutado de la visita y sacado buenas fotos, aunque nos hayamos metido una paliza en el cuerpo tanto por lo andado, como por las horas a las que hemos amanecido. Para poder visitar los templos tranquilos y hacer fotos, nos levantábamos a eso de las 6:30 de la mañana.

Fuera de la ruta arquitectónica vistamos una ong-museo que nos impactó bastante, fundada por un tipo, Aki Ra, que desde hace mas de 15 años se dedica a limpiar los campos de Camboya de minas y artefactos explosivos que tanto americanos, como vietnamitas como los propios Jemeres Rojos han dejado por el país. Él solo ha desactivado más de 50.000 minas pero quedan más de 3.000.000 por aquí. También se dedica a ayudar a los afectados y mutilados por estos artefactos….impresionante el sitio.

Dejamos Camboya y pasamos 48 horas en la vibrante Saigón. Cuidad de neón y motor económico de Vietnam. La mitad de la ciudad se dedica a vender algo de ahí que tenga cierto parecido a un Zoco inmenso. No tiene el encanto de Hanoi pero sí que merece la pena verlo. Como sitio imprescindible, llevando un paquete de Klennex, el museo de la guerra americana (la que conocemos nosotros como guerra de Vietnam).

Termino de escribir estas líneas en Krabi, Tailandia. Por lo que se puede decir que nuestro viaje termina aquí. Como lo más fascinante que vamos a hacer en los próximos seis días será escoger el cocktail que llevarnos a la hamaca, quiero ya cerrar este blog. Ha sido un viaje magnífico, lleno de experiencias y emociones. Traemos la maleta cargada de recuerdos y fotos que ya compartiremos…..

Terminaré como empecé todo esto: muchísimas gracias por vuestros regalos, habéis sido todos vosotros, amigos y familia, los que hacéis posible que Diana y yo hayamos podido disfrutar de un insuperable viaje de novios…..Muchas gracias!!!!

No tenemos ganas de que esto acabe pero si de verlos a todos. ¡Feliz año 2010 a todo el mundo!!!! Que traiga salud y alegría!!
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I am writing this having landed in Thailand, and sitting happily with a gin tonic in the last part of our trip and the one that we are jokingly referring to as "the real honeymoon", meaning that most likely there will be no more entries into the blog because our main concern for the next six days will be which restaurant to eat at and which cocktail to start the evening off with. Aitor and I have had some pretty amusing moments like pawing our way up the waterfall, slipping and sliding and inspecting each other's legs for lychees (similar to the way that chimpanzees groom each other) and one of us will say, "yup this is definitely not your typical honeymoon" But I digress...

In my last entry I left off saying goodbye to Laos and entering the majestic world of Angkor Wat. Both Aitor and I agree that we have mixed feelings about the experience. Angkor Wat itself is absolutely spectacular. People are not kidding when they say there's nothing like it on this planet. It's the concept of an EMPIRE in its most literal sense, spreading 40km wide with temple after temple beautifully displaying the most elaborate carvings one can imagine. It really feels like they are Temples built for the Gods. And you're just a teeny weeny observer. In some of the temples (one of our favorites was called Preah Khan) you really feel like an explorer cause it's full of doorways and mazes and massive stones that have topple one on top of the other and branches and parts of trees intertwined everywhere. It really is fantastic, a sight to see.

But the other side of the same coin is that Angkor Wat has become a MAJOR tourist attraction for I think all of Asia. So it's very quickly becoming a massive tourist destination. So this means that at the most "popular" temples, (they have probably earned this reputation because they probably are the most spectacular ones, if gazillions of people were not at them) there are many people at them and worst yet in groups. We're talking bus-full after bus-full of tour groups of thirty or more people clustering around the major areas of the temple. We really felt that we had no moments of serenity at these temples, to just stand there in awe of what was in front of us. Instead you were faced with a feeling of being swarmed by people and this naturally took much of the beauty of the moment away. There were moments were it was difficult to extract oneself and enjoy. I particularly remember one incident where we had been recommended to go to one particular temple, Prerup for the sunset. We got there early, I climbed up a staircase onto a platform to have more of a bird's view and Aitor stayed a bit further down with this tripod and other camera apparel. The temple was overrun by people and tour groups but we did our best to ignore it and just enjoy what looked like was to be a spectacular sunset.

At the precise moment where the skies were red and pink and the beautiful red sun was just going down over the horizon, I am not exaggerating when I say that 25 people walked in front of me as I was trying to take a series of pictures. Some would even stop for an instance, standing and blocking my view, so they could take their picture. And i'm thinking to myself, if you came here to see the sunset, what the hell are all these people doing walking back and forth, moving up and down at the precise moment when the sunset is happening? Doesn't it defy the purpose? Isn't this the moment to just STOP, even if for an instance and just enjoy that one little moment? I'm definitely getting older. So our advice is if you have an interest in seeing Angkor Wat go ASAP cause God only knows what that place will be like in five years time...

Another highlight of our trip (besides the tuk tuk rides which were brilliant) was the land mine museum just outside the main temple complex. We hired a guide for two days and on the first day he had told us that his father had been killed by a landmine in 1992. He mentioned that there was a museum about landmines and we immediately expressed our interest in going the following day. This museum was founded by a very brave man, Aki Ra, who has basically spent the first 15 years of his life at war (and thereafter with the aftermath of war), first fighting for the Khmer Rouge, then for the Vietnamese and finally working for the UN demining rural areas of Cambodia. He has deactivated an impressive 50.000 explosives in Cambodia but it is estimated that 3million landmines and the likes still remain!!! One of the aspects that really caused an impression on me was the fact that this courageous man was about our age, he is currently 34 years old. So when he is describing his life events on the walls of the museum, he mentions that for example in 1988, he was 13 years old and with an AK47 in his hand he saw one of his friends blow up next to him as he stepped on a landmine.
The night that I had visited the museum, the date stuck in my head and all I could think of was how in 1988 I had just moved to the States and my biggest concern was whether I was going to be popular or make friends in my new middle school. One kid has only been exposed to war at the age of 13 and the other kid (myself) is once again a damn mega privileged child.

The museum is run by his wife and it has also turned into a sort of orphanage for kids that are victims of landmines. Their stories, beautifully described on the walls of the museums, made a cry muffin like myself go to town. If you want to learn more about this impressive project take a look at: http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/. Oh one more little thing, there are 15 countries still remaining in the world that have produced landmines since 2002. More than 130 have stopped or never produced them at all. Besides Russia, China and Iran, US still is on this list. Pathetic if you ask me… So here is my little appeal to any Americans reading this entry to unite forces and start pressuring Mr. Obama to sign the anti land mine treaty and stop producing fucking landmines once and for all. It´s embarrassing…

After days of absorbing this incredible culture from 10 centuries ago, we spent a quick 48 hours in Saigon. Our first reaction was, Wow is this really the same country as Hanoi??? That place is bustling- people, lights, motorbikes.. You definitely FEEL that this is the economic hub of the country. I think they have as many shopping malls in Saigon as we have bars in Madrid! We had a particularly fine dining experience that will stay with us for many years to come (if anyone comes to this side of the planet, tamarind sauce is the way to go!) but I have to say that in general I have more of a liking for Hanoi. One of the more memorable moments (besides the absurdly strong saigon coffee... why do the turks get the reputation for the strong coffee?? These people make their coffee so that your hair stands on end like a porcupine!) was the War Remnant Museum... This museum is brutally honest, it´s about the American War (as they call it in this part of the world) and the god damn pictures… brutal… as I walked slowly through the museum with my sunglasses on to prevent onlookers from seeing my emotional state I just kept thinking of Heart of Darkness and its film adaptation, Apocalypse Now… “The horror, the horror….” How does human kind reach this level of atrocity? And for what? I´m sure it was done on purpose to drive home the point but all I saw was in those god awful images was kids and more kids…

But I suppose being exposed to these types of images and first hand accounts is so important. It definitely triggered a whole lot of chats between Aitor and I and I suppose it does that with most people that visit it.. it´s a necessary evil..

And after that little stop over in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City to be politically correct ;) we have landed in the beautiful kingdom of Thailand ready to do absolutely nothing and really enjoy doing absolutely nothing. We deserve it ;) Since we don´t know if we´ll have any more entries after this one (we think probably nothing too eventful will come from lying at the beach all day, drinking cocktails and eating thai food) we wanted to say THANK YOU again for making this absolutely incredible honeymoon possible with your super generous gifts and since tomorrow is new year´s… HAPPY 2010!!! We wish you all a year full of happy times, lots of adventures and lots and lots of love!!! Good night and good luck ;)

Cena en casa de Deet/Dinner party at Deet`s

Para poner esto en contexto, leer la entrada anterior ...importante. To understand this, please read first the previous entry...

El amiguete de nuestro guía (segundo día del trekk) muy amablemente nos invitó a cenar en su casa tras el día agotador en las cascadas. Nos encantó el ofrecimiento y desde luego que mereció la pena. Primero tras decir sí en lo alto de la montaña, nos pregunta que plato nos gustaría cenar. Nosotros sin pensarlo, decimos lo que cocinéis normalmente, nada más algo típico de aquí. Ok, sopa de pollo al estilo de Laos……no problem…..

Primero conseguir el pollo, digo conseguir porque en la última aldea que pasamos antes de tomar la canoa, nuestro amigo negocia con una aldeana y acto seguido se mete en el corral a cazar al pollo, que vivo recorrería todo el viaje en canoa de vuelta al hostal. Diana tiene un video magnífico.

A las dos horas de regresar nos presentamos en su casa, que mas que casa es chamizo, esta es la cocina, así que imaginar el resto (Deet es un guía local que dentro de la economía de la zona es de los mejores trabajos)

El espectáculo de cómo preparan la sopa no tiene desperdicio. El pollo es nuestro cerdo asi que todo va a la cazuela, todo: cresta, cabeza, cuello, intestino, estomago, sangre coagulada…..todo…..El caldo, bueno, agua hirviendo con sal y un par de hierbas…. Diana y yo sentíamos gemir nuestros propios intestinos, menos mal que siempre hacen mucho arroz para acompañar que si no lo echamos ahí todo…Lo mejor fue la cena en si, porque empezamos 6 a cenar y terminamos como 12. El chamizo no tenía puerta por lo que cualquiera que asomaba la cabeza veía que había fiesta se apuntaba. Nada se le hacía un hueco y ya está, la abuela también aparecía de vez en cuando….una pasada. No podía faltar la cerveza de allí BeerLao y el licor de la zona el LaoLao. Tras la cena los juegos y aquí llegó lo mejor….El juego de la botella, versión de Laos!! Consiste en que el dueño de la casa meta su mano en la sopa, saque la cabeza del pollo (sigo pensando que era gallo) cocida y con su cresta y meterla entre dos platos hondos. Entonces lo único que hay que hacer es agitar los platos, levantar (impresiona el sonido de la cabeza golpeando la superficie) y a quien mire el pico pierde y.. bebe un chupito…..Literalmente, Diana y yo nos meamos de la risa…..Fue una cena genial y ellos unos anfitriones excelentes…..Teníamos tanta risa que no pudimos sacar fotos de la cabeza del pollo, lo sentimos…..

Dinner with Deep

Okay let me try to sum up this surreal experience… So at the top of the waterfall, Aitor mentions to Ai that we had tried to take a Lao cooking course in Luang Prabang but that we ran out of time. So Ai immediately says something in Lao to Deep, the local guide, and before we know it we are invited to a dinner at Deep´s house that evening and we are invited to come early so we can learn to cook. They decide to cook Lao chicken soup which according to them is tasty and traditional. So far so good. As we come down the waterfall trek and pass one of the local Lao villages where our canoe was waiting for us, Ai and Deep stop off at some random lady´s house who has gazillions of chickens running around all over the place. So after 10 minutes of chicken chasing, they put up a fishing net, scare the shit out of the chicken so that it runs in the direction of the net and that way they trap it. Needless to say, our canoe ride back up the river, included a live chicken.

When we got to Deep´s house that evening for the cooking lesson, Deep´s wife had already killed the chicken and they were proceeding to peel of the skin. But that´s all they took off let me tell you, cause everything else went into the boiling pot. And when I say everything I mean, the claws, the head, the intestines, the coagulated chicken blood. Right back into a "tasty" chicken soup. Hmm hmmm. Just like our grandma used to make it (for the record, it was disgusting)

We then sat down to have dinner in Deep´s "living room" (above is the picture of the kitchen, the living room is a similar style), the living room became like the Marx´s Brothers room in Night at the Opera. Everyone who passed by his house and saw that two falang (tourists) were inside for din din, would invite themselves in, sit down and have dinner with us. We started off as six people, I think by the end we were 13.

But then came the best part. I hope everyone remembers the spin the bottle game from our pre teen years. Weeelll, this is the Lao version….

At one point Deep pulls the damn (disgusting) chicken head from inside the pot and places it between two bowls so that you can´t see the chicken head. The object of the game is that the chicken head is shaked and when the top bowl is lifted, whoever the beak of the chicken is pointing at, has to drink. I literally thought Aitor and I were going to pee ourselves laughing, it was all so ridiculously amusing. And i´m thinking to myself, “yes it´s JUST like our spin the bottle game… same, same.. but different”

Feliz Navidad a todos!!!!!

Con gran dolor de corazón decimos adiós a Laos. ¿No fue aquí donde se trató de esconder el más famoso guardia civil de la historia, el señor Roldán? Pues tonto, muy tonto no era porque a uno le dan ganas de liarse la manta a la cabeza y quedarse por aquí un par de meses, tirando por lo bajo. Claro que el hecho de que llevara siempre gabardina pese a los más de 30 grados debía delatarlo un poco….

Escribimos estas líneas desde las afueras de Siem Reap, a un paso de las ruinas de Angkor.

Con Laos hemos cerrado una de las etapas más enriquecedoras del viaje tanto por lo visto como lo vivido. Ayer noche retornamos a Luang Prabang después de pasar unos días en la jungla laosiana. Jungla bastante montañosa, a mi pesar….Desde la ciudad de los templos nos embarcamos en un viaje de seis horas rio arriba por el Nam Ou, uno de los afluentes del Mekong. En Luang Prabang habíamos contratado los servicios de de un guía-interprete Ai, se llamaba …como lo vamos a echar de menos. Le cogimos bastante cariño pese a que nos iba a meter un poco de caña en cuerpo con unos pocos pateos, si bien duros para mí, el entorno y los pueblos que pasamos merecieron cada gota de sudor. El primer día, después de las 6 horas de viaje llegamos a Pak Mong que a orillas del rio y encajado entre montañas es un lugar perfecto para pateos. Así que para desentumecer las rodillas a Mr. Ai no se le ocurrió nada mejor que soltar las bolsas, coger la mochila pequeña y subir a una de las montañas que rodean el pueblo. Antes de subir se fue a buscar a un amiguete que rondaría los 15 años y que apareció enfundado en unas chanclas gastadísimas con una machete en una mano y una botella de agua en la otra. ¿Qué pensar? ¿Qué pude pasar por la cabeza de un Falang (güiri para los Laosianos) ante una situación así? ¿Nos quiere impresionar? Pues nada más allá de lo que veíamos: uno que ese es el único calzado del chaval y dos que el sendero por el que subiríamos a la montaña iba a requerir bastante trabajo de machete, primero para abrir camino de subida y de bajada para que el chaval me fuera desenganchando, pues el que escribe esto, si le dejan allí solo más de 10 minutos se lo come la maleza….literalmente…Pero pese a lo arduo de la subida, tres horas en línea recta, es decir, no se va haciendo zetas ni nada de eso, llegamos al caer la tarde a lo alto de la montaña y las vistas nos quitaron el poco aliento que nos quedaba…pongo unas cuantas fotos…..

Esa noche no podíamos con nuestro cuerpo y a eso de las 9:30 ya nos habíamos metido en la cama…..La imagen del chaval subiendo por la empinada y resbaladiza montaña enfundado en unas chanclas salía y entraba en mis sueños..

Al día siguiente nos esperaba nuestro guía con otro amiguete, Deet (más tarde nos invitaría a cenar a su casa a cenar….esto merece una entrada aparte en el Blog, a continuación de esta) en una canoa. Con la canoa remontaríamos por una hora el Nam Ou para llegar a un pueblo desde el que andaríamos por espacio de una hora para llegar a una zona que tan solo lleva abierta a trekking desde el año pasado y que llaman de las 100 cascadas. Se trata, de remontar durante un par de horitas el curso de un pequeño rio en el que vas andando directamente por él y sorteando como puedes los saltos de agua que vas encontrando. Hasta aquí todo idílico, pero después de llevar andando unos 30 minutos, nuestro guía señalando al suelo nos muestra una pequeña babosa….nos dice, con una sonrisa: Leech!!-Sanguijuelas!! Me pongo lívido, no jodas (digo para mis adentros…) miro a Diana que también lívida me devuelve la mirada…NO WORRY dice Ai , tan solo nos recomienda lo contrario que habríamos pensado nosotros y que consiste quitarse la parte de debajo de los pantalones y quedarse con las bermudas….para así poder ver más claramente cuando se agarran y quitarlas acto seguido. Vio que acatábamos el consejo pero que no nos hacía mucha gracia, así que para tranquilizarnos nos dice que esta época no hay muchas que peor en la temporada de lluvias….para uno de ciudad no creas que es mucho consuelo…Al final completamos el pateo por un paraje verde fosforito con el sonido del agua como única compañía, a cada paso que dábamos mirábamos entre la maleza circundante esperando que algún indígena con cerbatana apareciese….y esta es un poco la sensación al andar por aquí…

La vuelta en canoa al pueblo donde nos quedábamos nos regaló algunas imágenes imborrables. En la jungla amanece nuboso y frio por lo que las nubes apenas te dejan apreciar el paisaje, pero una vez estas se desvanecen y la luz refleja el paisaje en el rio uno tiene la sensación de navegar por un espejo…..

Al día siguiente continuamos rio arriba y pasamos una noche en otro pueblo ribereño más remoto aún con electricidad tan solo de 6 a 9 de la noche….El haber tenido todo el día anterior los pies en remojo no me sentó bien y me atacó un poco la garganta por lo que tuve fiebre todo ese día y apenas pude salir del cuarto. El día salió frio y lluvioso por lo que Diana, esta vez sola, se fue con Ai a visitar una cueva cercana al pueblo.

El cuarto día ya tomamos de nuevo el bote para regresar a Luang Prabang. Si bien nos ha impresionado la naturaleza que hemos encontrado en esta zona más remota de Laos, lo mejor fueron las paradas que hicimos (no me cansaré de decirlo, muchas gracias Ai) en los pueblos tanto durante las excursiones como en el viaje de vuelta. A lo largo de este rio aparecen y desaparecen pequeñas aldeas habitadas por gentes de la etnia Kamu así como por Laosianos. Gente que se dedican a mantener una economía de subsistencia basada en la pesca y el cultivo de arroz . Pueblos que te permiten ver, sentir, y oler lo que para los parámetros occidentales es una gran miseria y que te dejan a veces un sabor agridulce ya que también son pueblos habitados por innumerables niños de profundos ojos oscuros, que curiosos te siguen por donde vayas, riéndose y que no te abandonan ni un momento. Ellos si que nos hicieron pasar momentos de gran emoción con sus juegos y risas….

Esto es todo amigos y familia….Felices navidades a todos, muchos besos y abrazos.

Our adventure to the north of Laos started off with a three hour van ride upstream, following the Nam Ou River. Though the road was actually in excellent condition, the most “memorable” part of this drive was a poor girl sitting in the back of a pick up truck in front of us, with one of those bamboo triangular hats covering half her face, vomiting out the back of the truck. It was not a pretty sight I must say ;)

Sometime onward, we stopped off in a local “festival”. Turns out the hmong ethnic group (in Vietnam we saw Black hmong. Here there were white hmong, red hmong, blue hmnong.. rainbow hmong…) were having their yearly festival and we were lucky enough to be passing by when the action was occurring. So besides food and music, the usual elements of a festival, all the young single boys and girls would line up making two long lines and were throwing a ball back and forth at each other. That was the entertainment. Just a ball tossed back and forth, back and forth. Turns out this is some sort of mating game for them! They throw the ball at the boy (or girl) they want to woo, so the tossing is filled with giggles and eyelash batting. Pretty amusing.

Of course Aitor and I joined in the ball tossing and by mistake (supposedly), Aitor tossed the ball to the girl next to me and we started joking that Aitor liked her and she got soo embarrassed, so giggly, so shy…

Upon arrival to our riverside destination, we immediately commenced a hard ass hike up a mountain. When I say up, I mean up. No type of zig zagging whatsoever. Like a mountain goat, up and up. The most amusing part of this hike was our local guide. The boy´s trekking “uniform” consisted of flip flops, a bottle of water and a machete knife. That´s it. I quickly understood the need for the machete as he´s making his way and cutting through all the overgrown bushes covering the trail (and i´m thinking to myself be careful what you wish for… I had said I wanted hikes with no tourists… so this is what I get!) But the flip flops especially killed me. I was carrying a walking stick and was wearing my good hiking shoes and I could barely make it up hill, slipping and stumbling the whole way up. Anyway it was all worth it because at the top awaited a SPECTACULAR view of this beautiful region in the north of Laos.

The following day we did another gorgeous hike, up a set of waterfalls that supposedly were first “discovered” (in the tourist sense of the word of course) in 2008. Again we really felt like explorers, feeling like few people had actually done this hike before us. And I loved every minute of it.. except for one little detail… the lyches! We were instructed to remove our socks and pull up our pants (completely counterintuitive of course) so that the lyches could be easily spotted once they were on us. Disgusting I tell you… but we were lucky enough to encounter very few of them.

After a crazy hike up the waterfall and a short break for lunch at the top of the waterfall (it´s brilliant, zip lock bags are substituted by banana leaves here in Laos), in a moment of delirium we were invited to a dinner that night to our local guide Deep´s home. The dinner itself merits a separate entry in the blog which I will write about afterwards.

The canoe ride back to our riverside bungalow was of absolute serenity. The light reflection on the river as the sun was setting made us feel that rather than strolling upstream a river we were wading in some sort of magical mirror… all along the banks of the river however the Lao people were washing themselves off (shower time!), probably marking the ending of a hard day´s work.

The following day we went even further up the Nam Ou River to a small town, overrun by backpackers, with electricity only from 6-9pm. Unfortunately Aitor had gotten a bit sick from the day before so he had a bit of a fever and spent most of the day in bed so as to make sure his fever wouldn´t get worse. The most interesting part of the time there was a hike I did with our fabulous guide Ai (he´s the one that accompanied us the entire way from Luang Prabang and back) where we went to take a look at a cave about 7km outside the town. There he explained that during the American War (as they call it in this part of the world) the entire town lived inside the cave from 1973 to 1975!! As the American bombs fell incessantly on the region (with the help from the hmong who had become “spies” for the CIA), the whole town took refuge in this cave, among other reasons because a stream ran through it. We later met an old woman who had been one of the Lao people living in this cave and just listening to bits of her story as she served us lao lao (the lao whisky) again brought tears to my eyes.

For the record it´s very amusing to see the use of these fucking bombs now a days in Laos. I am not joking when I say they now use the “american bombs” as they call them as lamp shades, posts for feeding their pigs, boats, seats for the falang (tourists) to sit on, you name it, they’ve got a use for them!

The next day luckily Aitor´s fever had disappeared and though a bit sore in the throat we headed on to our six hour journey down the Nam Ou river. This river may not be as well known as the mighty Mekong but I cannot emphasize enough how gorgeous it was (we also went down the Mekong in the last part of the journey) of course this remote area is still relatively untouched so besides the local fishermen boats we would maybe cross another boat three times an hour. It was in those moments that we were soooo happy to have come to Laos now, when it´s still pretty untouched. The other major highlight of this little escapade was visiting all the local villages of the Kamu people and the Lao people along the way. Once again thanks to our guide, Ai, we were able to visit these untouched villages where Aitor and I felt like Peter Piper (was that the dude´s name with flute and the mice??) and as we strolled through each one of these village more and more kids would follow us around, with their deep dark eyes and their incredibly innocent smiles. By the time we would leave the village I think every kid under 7 was near us giggling at our pathetic attempts of saying the two words we had just learned in Kamu and orchestrating very energetic “BYE BYE, BYE BYE, BYE BYE”.

I really really feel fortunate to have been able to take in such a flurry of emotions and sights in our little adventure. That´s all folks.. but more importantly, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!