He sniffs slightly, clearing the clot from his nostril. The chocolate bar wrapper squeaks, crinkled in his hand, the reflection of the window panel shining brightly back with an image of the spare seat next to him: the seat-cover a putrid red against the grey industrial flooring and succession of beams with bright red buzzers. The top deck is mostly empty. A girl in pig tails sits chewing gum, passing time looking out to nowhere.

The bus is silent but for the sound of the hydraulic brakes, squeezing and puffing from stop to stop. At Upper Rock Gardens a tall chap, with mobile phone to his ear, gallops the stairs, bellowing his conversation: unawares of breaking the solitude of other travellers.

“I’ve given up smokin’, ya know?”

“Not the green obviously”

The broken conversation; a clutter of aimless banter; elated chuckles: that you can almost hear his throat juggling the larynx like a Pelican.

“Oh mate, we should totally get on it… I thought he’d gone back to Uni? I spoke to him last night and he’s on medication, apparently it’s got the same stuff that ecstasy has got in it. He said he can’t sleep, he’s wired until 7 in the morning almost every night”

We stop for a while outside the front of Brighton station. The gym across the street plays a video from inside its weights-room: A man in a black leotard raises a ‘strong-man’ sized weight before dropping it in a rapid movement. Two girls and a man come rapidly up the stairs, heading toward the back of the bus.

“I could get ‘Section 18’ for that.” The man pants slightly, his breath sharp and short, full of nervous energy

“Nah, he totally deserved that, the cunt.” His female accomplice retorts.

“I didn’t mean to hit him that hard, his head bounced of the floor, did you see?”

“ Thing is right, he was askin for the money and I was like: ‘I can go to the cash point, yeah, but you’ll have to wait here with them’. Then he touched my arm, he could have been going for me!”

“He didn’t look that good, there was blood comin’ from his ear”

The man continued to reconstruct, still relaying the event. His head now crouched behind the seat in front of him. Shifty whips of his neck, looking to the window and then the street. Then back to his party.

“If this goes to court I’ll stand up for ya’, I’d say he was tryin to rape me.” She consoled him, with a somewhat desperation.

Outside the blue flashing lights criss-crossed the street, bouncing from building wall to wall.

“That the Police?” – The man asking nervously

“Nah, it’s an Ambulance.”

The three are quieter now, the adrenaline wearing thin and the reality of the aftermath prevailing all too soon.

The Ambulance squeezes slowly between the bus and the traffic cone before picking up pace toward the scene; Shortly followed by a Police car: then a second. No siren: The silence deafening now.

A change of drivers, the new one now boarded: our journey continues. At the font of the station the ambulance tends to a man on the ground. Police stand talking to an elderly man sat with carrier bags at his feet, his head tilted upward, the reflection from his thick glasses a single sheet of bright white from the strong overhead lamps. We pass away up the hill, seagulls rest on top of the large station sheds, the lights glowing across to Preston Park and on to the Ditchling hills beyond.

The three are silent.

A day at Santa Pod, Northamptonshire. I’d never been to a car show and didn’t really know what to expect. It’s something that I’m not really interested in, apart from the odd chat about Porsches, which I quite like the design of, and would maybe like to own one day. Some friends had invited me, so I thought why not? Spent the day wondering around and taking it all in. An ex airfield, the race strip is a straightforward A to B scenario: You start at one end and make your way to the other as quickly as possible.

Walking around the food stalls, stands and pit area, people moved totally aimlessly among the different areas. A contradiction to the track that was right next to where we all walked. This was the basis of the photos that I took.

Leaving Bad Gastein the summer grass had reached knee height as the farmer in his stereotypical, heavy-brimmed hat with adorning feather, waded through large reeds, his huge boots like lead weights: The smell of the cut grass and meadow flowers a comforting redolence.  Bad Gastein had been an unusual stop-off in the alps out of season, the usual visitors a mass of skiers and snowboarders, but this weekend the hikers, walkers and holiday-makers were joined by some special guests to the valley: a selection of German artists exhibiting at the town’s historic power station. The gallery building – a relic of the pre second world war development of the valley – was a hydroelectric turbine hall complete with it’s iron pistons, gauges for pressure; pump; and temperatures: all in blissful Germanic order and style. And whilst the heavy thundering of the waterfall below and an incoming storm commenced, artists met with potential collectors over Austrian wine and local würst, stuffed with local cheese.

Later on that evening the party was an isolated affair in a local hotel bar. The locals here will tell you that not much happens at this time of year, “it’s all a bit boring” one said to me, so an event like this had come as a great surprise. And once dosed with the local snapz, their mood, eased, they were persuaded to join the dance-floor as we engaged in what was temporarily named the ‘modern-shimmy-yodel’.

Reaching Italy the following evening our first agenda was a late night stop at a small pizzeria, what seemed like the most successful trade for this small border town as we sat on picnic benches by the riverside: a guaranteed tourist custom for Italy’s most famous fare. Families sat out in plastic chairs smoking strong cigarettes amid mooted (Austrians/Germans) talk or flamboyant (Italian) chatter, the children (mixed nationalities) running between tables to exhausting lengths, happily regardless.

Our onward journey down the moonlit highway continued south to the town of Trieste where we camped out at a harbour just north of the city, situated on a sliver of coastline bordering Slovenia. A nightcap by the waterside was a guessing game as to whether we’d be moved on or not, mid-sleep. Morning was broken by two rotund Police officers politely asking us to go. Outside our camper two other backpackers slept on the grass under a makeshift tarpaulin cover, begging the officers for more sleep – their arrival and subsequent snooze a limited 3 hours – they had provided an ideal distraction as accomplices and provided an easier adversary to the two uniforms, now losing patience with their pleas for rest.

Skipping Trieste and what looked in passing as a pretty historic port town, the autoroute led by overpass across a vast manufactured flatland of dry-docks, ship building and container cargo: The port clearly a bustling economy for Italy’s economy on the Adriatic. Across into Croatia the shift in industry was stark, hard-hated welders were replaced by holidaymakers in every shade, size and bust. The men flip-flopping in undersized trunks in unusual shades of neon, their shirts hanging off their waste, hoisted up by their bellies. The females an array of leather-skinned sun-seekers: floral bikinis and oversized shades holding back their inflated perms. Our campsite laid 200 kms south of the border near the small harbour town of Cres. On arrival the check-in desk was covered with filling-in pens, anchored to stern and tired looking attendants that didn’t like my light joke about the secure pens.

“These are the areas of the site, each with a different colour,” The bored lady monotonously instructed us “This one for motor homes, this one special-family-space, and here the nudists. Once you find a space, take the number then come back and check-in” Her smart stare at us a hint to quickly exit and carry out the task.

Meandering between log-numbered clearings the dried out grass bore the shape and situe of their last guest; malnourished from a lack of sunlight under chassis. Tents of all sizes and colours spread out from estate cars and family wagons. The motor homes an array of creams, off-white and eggshell. Children passed on bicycles, weaving between bathers returning from the swimming area. There was an indiscernible order to the flow of traffic; rules that regulate and a general etiquette of do’s and don’ts that I remembered from visiting Eurocamps as a child. Although this time I was an adult, which felt all the more uncomfortable and unnerving as to the imminent possibility of making a mistake! It was easy to begin to question whether this was a holiday or not. We made camp quickly before taking a swim in the sea, a welcome respite from the intense heat wave that was gaining impetus as our journey ventured further south.

By this point in the trip the novelty of having a motorised home begins to wear and you long for a comfortable, stable, permanent bed. I swear you could spend years attempting to make a motor home like a house but you just wouldn’t have those foundations that make the difference. That said the locations we were able to access were getting better by the day. A visit to one of the top 10 beaches in the World was a case in hand: Accessible only by a two hour hike down the hillside or alternatively by yacht straight into the bay. Walking down the steep, narrow path, we crossed sections of loose shingle, through high pine forests and baron bushland, the route zigzagging precariously toward to the foot of the hill. The turquoise water on arrival was as clear as crystal, pushed up onto the white pebble beach like something from a bond movie. The temperature was an average 25-centigrade, and 35 in the sun. Idyllic doesn’t even cut it and without the mega-yachts it would have been even more perfect. The other people on the beach were a healthy mix of Russian millionaires – accompanied by their families and captains – and the average couple who had walked the endurance course down, as we had. Hours later the return journey uphill was made, the midday sun painfully stalling high in the sky and sweat teaming out like running water. At the summit we sat and drank a beer that lasted all of a minute before another was ordered. The drive out and away was drowsy from the beer; the heat so uncomfortable our stop that night was made in a clearing not 10 miles from where we had left. The sun set across a valley that’s descending hillside stood amid a gradually fading haze, the sea floor with a bed of mist from the rapidly cooling temperature.

The queue of cars waiting to board the ferry sat empty as the occupants crouched on the curb opposite in the shade. Bathers on a small beach beneath the ticket office swam amongst small fishing boats, a single man twenty meters adrift sheltered under a wide brimmed sunhat, his rod and line motionless. The Slovenian mountains brought cooler air to the van, rivers rushed underneath the bridges as we crossed them, winding our way into the centre of the country, west of the capital Ljubljana. The campsite was outside the town of Idrsko, a picture perfect valley for holidaymakers looking to raft the rapids or paraglide the vertical drops and busy thermals.

After making camp we rode into the next village where a Michelin star chef was pushing out the best in regional meats, cheeses, seafood and wine. The five-course meal was a fitting end to this short trip of aimless culinary indulgence, broken with the odd bit of token exercise here and there. And as the final cheese board arrived and I leant in for some more Mohant for my cracker (Slovenian goats cheese) the tummy rolled over my belt: a reminder that it’s all well and good eating and drinking this stuff but you’ll pay the price in one way or another.

It was peachy sky as we marched onto the tin can with wings, flying out of Gatwick early on Thursday morning, the looking of a good day ahead for England. I am headed to Munich on a food mission, quite simply a chance to experience cheeses from Germany through Austria and on to Italy; the subtle differences in flavours as the altitude and landscape changes and the people we meet along the way. Tim, my friend, has offered up a steely cavalry for this mission – a thoroughbred German workhorse – a 22ft VW Camper. Not the trendy old ones mind, this is a class act in mobile living standards complete with lounge/dining/kitchen area, a bathroom/shower/toilet cupboard, double and single foldout sleeping areas and almost a garage for bikes, scooter, luggage and supplies.

Coming in over the Bavarian countryside, the fields are a much more relaxed layout than those we have in Britain: less restrictive, free flowing with rivers, forests and hillsides that while away their journey into the mountains to the South. Thinking of the happy cows within these hills, their fantastic milk, the excitement at various curds that lie ahead is altogether over whelming. Plus you can always guarantee fine wine, good beer and hearty meals in Germany where this journey begins.

Heading into the center via an on-time, good value for money and excruciatingly efficient airport bus, I chat to a chap that is on his way to climb a mountain his grandfather had back in 1937. It must be ‘do-a-random-trip’ month. After swapping peculiar acquaintances I’m out and on to what will be the trusty steed for our journey: The VW TD33.

Our first stop is to Alof, a bakery café on Hans-Sachs-Street in the Glockenbach area of the city. They bake their own bread here and import the dough for croissants from France. The owner, Yorick explains that the laws in France on dough production are similar to that of the German restrictions on beer ingredients: Strict rules on using purely original ingredients, all traceable back to the farmer. ‘The butter used in industrial baking melts at around 40˚C, where as classic butter is at 26˚C. The mouth itself has a general temperature of 20˚-24˚C so it’s very important that for the croissant that the right, classic butter is used: melting faster to improve flavour and the overall experience’, Yorick explains. It makes complete sense to import where others do better and produce on-site from scratch wherever you can. It’s a model that they have also carried through to their coffee. Carroux Coffee Co. is their own roasting business based in Hamburg with distribution to like-minded cafes, restaurants and hotels. The setting is perfect, fresh herbs grow on the windowsill, customers sit at small iron tables with their morning papers and passers by on bicycle stop to chat or collect some of the fantastic cakes also available. Our breakfast of Tallegio cheese, salami and parma ham with a mixed bread basket was plentiful and all served in an understated, sophisticated and simple style: oozing cool.

As the sun beat on across Lake Chiemsee our drive took us south out of the city and into the Austrian Alps, up to the mountain resort of Bad Gastein. A laughable hypocrisy, our first two nights would not be spent in the campervan but instead in one of the regions top boutique hotels: the Miramonte. A clean cut 60’s build, converted in a tasteful melange of this period updated with a very current style. Detail is everything these days and this place is delivering it in sack-fulls. The sauna has a window with a valley view, the terraces neatly decked and shaded with outdoor bureaus including desk lamps for night-time journaling and every area provided with healthy snacks, juices and herbal tea.

Cycling out up the valley to Sportgastein, our first cheese mission begins, the gravel track winding riverside past viewing point for teaming rock fountains: the glacier water tumbling off precipices and down into ravines. Climbing steeply we pass hikers amongst amblers all on the ascension, ‘Grüss Gott’ (blessings from God) is what they say here to each other, and looking around at the dramatic landscape you can understand the omnipotent greeting. At our summit the small Alm (traditional farmers cottage) is busy with family members taking shelter from the beating sun in a large old-fashioned kitchen. An old lady welcomes us in, serving a fresh glass of milk and a tour of her backroom where the cheeses sit curing on wooden shelving. There is something about Austria and their ambition for outdoor activity, the intense amount of exercise followed by the salty food we sit down to eat at lunch. Kasnocken is Austria’s answer to macaroni cheese, served in a steel frying pan with limited garnish it’s best supped with a half or full litre of Radler (shandy). As we eat the small outdoor restaurant speakers play German ‘Schlager’ – a cheesy traditional music – that with an instinctive resonance has you swaying, swinging your pint and eager to cheers whilst splashing the contents everywhere. It’s a Germanic stereotype gift that just keeps on giving.

This is a great, savoury-meets-sweet cake recipe. The courgette almost tastes like coconut but in a really good way if you don’t like them.

200g butter or marg
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 small courgettes (150g)
1 small apple
200g plain flour
pinch salt
1/2 (half) teaspoon baking powder
pinch cinnamon
60g pecans (I don’t use these)
80g sultanas

Preheat oven to 180c or gas mark 4.  Butter and line base of a loaf tin measuring 20cm x 12cm x 9cm deep.  Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat the eggs and mix them in, one at a time.  Coarsely grate the courgette and apple.  Squeeze them with your hands to remove any excess moisture, then add to the mixture.  Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon and gently fold into the mixture.  Stir in the nuts and fruit.  Transfer to the lined loaf tin and bake for about 30 mins until golden and firm to the touch.  Allow to cool in the tin before turning out.

Because this is quite a moist cake, it doesn’t keep for very long.  Store in an airtight tin or tupperware.

The idyllic fishing boats bobbed happily in the harbour at Hoi An, as if placed there by the tourist board, backed by small cafés serving fresh seafood and French wines. It was after ten and the diner service was closing, a bar played Bob Dylan to a small boozy audience, the street bare from anything but the odd Xe Om driver: a taxi service via scooter. Searching for accommodation most were full and in the end the late hour meant I was forced into opting for a smart resort room on the edge of town. The large marble bathroom was a total luxury – clean towels and plenty of space was a big relief from the dorm room in Hanoi – having just taken a short flight to quicken my route south, it all felt completely contradictory to the dusty backpack that now sat on the smart dark-wood flooring.

Morning came with a sunny arrival, the trees overhanging the balcony creating a medley of patterned shadows. Driving back into the town the character here is nothing short of magical. Narrow streets run quiet avenues for walking, browsing amongst the abundance of shops. Mainly bespoke tailors offering the very best in luxury fabrics, made-to-measure, mixed with fine restaurants, cafes for cake and quiche and even a wine bar for the Beaujolais. All of these preserving their distinctive French style: Venetian terraces and verandas; ornate finishes to stone pillars; and the odd art nouveau influence as if stepping back in a time machine.

Three days of fittings, adjustments, some work on the cut and two new suits under my arm I boarded the 19:05 night bus. By nightfall we were crossing bridge after bridge, following the coastline south passing billboards of pretty Vietnamese woman proudly presenting their new washing machine. At dawn the sun rose over the outskirts of Na Trang and the ocean lapped at it’s pristine beach that draws many tourists to this coastal city. A quick stop for breakfast, change of bus on our journey south continued. Eight hours later and the pain in my buttocks was increasing to a dull ache, the numbness growing ever more frustrating. Reaching the outskirts the dimly lit forecourts presented their cranes, diggers, Chevy’s and pick-ups to potential customers: this is a city on the move from what I’ve read, this is boom town, Vietnamese style.

Saigon. Arguably the coolest city name in the World still retained amongst the cultural sites, smart restaurants and shops for the romanticism it provides. The large billboards that sprawl across mid-sized towers are backed by new skyscrapers lit-up as beacons of success, the view like something from the opening scene of Blade Runner. An expanse, sprawling metropolis of ten million optimistic dwellers, another five million visiting here by day for the long commute back to the countryside. New wide highways channel the heart like healthy arteries pumping the riches amongst petrochemical companies, pharmaceutical industries, smart hotels and boutique shopping malls for your Dior to Bally. Scooters in their thousands pass by, an entire society can be seen by Xe Om as you mingle amongst them: commuters bustle home stopping in jams to stare into the abyss, a daze from their computer screen glaring; smart women in pencil skirt, large sunglasses and face mask sit alongside a family of four in mounted sequence; small child, daddy, bigger child, mummy; site workers in orange overalls and hard hats; teenagers with best friend aboard; and young lovers with the pet dog. Everyone getting along, moving in a contradictory slow-organised-scurry, without need for argument or road rage, just heading where they’re headed.

A trip out for a beer one night and the bar I sat in turned to a different visiting customer than expected. Just after eleven a group of them appeared from a taxi, immediately forming alongside their favourites: Seedy men laughing through yellow teeth, the girls lolling on their polo shirted shoulders. Poaching eyes scanned from tit to arse as they drink to anxious fantasies. A German among them grabs one sweetheart by the neck as if holding a chicken, whispering desires through forced entry.  More merriment of sorts the scotch and brandy flowing faster now. Ashamed of the white European male I headed home, the one and only downside to these wonderful streets that I’ve witnessed.

The sun sets with optimism here: the lie of a city but so brilliantly deceiving for the chance of success, worldly wealth and the high-life. But at the same time preserving a value for families that still resides strong. Two little girls peddle past me on their bikes with stabilisers, passing each other laughing amongst a busy road of cars and tourist coaches, their play at no real danger to themselves, their parents aware of this fact as they watch on in doting fashion. A woman rocks her baby to sleep on a veranda above and the small corrugated shacks smoke in time for dinner in anticipation for their returning kin. The most reverent fact of the nation of Vietnam is its people’s determination to survive and rebuild. Occupied by the Chinese, the attempted colonisation by both the French and the Americans, the latter being the most horrendous wartime conflict of our time. And after all this still they laugh, joke, maintain a friendliness with foreigners – even Americans (a special note here to the mild mannered, decent yanks I’ve met, honouring the history to visit what went on here) – it can only, surely, bring about the deepest of respect from any on looking outsider. Here’s to Vietnam.

The small pick-up truck’s rear platform retained a thick layer of sawdust from its’ owners presumably regular cargo of wood. Boarding the floating bridge across the Nam Ou river, the rigging anchored the platform using a single large cable trussed between the two banks, the propellant a rusted and blackened tugboat; diesel fumes clouding out from the stumpy exhaust the shape of an upside down drinking straw. Resting on the opposite shore we began rising into the hills and new construction could be seen of two bridges to replace the romantically quaint crossing. The truck was forced into regular stops for cranes and diggers completing the section they worked on, the large body rotating and swiftly moving its weight in one deft motion, our slow and windy journey resuming. The banks of the route were scarred deep into the forest, huts isolated on mud banks: the trench for the widened road leading almost to their door. This is a sign of the changing landscape as new construction dominates the split personality of Northern Laos: the eye for development but at what cost to the natural habitat of the area?

Five long hours of potholes and dust, the relief to reach the Laos border was indescribable.  A sign boasted the large investment brought to the area in a Viet-Laos agreement including the investment – a number with a silly number of zeros – and the ambitious plans that lay ahead. The blustering wind created a swirling mist from the sandy surroundings, a figure emerging from the thick blanket followed shortly after by a white Nissan Sunny: the hole in the exhaust pre-empting its arrival. Two border officials stepped out and adorned their hats and jackets, their presence clearly called in specifically for our arrival. A stamp, currency exchange from Kip to Dong, through into no-mans land and out into an opening; this time with a red flag with yellow star flying high from a marble plinth: we’d arrived at the Vietnamese border.

A guard stood in flock green fatigues, smartly appliquéd with gold pleats and red lapels. His hat oversized in proud military gesture. The rooms were clean and sterile. A large glass pane viewed the locker room next-door, a bottle of Johnny Walker rested on the sill under a large watchful painting of Ho Chi Minh. Another hour or so followed of dense forest until the green valley floor of Dien Bien Phu province was upon us: A concrete factory towered out of place amongst the picture postcard of agricultural bliss; a sea of motorcycles to-ing and fro-ing, the odd jeep splitting the flow like a beetle through an ant farm. Arriving in the town of Dien Bien Phu the main street was a hopeless line of structures that were indistinguishable of trade or business purpose, briefly relieved by a military statue, museum or soviet-era building. A night and a day pass before boarding a night bus, the driver organising his cargo amid a squabble for places: the seat numbers making this event all the more farcical. Hoping for an empty berth next to my own a yellow toothed man in a dirty shirt and an oily mop of hair shattered the dream: Shoving and breathing in my direction for 10 hours, his breath a stale mix of cheap whiskey and cigarettes.

Hanoi. A city, civilisation and a chance to eat easy, sleep long and rest hard. Checking in to a nice hotel I spent two days in the bath, sleeping in between and catching up with home, sampling the abundance of decent restaurants here – both Vietnamese and Western – as well as taking in the formidable nightlife the city has on offer. After 3 days I’d seen nothing of cultural or historical interest. I tried the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology walking round quickly, trying to get interested by a pot used for carrying food but thinking more about when I would take my next meal. All of the background cards, introductory notes and pictures fell into insignificance, the lure of the hotel room, a cold beer and the weekend’s football fixtures all the more enticing. I felt full. A lack of inspiration from seeing, hearing and doing over the past 6 months: So many colours, characters and memories had forced out any room for more. Tottenham beat Sunderland  2-1 and the next day I was on a trip to Halong Bay.

The tour guide stood up to present his well-rehearsed speech including key facts and a few bad jokes to keep things light. We stopped at a rest area with rows of pointless gifts; badly carved wooden animals; picture-postcard paintings of far too colourful scenes of the area; overpriced coffee and a stack of fake books. Back on the bus I read my book, consciously unfased by the passing landscape, looking up and dismissing the rice paddies, hilltops and any geographical difference I was aware of. Arriving at the harbour the next instruction came: escorted into a waiting area before boarding our overnight cruise; “-Meeting time in 15 minutes before lunch”; a small talk on the background of the area and then ‘free time’. It was grey, the sky was a single sheet and it drizzled as I stood on the top deck watching other boats take other bored people into the sea. Eating our lunch motionless in a harbour added to the gloom: wouldn’t it have been nicer to start the journey and eat as we go? No protest or complaint, we all sat in relative silence, fortunately I’d remembered how to eat at least. Finally leaving the harbour our next appointment was the remaining schedule: we were to visit a large cave and attempt to guess the animal shapes the limestone had formed; take a kayak out into the bay in possibly the only chance we would be aloud out of the sight of the tour guide; then re-board the boat, eat dinner and enjoy some drinks – but not too late. I’d given up, I didn’t care about the UNSECO heritage sight or where the Vietnamese stored their weapons, I wanted to sit with the other tourists and get drunk, talk rubbish and play cards. I’d become lazy, ungrateful and reluctant to listen. In fact more partially deaf through my own admission: voluntarily culture-blind and a wee dose of Sinicism to boot.

Driving back into Hanoi water lashed off a marble plinth of stunning white and a magical marble grey, the opera house stood wonderfully ornate; French iron gates whipped and curved finishing in well-finished leaves: the facia a glorious yoke yellow. Why had I not seen this all before? Why was I only now appreciating it; wanting a photo for memory? It was pathetic and I felt guilty for wasting the time I had had. The wasted emotion ran on until I set out for a curry and then some night photos, at least then I would feel useful.

Fearing I would never leave the city I book a local flight south to Da Nang. Walking back to the hotel a crowd of scooters sit waiting, their riders chatting in a bustle like as if in some sort of protest. The high pitch squawk of young toddlers then appears and it becomes clear that this was the school run: mothers waiting in anticipation to collect their loving kin. Boarding the flight I would miss this great city and it’s culture, maybe more for the fact I had missed the chance to enjoy many of it’s hidden charms. Settling into the aisle seat and reading my book the man next to me reclaimed back the arm rest on which I was resting. I moved my elbow to another area and he duly moved nudging me away again: each move like a subtle chess game with the man having irritating success as I succumbed. It summed up my week here, the attempt to move and observe but to no great success, just another wasted move if I couldn’t appreciate what was around me. Relinquishing he pushed out his chin to readjust it in proud victory. I’d well and truly lost this battle.

A monk is perched on a stilted outbuilding opposite a temple in Llaung Prabang, the warm orange textile blowing smoothly in the wind to dry, briefly concealing his face. Phousarath is eager to learn English and holds a conversation well, making sure that my attention is maintained and I don’t slip from his chance to learn a language that forms the soul of his study. He tells me his father died recently, his eyes glazing over slightly as he talks. His mother and brother were disappointed at the news of his ambition to be a Buddhist monk but were more understanding once he explained his reasoning:

“This way I can be closer to my father: to heaven and Buddha”

The map I present puzzles him and he is unable to find the hometown of his family. A smile of playfulness on his face suggests that he is intrigued but also humbled in the fact the zigzagging of lines and place names were confusing him some what: his finger darting across the ranges, stopping to monitor the towns and cities, his lips enjoying the linguistic challenge of the English translations.

Llaung Prabang is the epitome of French colonial towns. Days drift into weeks lounging at café’s sipping espresso, eating quiche and chatting amongst a vibrant traveller scene. Lethargic trees shield the streets, the branches drooping in a lazy lull under the afternoon sunshine. I spend an hour drawing an electric pylon and its surrounding foliage, the relevance totally unimportant in the midst of constant free time. Bicycles squeak past in un-oiled duress, the rider’s legs in tan trousers, leather sandals and t-shirt; for a moment this could be Provence or the Dordogne: their facial features and pointy hat only exposing their true Asian identity. At the Mekong riverside a group of tuk-tuk drivers are together in a cackle playing boules. Asking to join they laugh and immediately hand the scarred metal balls over, their marks a sign of a million throws into the hard, uneven, dusty ground surrounding us. The price to play is 8000 KIP for a beer to be shared amongst the group: paid by the loser of which they take the liberty of predicting will be me. A dozen or so losses later and the hustle becomes laughable as they help me with the notes from my wallet, my time at the game firmly over to rescue any remaining pride.

Afternoon shade in a small wooden restaurant reaching out above the riverbank, a Belgian on the opposite table strikes up conversation with a negative view of something or other, foaming his beer onto the table continuing his rant: now about his issue over the hotels in the town and the state of their management – his trade – without waiting for reply or acknowledgment to take part in this lifeless sound off. Sauntering back to the hotel the arcades pack up, the metal shutters rattling down in a moment of deafening chaos, city life is over and the rural north of Laos lies ahead.

The Golden Triangle was once Asia’s most formidable poppy plantation yielding a huge black market in opium production. Shared between the north of Burma, Thailand and its eastern point in Laos, the mountainous landscape has presented a perfect combination of altitude, humidity and remoteness for this special crop. Following a clean up within the respective governments, and the corrupt payoffs that maintain the existence of such industries, the area is transforming to provide a more honest life for the farmers here. With investment from the Chinese government an infrastructure has been provided to offer a new way of life for the locals, helping to draw them away from poppy farming and into alternative work such as mining or even gambling as I reported in an earlier post on the city of Boten.

In Muang Sing – where I have travelled – the paddy fields swamp the territory as pavements and car parks do in the west. Young men water their veg in the evening sun, a warm orange glow highlighting a range of peaks beyond them, beckoning in the cool evening air. The town is dusty, the people and buildings equally weathered. A hairdresser finishes with her last client, the shop like a brick theatre with open front for all to see: The girl timidly checking her new bob in the small round mirror in front of her. Grannies offer friendship bracelets before hissing a friendly, funny phonetic, the small black bar of opium in their hand: the real trade. The owner at the Tai Pui guesthouse is a jolly woman; a smart blazer holds her petit, compact frame. She serves a beer and reads back the food order: “One chicken?”, “No, two fish please” I say, correcting her. “Two chicken?” She giggles, presumably at the stupid look on my confused face.

On to Louang Namtha, a destination for trekkers seeking hikes in big boots and zip off trouser-shorts. Backpacks heavily laden, big brimmed hats and bearded men everywhere. The Rosy-cheeked women in fleece and fanny packs look as miserable as they probably do running their camping shop in Watford. Half duck and papaya salad for tea, the stray dogs roam in numbers looking eagerly upward: the young; impatiently, the old; wisely endearing. Throwing a duck leg to them the entire consumption is wolfed in a matter of fifteen seconds, all skin and bone. A dead town without a purpose I hire a trials bike and rev it like a knob trying to impress somebody, maybe the local kids at least. Heading out on to the dirt tracks in the surrounding hills I head high up across streams and over rickety wooden bridges. The view at the peak is endless, the valley floor like a toy train-set of small huts, farms, villages and temples. It’s silent, a pleasure that seems harder to come by than expected here, the draw for adventurers firmly on the backpacker trail.

Away by bus to Odomxui, we pass road works of diggers proudly emblazoned with Chinese company names like ‘Yunnan Sunny Road and Bridge Co.’ – did they add ‘bridge’ after they had first established the ‘road’ name, I thought – dropped at the Pakmong juncture, the tuk-tuk whisking the party on to Nong Khiaw and from there into a narrow boat to head upstream. Thick jungle hung heavy like a green duvet over the angular hillsides, only relieved by the vertical cliffs that besiege the Nam Ou River’s berth: Some beyond 1800 meters in height. A monk stands buoyant at the stern of the craft as the prow wrestles with the rapids. On the bank a boy stands on tree roots exposed by the sediment that clings its weight to land, the water winning this slow but successful battle. Buffalo lie out to bathe, their calves frolicking in the sandy beach, a hog forages in the shallows and for the first time on this trip I feel totally isolated. The valley opens out and on one side a line of wooden structures can be seen disguised by palm and coconut tree. Mooring up to a floating bamboo causeway the steps lead up into the village of Muang Ngoi.

A young boy steadies himself gradually rolling back his arm before lashing out, releasing the spinning top from his grasp in a fluid snap! It hits the mudpack-path and pirouettes at a frantic rate, manoeuvring erratically. From behind him a friend launches a counter attack, his own top firing down and toward his opponent clashing with deathly success, the proud winner following victory with elated jumps of celebration. Wildlife sings out into the evening sky, the stars bright and uninhibited by streetlights of civilisation as the four hours of electricity ends and the generators patter out their last gasp for the night. This road less village is enticing; it’s only access by water. Time can only be spent here dozing, eating and exercising the easy life. Another day is over in this sleepy paradise, tomorrow’s schedule: hammock, book, afternoon walk and search for freshly fallen coconut.