Twisted Bowels In Newborns

February 9 February 10 February 11

Luang Prabang / Morning

awakened that night to an hour. I took the opportunity to listen to the Nam Khan
eating my prunes and reading by candlelight list appalling
tropical diseases to convince me that paradise does not exist.

the morning, indeed, paradise does not exist. The whites have reinvested
the historical center, like the good old colonial times. One would walk in between self
Thai pants and tank tops turned, there ordering
English Nescafe and pancakes before going to the store to buy adventures
a trek on elephant back. The West is the law, so that I can not find my
noodle soup for breakfast.
When I learn that a bicycle is rented five dollars for half a day, I lose patience and
face expressing high and Luang Prabang is stronger than
mad, she respects herself more. Treat foreigners like a herd of dollars
traveling, you become cynical, I do not want anyone
! From there to give everything you have for a little money, it is only
not, and what do you do when you have nothing and
you rely for survival of our dollars, and blah and blah and blah, we do not stop
more ...

Do not stay too long in Luang Prabang.



To reweave my link to the city shattered by anger, I'm going to expose myself completely and
manipulated and massaged by a young woman
unknown unknown in traditional house, away from downtown.
The masseuse's hands are cold, use a sticky balm that smells
benzoin. She kneaded with energy, like a kitten on a wool sweater
before settling. She dislocates my limbs a little in every sense
, dismisses my legs without concern for my modesty, then I am consciously
crack all the vertebrae with a lot of know-how
, despite his young age. Her sister, pregnant, often goes head
in the half-open door and complains nausea, patting his stomach still flat
. Outside, a cat in heat makes us laugh, and my masseuse
me.

laos Women seem to slide on the ground. I train to walk
as they slowly pass by the body weight from one side to another without
propel me forward, nor yet the arms free to do
balance.


Night At nightfall, the monks' prayers orange guide me to a quiet alley near
River. Here, too, away from the golden pagodas restored
end for tourists eager Wealth is practiced. The temple is very rudimentary
decorated with colorful paintings and naive that tell the life of Buddha
. In the room a couple of novices sitting on the ground, led by an old monk
.
long time, they sing, back to the entrance, facing the statues of Buddha
. Their voices fill the grave and litanies body vibration.
collective sound tones through multiple waves of changes.
the orange light of the setting sun turns blue. As yesterday's arrival, I am shaken by sobs
.

After prayers, a novice of fifteen years just spend some time with me
. He tries to explain what it is about in the song
.
- Pali! Pâlilanguet '!
He said that the tone of the evidence. But I do not know pâlilanguet '.
- Ah! Pali language?
The language of the "ancient doctrine", that of Theravada Buddhism.
But these songs are saying? We do not have enough language in common
that I knew. So we exchanged a language course.
Now, I can answer politely Khwai iyen "learn" when I was
asks if I speak Lao. When I'm going to go away, he said
wait and look for something short in his dorm. He returned
handing me a wooden board of about ten centimeters square
on which is painted a golden hand of Buddha. Open palm, thumb and index finger
meet. Symbol of education.
- It's for you.

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Luang Prabang / Bus Station Closure
to six hours before the house. The bag already on the back, I watch a
when children of the family through the door parted from their room, under the net
peaceful square, lighted by a blue neon forgotten.
At the roadside, j'alpague a couple of young Israelis to share
the race to the bus station. Skin color endive, look sick,
tight against one another, weighed down by bags higher than them, they look like me
prey hunted while I
divide their proposed fees. That turbine in their brains to uncover the scam
necessarily hidden behind the simplicity of my proposal.

At the bus station, the turnkey teaches me to ask me a ticket and advises
shack noodles pending departure. I eat in
with two little men in the forest. They invite me to share their rice
, that they brought to accompany the grilled fish served
here. The offer is sincere, yet they barely have enough for themselves. Send
rare, soft, barely audible as caressing the women heard chirping
in Kep, a dark night. In the ruins of colonial houses
, on the day, the cows were grazing, impacts between
Kalashnikov bullets, pieces of walls torn off by tanks and
frames stolen by the Vietnamese, about thirty women prepared
rice soup. In the darkness, even the lapping of the sea
took precedence over the appearance of their voices. Syllables bouncing
little men here have the same lack of tone.
The soup is delicious. Although
after completion, I'm still here, leave me by Butt
thick fat fish who smoke at the entrance of the shop.

In the song tao
cuffs of an old lady, adorned with sai sin: thirty-two bracelets
of white cotton - six on each arm - one tied to hang up the spirits of the players
person's body, for example, before embarking on a major trip
. What sense does it for this trip? Does it fit
the village after selling something valuable?
killed an animal in the forest, perhaps? Plants? A piece of black cotton woven on
his job? I asked permission to take a photo. A pair of white
arrive, talking very loud and do not see anything around them
. The woman looked at me through his dark glasses:
- Hello.
- Sabai dii, I respond halfheartedly. Their condition
solitary wanderers generally gives travelers a common desire to tinker
relations with each ephemeral
we make a bubble with us and we like them a little rest. But when the
tourism becomes a mass phenomenon, making contact with every stranger systematic
prevents out of this bubble. We travel
behind a screen, cut off from any opportunity to link more tenuous and fragile.
Recreate the comfort of familiar surroundings - that's what this looks
woman engaging conversation.


- You come from where?
- Excuse me, but I am afraid I do not want to talk with you.
His smile is frozen in the American time it equates
what I just said. She repeats:
- You do not want to talk?
As I look at her smiling, she turned to someone else and the
began the same way, with more success.
The old lady takes off his jacket. She is so tiny that I could do
around his waist with my hands. I showed him the picture his wrists
on the screen. She steps back, looks up at my face, interrogative,
almost frightened. I try to smile, but I turn quickly to
she does not see the water that fills my eyes. What took me
to this photo?
En route, we stop frequently to re-inflate the tires or to
embarking passengers. It will benefit everyone to stretch their legs or
piss on the side, the men standing in a thicket, women squatting
the sin passed over the shoulder and tucked under the chin.
the old lady, she will be held in away. Back to the group, it will count and recount
tickets pulled a wad of his shirt.



Evening / Nong Khiaw
At least one hundred white for a village of that size: you can not see that we
, big, loud, flashy. Prices multiplied by three, four, five
, compared to my first trip.
I sleep in a room adjoining that of a couple. Separated by a partition
woven bamboo, or rather close: hidden, they talk very very much
very intimate and very uninteresting. The man speaks
in French with a strong accent - Italian? The woman responds - Hebrew?
As I point my presence, they pretend not to hear. I'll
knocking on their door
- Hi, excuse me, you know that the walls are very thin?
- Here, people live in community. There is no privacy in this country.
We share everything.
Asshole.
- Perhaps it is too early to say that we form a community?
He starts to giggle and sits up to intimidate me. True, it is very
great. I do not say anything, I fixed his eyes thinking of the elusive dream
I had four years to find this little girl here - big -
who taught me to pick algae in the river pan.



the evening on the terrace together, they have a discussion with an English
who lives in Thailand. The Voice of Israel rises gradually
anxiety and guilt as she tries to justify the policy
"interior" of the government of his country.
- ... All Palestinians are potential terrorists, You know, there is no peace
...
I put my earplugs. Where is Laos?

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Nong Muang Khiaw-Khoua
Yesterday evening, I walked among the garlands flashing restaurants and accommodations that have flourished along the main road. The night rang with raucous laughter of white youths stranded here because of the wonderful Lonely Planet, which certifies that Laos is a country "easy" and serves on a board organized tours for a safe journey: in ten days, "the fact North. " Excited by the huge quantities of bottles of Beer Lao as their purchasing power almost without limit allows them to swallow - bottles that will start this morning by the truckload to the reference - they sit down arms and legs spread, and speak with a complacency that makes me shudder.
Standing in their old thongs, shirt rosie by dirt roads, "servers" are there to "serve." Converted farmers, fingers still cracked by the earth and tanned skin, cautious and mute. They never look at customers in the eye more than a second, they never answered anything but "yes", they never linger to chat with these aliens millionaires.

wake up this morning, the smell of mud and dead in my room and voices that speak Hebrew on the other side of the bulkhead.

Deprived of light by clouds, the barren mountains surrounding stone has turned black. An icy wind. Today, tourists will not go certainly not lie on their towels beside the River.

is the hour when, after sweeping the dirt floor, the garbage is burned. Before each house, a small pile of leaves, cardboard, plastic disappears into smoke in the lungs and is inevitably scrape the throat loudly and spit.

A quick look at the small vegetable market.
seaweed, fern shoots, raw herbs, mushrooms, a few peppers. Not much to supply. It will be rice and bananas. On my way, we whisper "Falang! Falang! Falang! "Showing me the finger, as if we had never seen a white Nong Khiaw.

At the pier, only Westerners. Half trying to ride an hour away, in Muang Ngoi, terminus of the Lonely Planet. The other goes down to Luang Prabang. Me, I want to go much further north to Muang Khoua. But this is not possible, "said the jailer.
- There is no other tourist interested ... No way ... Oil is very expensive. Not possible ... unless you pay one hundred dollars.
I do not have time to get on my high horse: two giant Austrian face adorned with a beard and dressed like Indiana Jones to climb Annapurna m'écartent without a word from the office and leave each a fifty dollar bill in their sock. They turn to me and from the top of their two feet, arise:
- Me, Christian, and he is Christian. We'll take you with us, if you want.

When boarding, out of nowhere about thirty people panicked, with children, luggage and provisions. Residents of villages on the banks of the Nam Ou who benefit from the windfall. How long they waited as rowdy as Christian and Christian shoot one hundred dollars of their socks, the ones who have no other means of transport the boat?
Among the passengers, an old man, with a large stone baggage taken into a system of strings that form a loop. He carries my bag like me.




It is very cold during the trip. As I shiver, Christian and Christian pulled their giant bags of treasures they fleece me muffle. I feel like a mummified queen. Straight in my little chair in front of the boat, buried under piles of sweaters, I chuckle to the malice of the driver that I sat there with authority: this is my place of honor both the respect of passengers and splash into the rapids.
more we advance, the more the boat is empty. Passengers disembark at the dropper on the beaches to reach the villages hidden in the forest above the River.
the middle of the day, I take a decision to go pee in a bush. On the shore, three men and two women huddled over a fire, busy cooking something in bamboos. Young women, worthy in the towels they used fluorescent shawl, round eyes are like marbles when he saw me get off the boat. They think I'll stop there.
Yes, if I was accompanied, I would ask the captain to throw my bag on the bank and leave me. But I am a single woman and I go my way. While I take my place as queen, people from the shore out of the bamboo fire, and shaking them by burning the fingers, are falling hard boiled eggs.

At dusk Muang Khoua appears.
Alerted by the boat engine, a forty children came laughing observe the arrival of falanga. They point the woman mummy flanked by his two bodyguards giant screaming with laughter. I do not ask me which of them or us is the most exotic.
Today was a border. I'm finally coming true in a country, hard, hard.

It is very cold.

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February 12 February 13 February 14

Muang Khoua
Christian, Christian and I laughed a lot by developing a theory ethological smoker who establish classes of whites. Our conclusion is that a "traveler "Does not behave like a stack of bills without own will - that it would be the" tourist "- but as a foreigner who takes risks and stash money for its survival under his shirt. My

Austrians left at dawn to the Vietnamese border. To thank them for having paid the boat, I gave them the hand of Buddha from the novice to Luang Prabang.

I walk out on the road to the village. People on my way laughing and pointing the finger at my bag of khao niao as if they never imagined that I could eat the same food they do.
After twenty minutes, a tiny woman to me catches. She starts walking behind me. I throw glances. Uniform jacket to the air in Vietnam. Canvas satchel bag of rice which relies on its front shoulder and which contains a watering can. She wears boots, this is the first time that I see.
I stop to walk it abreast. It also stops. Smiled at me, talking to me, beckons me forward. We resumed walking. I hear his boots scraping against the ground and I try to stall on pace to find a pace that we would be common. But really, no, I am embarrassed to be in front. I stopped again. It also, three steps behind me. I do sign him to join me.
- No, no!
- Yes, yes!
- No, no!
Finally, here it is. His head is level with my shoulder. We go to homes where people are warming their hands over small fires. Despite this cold that seems normal, they do not have chimneys. Outbreaks are outside or under a shed adjoining the house where the smoke escapes through the top of the perforated walls.
The woman announces our arrival by a few words out loud. Everyone smiled and showed my pocket khao niao.
We walk. Too fast for her, too slow for me.
Shared humanity is there in full force and strangeness. Our bodies moving and our eyes speak, with the only music the rhythm of our steps on the road. It could be anything more between us, except if I stayed to live there, or if she was with me in my journey. A shared language does not reveal anything except the information to make a context.
And yet, even though we know that echo the words of each return as a reflection in a mirror, the language is required.
She begins to speak. Much. As if I understood everything. And she heard glances in search approval. Occasionally, I reply in French. I also said something.
We finally leave the urban area. After these soliloquies, it's time for questions.
She asked my age.
- Thirty-two. It
:
- Thirty-nine.
She says she'll water his garden. And me, where am I going?
- I walk.
Wrong answer. It is the question.
I think about an answer that could satisfy it.
- I just Nong Khiaw and I'm going to Phongsaly.
It is a little surprised, this Not the road Phongsali. But at least it's an answer.
We walk in silence, long time.
She asked if I have a lighter.
I leave my bag that I bought this morning at the market. She takes it in his hand. She wants to keep it. Of course, yes. Why not? (I will not do the little fire that I wanted to eat rice from mid-day warm up. And then?)
She smiled at me, the lighter disappears into the pocket of his military jacket. Another five minutes of silence. The rhythm of our steps, I think about it, very bold, tough, strong, flexible, strong, surely the mother of several children. She was born during the war here - A few miles from Dien Bien Phu.
It shows my windbreaker.
- You give?
I laugh.
- I'd love to, but I have enough cold like that!
She laughed too. She tried her luck. At least she will be lighter. Suddenly, his face closed, it stops. I want to wait, but she waves me forward. Good. The protocol is restored. I walk past it behind. I try to wait again. I turn around. But she made grand gestures to my point. For several miles, you walk like that.
I turned from time to time. She nodded to continue. At one point, she calls me, show me: this is where it turns. Thank me flatly to the lighter, the two hands in prayer before the face and upper body bent.
I watch her climb in the wet grass of the hill. The watering can rattle in his back.


Evening / Muang Khoua
Earlier, the return of the march, people invited me round their fire.
- Nao! Nao!
Cool! Cool! I stayed a long time to roast my hands. Meanwhile, young women made of paper dolls with packages of cookies. The men smoked. Occasionally, someone from a house across the street approached to say three words and laughter.

Later, on the other side of the suspension bridge, I met Souk, who walks with a young woman he did not introduce myself and held back, eyes downcast. He speaks English with an American accent. His father said he works at the hospital there, in this concrete building that looks deserted. He, educated at Phongsali. And the girl?
- This is my girlfriend.
- Getting married ?
- No! Certainly not! It's just like that!


Night has fallen. Laos are all around their fires, none invited. I am housed in a room without a window or door. Just a few degrees above zero. I peel.
In the darkness of the terrace of my guesthouse windy, I try to eat the soup that just brought me. Floury noodles, big pieces of raw cabbage, ginger sections, tail plant - without any seasoning. At least, that's fun, tourist, here we do clap!

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Bus Muang Khoua-Phongsali
Belle primary forest on the hills. Burned into the valleys. Secondary jungle of bamboo rebounding. Barren hills, sometimes the natural vegetation begins to recover, but most often are planted rubber trees. At the entrance to villages, porticos which are suspended sculptures in the shape of weapons: rifles, pistols, Kalashnikov, daggers, mines ...

Dense fog, damp cold. Bumpy road of red mud. It climbs, slippery corners, gullies. Thirty km / h is a maximum. A full day on the bus. It is not unpleasant, because there is glass in the windows that protection from the cold and the conversation Thong. Cowboy hat topped with a straw in another, a beautiful white smile and long fingernails and clean Thong intends to use my presence to practice his English and arriving at Phongsali. His parents are
Lolo, mountain farmers, a few kilometers from the Chinese border. His parents grow rice in the mountains. They have nothing other than what they produce. Up there, they are not Buddhists, they have many gods. And these gods preside over all the important acts of life. To get married, you can not take the person you like: it's astrology chooses. Depending on your month of birth, you have a totem animal, and your spouse must be a compatible sign. Thong not comply may not be the custom elsewhere if he marries, he, the prodigal son that the state sent to Luang Prabang to study tourism and management. He wants to explain things, but he said limited his broken English.
is dozing.
I offered to come to his village to marry his sister. North of Phongsali - almost in China - it must still take a bus then walk an hour. Thousand five hundred meters, five degrees, fog cut with a knife. I rather like a bathtub and a fireplace. Most importantly, I'm not ready to arise in a marriage with my backpack, my white skin and my womanhood alone, although it is perhaps the only time this trip. I do not foresee that the exotic large black cloth caps, shirts embroidered, traditional dances and dishes
unforgettable ... Already, today, on the bus, I am very excited to cross the new mountain villages recently "encouraged" to go down to the roadside, to see women in traditional dress, with silver cups with caps and coins, or bun draped in embroidered fabrics. That's enough for me. Start a trip takes time, much more than a flight of fifteen hours of one side to another of the Earth, and while I would not trust my body upright, balanced across the loneliness, I do 'm not really present.

- Married?
- Yes.
With myself, as Christoph said. Christoph guarding my house.

Dozing.

A guy gets on the bus carrying a small propeller turbine. Shown here in the middle of rivers bamboo tripods weighted with stones, among which are set the turbines that generate electricity to villages. A friend of Thong
starts playing the guitar without removing his gloves. Love song sweet and melancholy that the whole bus singing.
Seeing the world through the window scrolls. Babies on their backs wrapped in beach towels fluorescent. On the forest slopes, such as a glue lianas. Bottom: the rice fields - gray straw after harvest.
I eat my rice, happy to bring one pound of prunes.

Evening / Phongsali
Arriving at night the bus station. Very cold fog. Thong hand scooter with his brother after me shook hands. A guy
:
- You take the touktouk with us.
- No, I'll walk. It's not that far, anyway.
- If it's very far. Four kilometers. You take the touktouk with us.
- No, no.
I planted in a puddle, away from other passengers, in the dark, alone, frozen bag on his shoulders. I try to think about the situation. The touktouk happens. People are busy in the headlights to pack their luggage there, cartons, packages of all kinds. They will leave. And I want to stay there in the inky night and fog in the middle of nowhere? Why? Because I do not trust? Why I do not trust? If they take a touktouk, there is a reason. They are all installed. The touktouk starts.
- Wait for me!
I cling to the rear of the vehicle.
Four kilometers, the guy did not lie. Nicely, the driver drops me to the tallest building in the city, the Chinese three-story nightclub that also. Meanwhile attributed to me a room, I warmed to the brazier around which nestles a group of Swiss people - or Belgian - stupid to the point that the French would say. Not happy with this or that and blah and blah and blah. But they have a charming guide who offered me twice tomorrow to take me dancing in a marriage: the dance of the hands, we practice a single file.

The room is gloomy. But there are three beds, and therefore three blankets. Unexpected!

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Phongsali /
morning dense fog and freezing rain. I spent the morning buying umbrellas, gloves, socks, balaclava. Chinese products found here are the worst quality. And merchants - also Chinese - bitter gain, resent the bargaining. They try to intimidate customers gesturing and talking loudly.
Small mountain people selling the same items that I, at the same price prohibitive for them. Costumes "mao" cotton yarn, dyed, woven and hand sewn. The woman wears a sort of modestly large handkerchief over his cap to hide. Some son braided beaded colored plastic exceed his neck. Timid, frightened by the merchants, they stand so close to each other as decency permits, as if to reassure each other. Barefoot in the mud, the men and women tend to the shop they covet red socks, looking down and speaking voice almost inaudible. In
noodle hut, a family is eating with me. One son has a black eye. Yelling, gesticulating, gesturing to sudden and violent overthrow his soup, he really looked like a beaten child. The whole family speaks loud and hard, it's more like Chinese than the Lao. But the soup is good and hot with a kind of watercress.

Thoughts jolting. I'm starting to see really.

...

Such fog. How to walk without getting lost?

I had the idea of buying blanket into a jacket, since here we do not find a warm sweaters. I even dreamed that I started a trend. But a Chinese market overtaken me and makes coats for children in blankets polar large colorful flowers.

In a restaurant on the highway, a deaf man who washed inarticulate cries chopsticks, sitting at the best table. Another, who resembles him, dislocated his three-piece suit of mafioso, passes them to dry hair.

Four days without washing my ... At the hotel, I negotiated for a reservation today with hot water. It must be ready at noon. I wait near the brazier. Wait, wait, have a purpose. My goal in life: to wash my hair.

Children of the hotel feed the brazier with hot coals kitchens that smell of melted plastic.

Yesterday evening, the nightclub - located on the third floor of the building - sounded in my room. The earplugs did not change anything. Yet pleasure to watch the candle mist out of my mouth. Pleased to be hot under the mountain of blankets. Pleasure to exist.

Yesterday on the bus, I saw a small fire Charli prepare for me, a small fire of kindling as he knows how. And the smile that wrinkles the skin around his eyes. The smile that says
- This fire is to warm you up.
I came here and I found in my silence. My presence makes it even too much space. By eating with people, staying near the fire, walking ... It is here beside me, who is busy.

Further north, it would be China. I will not go. Yet the logic of the journey, always moving towards the unknown ...

Midi. The room is ready. A mental feast, in anticipation of what will run hot on my skin. Leaving me the key, the young man said:
- In fact, there a power outage. No hot water.
Ahahahaha. I'm in Laos! I
flaps on food. The kind of restaurant that I spotted, I arrive just when we just fill the wok with water to clean them. The young deaf woman is sorry. She told me to iron in the afternoon. Ahahah. Phongsali!
I go walking.
On the road, a swarm of children armed with toy-like censers full of coal they are turning over their heads. Long
stair climbing in the fog. Wat a pile appears vaguely in the whiteness. I stay in front of the temple arms dangling, breathing warm. Behind me comes a monk in his saffron shawl. He keeps a pack of cigarettes, obviously bought at the bottom. I smile to see that this brave person but not one that prevents him from wearing socks or a sweater. He does not smile. Embarrassed, he tries to hide his hand in the folds of her dress. Under the vat, laughs softly a fellow that I had not seen and waited.

I resume the route from the hotel, determined to get it makes me boil water for showering. Near the brazier, three white kids warm. Back to the door, they do not see me enter. One of them, a cigarette still burning between his lips, trying to make children laugh from the hotel by swallowing air like a fish. The kids are petrified, his face serious, and it's me laugh.
It appears we compare our purchases. I show my face-to-Subcomandante Marcos, with my balaclava. My scarlet socks. And pride: the red umbrella and blue. They ask if they can come take a shower in my room tonight. Oh yes, three young men naked in my room! What warm the atmosphere.

Yesterday on the bus, Thong got sick of my lack of motivation make conversation. He went to sit near a girl he looked smitten, just something he was caressing her hair surreptitiously with her gloved hands.

The shower! A bucket of hot water to make it last as long as possible by these five degrees ambient.
Standing in the basin, finding clever reuse water already passed, more and more warm. Then when the situation is desperately trying to cool down, resigned to plunge the only towel in the bucket and clothe them.
Oh that's good, half the frozen body, the other Crayfish! Make it last until the cold has taken possession of all water. Dry himself with sin, wrap the hair in and get under the pile of blankets, preferably hilarious. And being there, being there, being there. In this room in a hotel rotten China's most remote city of a country which can not understand anything.

Evening
Near brazier, the girl and the grandmother of the hotel teach me words. Tin ', cow, hua, papancow ... We are tired, especially when I try to tell me (hand) - impossible to transcribe the sound "ain" closed Language ascent to the palace in the throat.
- M '.
- Mmmmain?
- Man?
- M!
- Maïnn?
- M '!
- Mm '?
We laugh.

guide a new group of French joined us near the brazier. Interested in my historical intentions and radio ... If I am paying very expensive, it can translate French into whatever I want. He offered to take me on the boat of his group in Muang Hasta Khoua after tomorrow. Or take advantage of their minibus drops to empty Udom Xai, with a little note. I'll say yes for buses. The boat is exotic, but glossy and full of seven falanga I understand the language, alas!

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February 15 February 16 February 17

Phongsali
I walked toward Her Hat much of the day. Visibility: five meters. The soil, a skating rink: mud, mud, mud.

I meet some women who walk with no ant hood responsible for their wood. It means arriving well before crossing. Then a white shape emerges. They say a few words for me and three meters, identify that my face is that of a falanga and remain banned.
On the edge of the rink, few Chinese headstones abandoned. At the foot of a tree, precious offerings: flowers, woven bamboo container shaped cornucopia, filled with rice and vegetables, long leaves of wild green and very shiny moisture ... Everything is cool morning .

After three hours of skating at a good pace, I get to a village. A man standing in white, seems to expect. As he understands my question but I did not reply, it looks to draw in the mud with his forefinger.
- Phongsali: six. His Hat: fourteen.
- Fourteen! And I thought
eat my rice there and bring me a vehicle through ten or twenty thousand kip ... I'm too hungry. I walk a few tens of meters in order not to embarrass the man left without speaking with him, and sit down under a panel hosted by a small roof, atop a large pile of wet stones. I leave the plastic bag containing the rice still warm - great joy that calms the body.
I hear a figure approaching. It emerges from the fog, accompanied by a dog quiet. It is a beautiful young woman. The hairy covered with a bright pink towel. Face very flat, oval. Surprise I see there is also worrying. Then it identifies the rice: I stopped to eat, it's something we can understand around the world. The dog also identifies the rice: it is something that every dog in the world know. He lies to ten feet and stares at me while waiting for leftovers.
To be accepted everywhere always be occupied by a daily activity. Eat, sew the bag, dry the sin above the brazier, massage my feet, still eating, reading, writing, smoking itself.
The young woman returns to work: Fill a large burlap sack with stones from the pile. Once the full bag - which must weigh close to fifty pounds - she loaded onto her shoulder and groaned almost inaudibly, and takes place in a slightly elevated, which is not in white but I hear the sounds through the silence of snow almost . Men's voices and regularly knocks on stone. They are building something.
I stay long enough to observe three roundtrips. In the end, the animal is at my feet. It's a nursing bitch. When I'm satisfied, I threw him the rest of rice, which landed in a hollow between two stones. She starts to dig and lick the stones. I got up to resume road. I go Phongsali.

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appointment was made with the minibus driver for half past ten. It filed its tourists in Hat Sa and repassed me. It was noon, and his shift and is always there. I suppose I must resign myself to not wait ... But I can not believe that Lao does not keep its word. I could stay in the hotel lobby near the brazier till evening, I would continue to wait, to tell me he had a problem.



Four hours later
It finally came. Smiling, excited and covered with mud. He trembles with the joy of having saved his livelihood from the precipice. Returning from Hat Sa, in a turn where I almost died, too - but on foot - he lost control of the van to stop in equilibrium above the vacuum. Disaster narrowly averted thanks to the portrait of Prince lucky Sisavang Vong in the glove box.
He can not get over the friendliness of the natives, his pure Lao Loum of Luang Prabang. How easily they accepted, to five or six, to pull the strings! How they are soiled for he! How, without understanding the words, they are included in the gestures! How they saved her life of misery: the minibus, it was all her savings and those of his father met, the investment for the future! Since these people were good!
Then, en route to Udom Xai, it was well packed eight hours to explain the difference between our worlds. The spirits of ancestors who are here, my inability to find appropriate rituals after the death of my grandfather - I cry quietly watching the landscape - the evils of tourism in Laos and the inability of a Lao travel the second World War, on 11 September, meaning the height of the houses - storey, Lao or Lao Loum Teung, at ground level, Hmong or Lao Soum, "he said.

Nissan Xterra Performance Light Rack

Udom Xai
Day tummy rules. Who do not come. Reading in bed, in the Chinese pension, this little book about that Claire told me. A young Chinese student movement leader flees Tiananmen somewhat against her will and blends into the mountain to become its soul.

The body rested and fatigued.

Late afternoon, I go out. We must sustain themselves!

I start walking in slow motion, the soles of thongs trailing in the dust.
A little off center in front of his house, a woman weaving on a large craft. Quarantine soft body of a woman who gave birth, straight on his stool polished by years of friction of sin, the neat bun and silk jacket - she may have woven itself. Around her, two young women sitting on low stools and plastic embroider a young man daydreams.
As I remain speechless in the warm, watching the slow movements of the mother, she invites me to approach me and sit down. We stay there long. I hunched over my little head to make me forget them to show me their daily lives, without a glance. The mother is weaving a large white sheet, which may be dyed later this dark blue traditional dress. His hands are soft slide the distaff side to another, then weaving cup dragging a comb built the craft. Her bare feet then push on the pedals to activate a mechanism that reverses the plot: The son of the high pass downwards and vice versa. The distaff line in the other direction. The business produces noise sailboat, rubbed wood, wood snapping, creaking ropes, sliding the large felted yarn. In the low sun, this sweet activity peaceful and softens muscles and dropped eyelids.
Restaurant overlooking the bustling main street. I am the only customer. They have gotten five or six to improvise my meal. A lady explains authoritarian young cooks that a Falang like me to eat. Of this cabal out loud exclamations and an omelette with herbs, tomato and pepper. We do not give me a fork and chopsticks but a spoon, a sign that I will pay a high price. Here I am rich. Even if I'm badly dressed, it is clear that I am white. And money changes hands. Every day in dribs and drabs, tickets-won-to-work-in-the-culture-coming French irrigate daily life-of-traders-of-a-country-of-the-most-poor-world.
the middle of the constant stream of scooters, sweaty white couples spend walking on the road, sandwiched in their gear. On the back, the bags higher than their busts, such as snail shells. On the stomach, small-bags-for-day. It was the arrival of a bus. They range from the bus station to the best guesthouse indicated in the guide. In general, the woman holds the Lonely Planet and Pilot Operations. It is she who points out the direction to follow. He will spend the night here, to leave tomorrow morning at dawn in keeping with Udom Xai the image of a big road, scooters and a Chinese market.

It brings me a bowl of soup broth bamboo pepper with a sort of chopped chives.

Earlier, sauna woven bamboo slats. Dark and mysterious steam flavored with herbs. Three small brown women as young as twenty years. Standing on the benches in the corner, huddled together near the finish of the hot legs apart so that moisture caress their hot sex. A sin tied above the breasts for two of them at the waist to the other. Smiles and red betel black hair dripping in long curls on each side of the face. Occasionally, they scrape the very throat and spit on the walls, the floor, the door itself. They scan all visible parts of my body without shame.

broth, cold now, is a fatty meat. Pork?

This world increasingly populated, soft and bright, grew up with me and takes its force. I write to you, I love tenderly and who do not see - nor even know - where I am. Do you imagine the three small girls?

After a long time together in the sauna, it is almost to show our differences, our similarities. And I have many questions to ask them: Where does the blood of their rules? How we made love and how it gave birth here?
Without warning, a husband enters the sauna. He shouts, authoritarian: it might be that they are thinking of Magner! Stoic, eyes downcast but the corners of his mouth laughing, they wait until the storm passes. The husband leaves. But another takes over. While there, it comes from? There, they shall consult the eyes and panicked.
They eventually follow. Through the steamy window, I guess they undertake to get dressed. Too curious I go out too. Frozen in the wind, chastised by husbands who are waiting down on their scooters, they first donned a cloth blue-black, hiding their breasts, held by a son braided strap. Above is a jacket buttoned tightly-fitting, decorated with intricate embroidery and multicolored. A very short skirt, pleated. Finally comes the styling. A first fabric tiara decorated with coins and cups chrome finish with two long relationships, one on each side of the head, where they roll their hair parted on the back as if to make mats. Then another piece of fabric complicated and ornate metal and embroidery. Placed over it and cover the entire head of hair behind her head as a vertical disk.
I look at rushing, amazed the expertise to deal. Me, with my towel fluo sarong, wet wind, I drink ice tea and red on the house. Women smile at me. Their men matent me from below and laugh. They were joined in common. I go back into the mist, as out of a dream.

Night
House Pension Chinese manned by Chinese workers noisy, hooked to the Internet - to discuss with their families Chinese Chinese via webcam - and I mean Chinese whores giggle through the partition (China).

a hundred chestnuts half a centimeter in diameter as dinner, lying on the bed.

How To Make A Statement Of Confidentiality

February 18 February 19 February 20


Udom Xai
Morning
rules the day, this time, really. Blood in the sheets between
thighs. Dark, thick. Long dreams, populated by new people that I forget
awakening. A young man with black snags, I liked
simply.

pain this morning taking care of my body. Masser washing, anointing, dressing
carefully with the shirt clean. I am reminded that sentence aloud
Christoph with his accent and his turns of phrase
delicious:
- These are weak people who can do harm to children.
He took me in his arms, as I needed to be comforted.
a good memory, that being with him a bit beside the things of the world as
protected behind glass.

cloudy and wet, but not very cold. A time to climb to the vat, make a wish and thank
. A time to walk along the River.



Afternoon
trucks disgorge cargo pukes who feel the new rubber
talat concrete, immense and populous
Chinese sellers and plastic, without customers. I explore this by seeking to buy
fruit. In a hall, all selling vegetables sitting in a row
, shot in the same direction, towards a fixed screen height
Chinese TV broadcasts. Some fresh products, all imported -
perfectly calibrated and exotic: Batavia, apples, onions.

few hours later, I ride on trails
informal paths between the houses, those that shape the city by establishing rules
invisible movement. Near a school, a lady selling bags of banana chips
. I bought him a stock. As she sees me go out on a trail
:
- Talat! Talat! And she tells me
the opposite direction to the market that I know. Good. I do not have
understand what she said. But why not go by that?
I am the meandering trail most dug in the dust. They
lead to a pontoon of bamboo, which overlooks a pond. Above,
a child squatting fishing water lilies. At the end of the jetty, a passage between two houses
and all of a sudden the market! True, the right to food
varied, with soft voices, unfamiliar foods in small heaps, the women
chirping and the sound of crumpled plastic bags that hang
after sticks to chase away flies.
I eat tofu soup with blood.

Evening
At sunset, on top of the hill of the stupa, the novice monk Noy
explain what are the miniature houses you see around
monasteries. They are inhabited by ancestral spirits, who may
live forever - or until they have had enough, I did not quite understand
. While they were discussing a group of people laughing at wat goes on in
a kind of tree whose leaves are replaced by notes
bank.
- What are they doing?
- Tomorrow night is the third full moon of the year, Makha Busa.
So after tomorrow, it's party time! It celebrates the Buddha's words to his disciples
, with gifts for the dead and prayers. Same
time we celebrate the anniversary of the stupa. And tonight, we will make a procession with candles
.
- But what is it, this tree they wear?
- It's gifts. All that is hanging in the tree, the
gifts of money, pencils, cake ... It is a festival
important. You should stay here with us.
Yes, I'll stay.

Syphilis Short Term And Long

Udom Xai

Mists of a morning of rules, again. Although red now.
a new spot in the bed.
I walk with Ray
the Irish a dozen kilometers to a village in the mountains
- and back. So we
along a small river, crossing from one side to the other
indefinitely to monitor the trail, we hear the cry of a pig is slaughtered
clearly. Ray excitedly:
- Here we go, here we go? We'll see? I always wanted to see it!

the first village we crossed, we stopped to eat a noodle soup
disgusting. A procession carrying a tree tickets makha
dung we advance toward the sound of drums, clapping and shouting
. A man kneels down and holds out a cup for us
offer to donate. Yes, of course! But how? Ray scratched his head, chuckling
:
- Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!
I ride my tickets in prayer in front of my forehead.
It does not look very smart! Are we to kneel? Is
we should say something? Are we to join the procession
? Everyone laughed at our awkwardness. Is deposited
our tickets in the cut. Explosion of cheers, applause,
small dances, laughs. Such a joy to learn to give!





A kilometer away, you get caught up in a large table
dead drunk and horny that makes us drink beer and laolao bottoms up, and we gave de
cakes sticky rice sweetened with coconut. Then we danced to the sound of the drum
this strange dance where they stalled and slow when you turn the
hands. A little tipsy, we try to slip away, but a lady
takes us by the hand and leads us into the vat, a few hundred yards away. On

mats, people are sitting barefoot in front of houses
miniature multicolored, decorated wreaths and trees laden with bright
tickets. Front of houses, trays of offerings. Some young monks

orange smiling. Smiles and few words. It invites us
install on the mats. Serenity, light colors. It remains
long to fill candy, we are offered in large sections
golden. It is the food that minds have already consumed
. I am very impressed.

- Come, let's go! Ray
train.

dugout in the middle on the way, one suspects that something will happen
hand: we go beyond women returning to their clearly
village after the market Udom Xai. They carry very heavy loads, but
refuse categorically that I help.



At the village entrance, long time we sat down to contemplate life as it was passing
without us and our thirst to ruminate. When it was decided to advance
, immediately a man invited us to install us
near him. Seated on low stools - higher for men, but almost
a simple board on the floor to the woman - near the family's father
peeling vines for making ropes, it was left to offer
astringent fruit, which was soaked in chilli powder. The children remained
away and stared at us. Weeping and sniffling due to
chilli, we all laughed with my mouth and my grimaces
dumbstruck to Ray that swallowed even the stumps and
urging me to imitate him - what I did and which I done better
abstain, judging by the persistent itches in the esophagus.
the water point, a woman wrinkled like an old apple, teeth
betel, filled his kettle in the wind and light.
A dog attack as I approached us to see her young.
three little boys playing shuffleboard in the dust. A puck is launched in
décaniller another installed a meter away. Launch by hand, but also
foot. They are right every time. A game without issue.

Travelling with me is a man of the male part that is not really
me but I must also assume that if I do not judge me
as a single woman. Ray
walking barefoot, drinking river water that he offers in a can of motor oil
, leading the monks with his feet, very loud -
as an American that looks to be - and imitates well the little pigs
black.

Breast Cancer Sore Shoulder

Udom Xai

Makha dung. The third full moon of the year.
At dawn, the women in their thirty-one, scarf slung
climbed the steps leading to the vat. Under the porch of the temple,
they are already a quarantine, kneeling. They are waiting their turn to file a shelf
offerings before one of the novices. Rice.
food daily. Money. Orange candles. And, standing on a piece of
page exercise book, the name of a deceased person who is dear to them.
must wait its turn. It is a place that by this rite.
advancing on all fours, pushing the tray in front of you. Light the candles
small. The novice, on his knees too, serious and serene, unfolding the paper, reads the name and then chant
long, softly, in a hubbub of excited crowd
and plastic bags. The woman leans forward to be more
below him, hands clasped in front of the face. Then she receives three times the floor, palms flat
. The novice and pay at the same time
water in a bowl. The woman pushes the plate toward the novice. That curves for
thanks. In the next. Some will then
near the stupa shake a bamboo tube that contains
numbered sticks. They derive a dig and a corresponding paper record
: a sentence, like a horoscope.
Some good news, some not - the novice who explains it all in
draws one at random for me " Do good and everything will be fine. "Good.
it would have been worse.
After all that, if we want, we can offer money to the vat. Simply drag
few tickets in an urn. One can also climb the stupa, after having
barefoot, to file incense, flowers, candles and rice. Kneeling in
rank onion, hands in prayer in the face, we continue to
whisper and laugh.

Bus Udom Xai and Luang Nam Tha
During the feast of Makha dung, Ray and me side by side, looking at him
understand, which explain myself seeking to feel, to capture with my microphone
the collective energy of the moment. And suddenly we felt the desire
been itching to get back on the road. We decide to pack up
immediately. Let
bloodstained sheets in the Chinese pension without regret
not even a smile or a goodbye to me when I leave, after five nights
in bed falling apart, amid the sounds of spitting, shouting,
Waterfalls line ...
Ray decided to go to Muang Khoua rafting on the Nam Ou.
I'd have good company, but ... there is one but I really do not know
origin. Fear, no doubt, attachment to be as slippery
and disinterested by the link. We crossed one last time at the station
road. He shows me a small statue purchased in China. Two rats, side by side in
a coil of rope. "It has to do with boats, travel. "He loves
this object, he says, then he shows me.

I arrived early enough to get a good seat on the bus.
Waiting for departure. Ray, on the bus next door, never look in my direction
. What is past is past. His journey is a permanent future. A white sits
beside me. His wife, who is stuck on a seat
isolated over the wheel, took badly. She starts talking to him
dryly and very strong. But why do we Westerners are we so
unable to contain us? The guy really does not listen and started
in a sudoku that fills a pencil.
- You prefer to sit in my place? I asked his wife.
Indeed, it would suit me: I feel that Sudoku will want to make
conversation, while I enjoy the journey to write. She,
pinch:
- No, no, I do not care. And I'm so small that only
me who can go on such a seat.
Indeed, it is not great, but most of Laos are much smaller
it.

The bus is already full, but one does not. To care, people
eat green papayas. Hints of fermented fish. A nice little bundle
cock in a tube that covers the middle of her body and immobilizes it, a kind of trap
braided to keep a prisoner. Deposited between
feet of its owner.

for Thought Thong village in the Lolo secret I never know,
thought for all those strangers to meet. Thought for Claire. For the smooth
Christoph watching over my twenty-seven square meters of territory
Marseille. The absence of lights, sometimes. A gap of light
in thunderclouds.

A group of men up a scooter on the bus, which installs
in the narrow aisle. Sudoku and I are staying locked together for
five hours to come - enough to delight his wife. A man sits on the scooter and
it starts.
Hi, Ray! Travel is creating ties that defeated right away, because
habits.



En route, ride the bus women whose dresses are mid-way between
tricorn hat and Smurf - black, embroidered and adorned with tassels
yellow chick. It zigzags at full speed between
men sitting here and there that repair the road. In rice fields dry, the rice granaries
- crude huts on stilts - make you want to
nap. Forest freshly eradicated. Bare mountains. I guess
here too, they are willing to plant rubber trees, in serried ranks. In ten years they will produce sap
elastic and white good for export to China. It
explained it dozens of times. Ah, yes. But where will China
in ten years?

I knew I could not write alone. Sudoku is
engineer in the oil. He explains how the Earth is not a wheel of Emmental
, despite the billions of barrels extracted from it. He also speaks
these deserted towns in Canada, where I could buy a house for almost nothing
. A desert in summer 35 ° and -20 in winter.

Meanwhile, I think the rubber plantations. The earth will be so poor
after that the forest will not grow.

The driver was traveling at breakneck speed. And consequently, we also
, whether we like it or not.

The bus stopped in front of a bamboo fence painted white and red stripes
. This is not a toll but
compulsory disinfection of vehicle wheels that come from Luang Nam Tha, where said Sudoku
we found some recent cases of avian flu. He read in the Vientiane Times
.
ate grilled chicken with Ray back from our made me walk
up in the middle of the night to shit a greenish paste rather disturbing.
Light anxiety that makes me smile. How the district authorities
can they claim to control the movement of chicken manure, when
they are even unable to identify the human population
mountains?

Travel is also not see what we may never see again. Between

Phongsali and Udom Xai, on the side, the villagers had built the portico
spectacular weapons which hung in a carved wooden furniture
.
- It for the celebrations. Prohibited from entering or leaving the village as long as
the ceremony. It may kill buffaloes, pigs
surely.
was my driver told me that Lao Loum
this. He was wrong.




Arrival in Luang Nam Tha. On leaving the bus, the woman exclaims Sudoku
bitterly
- Oh, but your bag is even smaller than mine!
This woman appears to have placed all his pride in the smallness. While I
looking for something not too sarcastic reply Sudoku
unpacks his GPS to ensure that we are where we are.
It's time I choose to go.

Evening
Sweetness in the air. People wash in the river. Children on a bamboo raft
. Cold noodles seasoned with a slightly sweet pie.
Mhhm.

How Good Is Carnation Breakfast

February 21 February 22

Luang Nam Tha
the night, a downpour of water from the mountains around. And this morning the
gray curtain of rain. I listen to the twang of speakers who provide information
official regime. I do not get up.
Close, so close to the people of the forest, not knowing how to walk up
them, or even if I really want them to meet me, me.

Around noon, it always rains. Too bad I'm leaving myself a bike ride, under
my beautiful red umbrella.

Afternoon
I find it ironic the people here. Almost cynical at times. Perhaps because
Luang Nam Tha became a tourist town, leaving many treks and other
"rafting to meet local ethnic minorities
and wildlife." Two

time here, Laos mocked my efforts to make me
understand their language. That would have made me laugh too if I was not depressed by
rain.

This morning, I ask the direction of the market in a travel agency:
- Talat?
- Thailand? You want a visa for Thailand?

Later, in a restaurant:
- I could have a bus?
- A bus? Now?
- Yes, a bus, to eat.
And I mime the act of eating with chopsticks.
- A bus. (I mime) Bus. (I mime) Bus? (I mime)
His eyes light up.
- You want chopsticks!
He refrains from laughing at me, but took refuge in the kitchen when I hear
tell the story of the stoves. General laughter
behind the bulkhead. Hopping mad, I suddenly see this trip as
absurd. What am I doing here? Why do they make fun of me
?

Party for sixteen days, it's the middle of the journey, battery.
critical moment where we can no longer go where the wind carries. Time to remember that we are free
requires effort. As daily life, the journey can become a routine
, with time limits, borders. With the rules, a
hygiene, a precise organization of the seven kilograms of possessions.
the middle of the journey must start planning. We must make
count the number of days required to reach the plane back. It
starts reading the guide and it is estimated how much remains under:
if more than half, we pay a "real" hotel to rest
few days. It raises the question of extending the visa. Or that of a
leaving the country before its expiration, and therefore that the visa of the country follows.
And etcetera.

Sitting on the edge of the river, I think about all this.
tiny bird in the vines. Pump motor that goes back to the water gardens. So
more engines and power four years ago. Coupling
yellow butterflies in flight. Lazy clouds, wet air.
I want my next trip is done at walking pace, with unlimited duration or
border ... Come to Laos from Marseille to walk?

Cycling between the rice fields. Without much gaiety to what a strange vision
draws me into the woods. And not only changes my day, but
also the meaning of this journey.

Know If My Aqua Master Watch Real

Luang Nam Tha
Six and a half hours. Better condition this morning. Dynamic, even if my body is still in
sleep. Made the decision last night to get up and leave for
Muang Sing, even if I could not know with certainty
departure time: as in many cities, they
built the new bus station five miles of center. Leaving the room
:
- If I miss this bus, I go somewhere else, anywhere else. The trip
built every day, and today.
But coffee, the tenant who just wakes up and spends his time scratching his buttocks
tells me we can take this bus to the old station -
near here - every hour!

Drinking my Nescafe, I think these ancient cultures - always
related to land - that people live without thinking. My grandmother spent the last sixty years
erase his "peasant culture". Yet
today, eighty-two years, she has help me a
clearing undergrowth with a fun, skill and strength that I could not.
She knows, without having consciously learned: what we should cut and
how to hold the plant and how the sickle, and what gesture from right to left
, and how to bend his back, and what breathing. She knows, because
around her, where she grew up, everyone knew.
Culture is not in everyone, but we all saw it.
is like the air we breathe. And it has nothing to institutions do with "cultural"
that developed countries put in place - clumsy attempts
bloodless people, unable to bear the collective life: a huge head on a body without
muscles. Here, I see women who look like my grandmother
. Their meeting would not be a shock: they have entered in
deepest of them, the laws that govern their lives, rooted in the earth
. Weave. Broder. Planting rice. Prepare the soup in the morning.

The Thai TV that comes to light shows people trying to spray
elephants. The girl in the house, awake for a quarter of an hour, the dish towel
a mechanical gesture. The sun rises. Two Chinese
arrive, the air no more Chinese than anyone. They ask in English
permission to sit here and wait for a bus. The keeper
offers them tea, out of politeness. But hardly had he made an enormous advances since
storey on the track. The two women are getting on. In some
hours, they have crossed the border. I looked around. If there was no question of the
visa, I would climb with them.

road to Muang Sing
In the minibus, the inevitable flock of white youth - I had to succeed to form a mask
I really dislike, they do not even tell me
hello. Until we start, I think of the discovery yesterday.
in passing on the track, perched on my bike Thai, my eye caught by a spot
red cloth in a small woods on my left. A quiet path leads there.
I leave the bike and diving deep into the dark wet. The red spot is
pennant hanging on the end of a pole ten feet long. There are dozens of other
, arranged in a wreath like whales umbrella
around a mainstay at the top which is fixed a parasol
turquoise. Between these two kinds of totems in a bamboo pen,
a miniature house on stilts. The area smells carrion and is infested with mosquitoes
.

At the foot of the masts, the skeleton of a buffalo head sacrificed. There are still land
by the rope which was to be around his neck. Hung on the bamboo fence
: clothing. On the small balcony that runs around the house,
everyday objects. Kettle, low energy bulbs, boom box, thermos
hat woven bamboo miter-shaped where we cook the rice
vase, bank notes ... On one wall of the house, the portrait in black and white
a sad-looking woman. Below, a tumulus still fresh and a stele
cement. All around, clearly works specially produced
: shapes woven rattan, embroidery, fabric scraps,
drawings ...
I look around me. In fact, there is a whole village!
ghostly shapes mixed with colorful trees as if they
propelled into the interstices of the foliage. Huts built with care -
but no doors or windows, too small for a man
flesh it takes. Some seem new, but most are crumbling and
pulled into the undergrowth vegetation. In air, a quiet
both spiritual and frightening. Easy to imagine that this is a forbidden place to
minds of the living, and it could well happen if I do misfortune
not respect the dead who live here ...
While I take some pictures, I talk to spirits, their
I explain what I'm doing. I explained to them and I discovered in
same time I have to say.
"I hope that you not afraid of me and I do not mind too
. Maybe you understand French, if you're old, you must have
go to school during colonization. Maybe you can understand me
despite the language? Is that the spirits need the
language? I come to you because there are things we lost
in my country. We lost the dead! We lost the intelligence of the death
home. My people are not very happy, and perhaps because of it
. The spirits can not live in peace with their love. It
abandons the dead home. It's very sad. I am very happy to visit you
and see that you are settled in the forest.
Harassed by mosquitoes, comes to the idea that this is a good place to nab
malaria. Plasmodium falciparum in three days, you're dead! And thou shalt
perhaps not entitled to such a beautiful cemetery! I get out of the woods for
m'enduire lemongrass. Just then, passes on the track
a peasant couple on a scooter. The man leads the woman holds
tools. Seeing me emerge from the thickets, they swerve and
woman utters a scream. Then they laugh loudly.
I feel guilty about coming here without a guide ... I dare not return there
. And if my coming disturbed balance? However, I do not want
escape, and I want to thank. I do not really know who or why, but this is not
the most important.
For the ride I had brought in a small basket of the bicycle scheme
bananas and a bag of khao niao. I kneel at the entrance to the trail and
hang plastic bags from a branch.
- That's all I have to eat to offer. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks. Goodbye.
As I hear a bike coming, I greet the kindling quickly, get up and take
much as possible carelessly: and if my way of doing
the offering was not prescribed? And if, simply, I did not
the right to give anything to these spirits that I do not know?
I sense that the dead will be accommodating and understand my cavalier manner
feed them, but I am afraid of offending their living.




Ah, after half an hour, the minibus driver starts the engine running
. I reported him missing someone, a female passenger left her
bag beside me asking me to keep his place.
- Where is it?
- She had to go buy something to eat.
He turned off the engine. Descends. A woman - who was roaming around the minibus
in the hope that clung to her on with us -
jump at the chance. It would take the place of the missing passenger. The driver refuses
: it is not possible, there is the bag on the other, it will happen
. The woman insists. Fifteen minutes pass. The driver turned to me
:
- Where's your friend?
- I do not know. I do not know, I know ...
- This is not a Falang?
- No, it's a Lao!
- Oh.
It takes the bag from the backward and waved to people who are on the same row as me
shift. Suddenly, I find myself stuck against a man
. I do not really feel his warmth against my thigh. It certainly
reciprocal. The woman who waited up with a chuckle.
she could not get to have so lucky.

Muang Sing
"Office" treks
At the door, five or six white waiting for an hour opening
promised to sixteen hours a placard. The "secretary" - a man and a woman on
their thirty-one - come running, cheeks burning. They come
obviously the big wedding taking place next door,
dead drunk and laughing, yelling a rudimentary English, not speaking to
person and everyone at once ... I enjoy:
- Do I hire a Guide?
- YES ON A GROUP STARTING TOMORROW!
- No, no band! Alone.
- ALONE? Ahahahaha! SHE WANTS TO GO ALONE! AhAhAh!
- I do not mind paying the price of a group, but to be alone.
- ALONE? YOU WANT TO PARTY?
- Yes, yes. No group. Alone, and not in the regular channels. Only
and in the mountains far in the mountains.
- Ahahahaha! That we do not. We do not know. Not possible, that!
Ahahahaha! I offer three days on the circuit "trek to meet
Akha minority," one hundred and ninety dollars.
- HEIN?!
What a joke! The secretaries are hilarious, too. I'm in
borders of Laos, China and Burma, in an enclave
inaccessible there are still three years. And even here, tourism has taken its
ease! We slap on the thighs is fun for them to show me
calculator on the number of zeros in the price of a "trek" kip.
- YES, ahahah! And with this trek, you go there, here and here. (it shows on the map
)
- Ahahahaha! Just off the road? Ahahahaha! Ahahah,
you kidding?
- NO! Ahahahaha !
- Ahahahaha! Well, ahahah, goodbye, AHAHAHAHAHAH!
ahahah! It's really not serious! They're funny, they Falanga, who
buy so expensive a walk in the countryside! I get up and I leave the office
. Other tourists have trouble understanding what comes to pass
. Without having found a guide, I got a good lesson
composure and humor.

Finally, I recruited a guy who agrees to take me through the
mountain to the Burmese border: the Mekong. But it's still too expensive
and I leave the "office treks, hunting for one or two whites too white
who would try. Check

after tomorrow.

How To Get Rid Of Crossed Eyes

February 23 February 24 February 25

7 hours, Talat Muang Sing
noodle soup with black pudding, blood and blood tofu, decorated with offal, mushrooms that look like jellyfish and shredded cabbage. My vegetarianism is a fatal blow.

Rented a bike from a guy nervous. Direction: China! The saddle is too low, the chain oiled at all. And there must be something gone wrong with the mechanism: each spin wonder an effort to athlete Yet this road flat, smooth and straight. I travel eight kilometers with the only company with a slew of Chinese trucks loaded with sugarcane. I hold Adima - if I had two more miles, it was the border. There is a guesthouse between rice fields and mountains, away from the road. I will return to sleep in a few days.

Around Muang Sing Akha women hide all their traditional headdress in a colored handkerchief, presumably to let us stop to take pictures despite them. Fascination unattractive. Perhaps because they are on their guard and they despise the falanga? Perhaps because they have no material well-being that can laugh? Those selling bracelets in the village are hard in business. They alpaguée me earlier. First, they show trinkets. Then, as I seem skeptical, they unpack gradually worked embroideries. Nothing worked: I decided not to buy. Then one of them offered me his jacket altogether! Without doubt a very beautiful "antique" completely handmade, worn and dirty. It would sell easily two or three hundred euros in France, but there is no question that I leave with! It's like if an Akha, visiting Europe, were generally accepted by his white bra worn a hundred times - but mark. Really not happy, they become spiteful and rude, upset me in gasping, as if I had been very rudely. I try to keep smiling despite their animosity.

down from the mountains to settle around Muang Sing entire villages, Akha often find themselves without land, without money, nothing. The official version is that the government "encouraged" to join the road to "civilize" them, giving them access to drinking water, schools. But when we see hundreds of square miles of mountain forests razed to allow Chinese companies to plant rubber trees, one wonders what kind of incentives it is. I would almost hope that the "green" tourism grows to the point that the government "encourages" the Chinese investors to respect the forest.

Evening
So here I am nailed! At dusk, in a dry rice field away from the village, an orchestra plays loudly Thai pop tunes. The popping sound and high-pitched crackles from the speakers. Meanwhile, hundreds of people dressed very elegantly - pink silk, green or yellow for women, white shirt and black pants for men - a neat dance madison in straw is Soul to Beerlao.
A group of young girls wearing hats cowboys lugging someone on a sedan chair from one end to another field. Accompanied by men playing all kinds of percussion, they shout and laugh. They charge a case of beer between the legs of the tree: it looks to be his tour. U-turn. They bring their cargo at the foot of the orchestra when it opens bottles and when they drink together. When the body is finite, it appoints someone else, and go again.
But the highlight of the show, these are two men who raise a bamboo about fifteen feet long which is moored a giant firecracker. They go around the field and head to a boat launch very small scale. Everyone sings, laughs, screams. Some fall down so they are drunk. One, two, three ... Firing of bamboo!
All for the chance to call and rain. In the dry season.

What Does A Herpe Bubble Look Like

I laughed when he saw the guide to arrive this morning: this is not the one with whom I negotiated! Lao Loum who knows nothing about mountain cultures here, or nature, he was barely fifteen years. Very nice, but unable to cope when problems arise. I am glad not to be alone with her party.

- What is this fruit? It is eaten?
- I do not know. Sorry.

- You know since when the trees are cut?
- No, I do not know, really sorry.

- And this bird is what?
- Sorry. Sorry.

He does not know Nor where you can get water, or if there are nearby villages. He looks at me with round eyes. My questions are uncomfortable. Obviously, we had not warned that I wanted to do a story, or that I needed a guide that can educate me and bring me to what residents say. Him, he explained the way he guides us. Point. Good.

At noon meal in the cabin of two workers at a rubber plantation in the works. They camped here alone in the middle of this desert land to live.
- You work for who?
- A Chinese company.
- You're Laos?
- Chinese.

morons of the sun, it crosses at a run of desolate hills. Stumps of trees cut very recently. Bare earth. Dead silence. Laos still I had not imagined.



Late afternoon we arrive at Bansa, leu Thai village on the edge of a Mekong I do not know in this state. Momentum muddy and bordered with black rock roaring and wide sandy beaches that are covered in the rainy season. Misleading impression of a nature preserve, yet when the river carries each day of tons of pollutants coming directly from Chinese industries. On the other side, a dark and dense jungle. It's Burma.

Village on stilts. Pigs
black freedom.
Sol littered with shit and piss.
Children play in bare feet.
When they see us, they become silent and suspicious.



Chief absent - gone to China on business, on his boat motor - our "guide" does not really know how. The neighbor invited us to go home and we install. She has an air rider, curious, sincere. You sit on both low stools to smoke while others will be washed into the stream. I handed him the packet of cigarettes:
- Ya soup? She prefers her
tobacco house, rolled like a huge firecracker in a school notebook worksheet. It looks long, we smiled. It's the end of the day, she is tired, but still very beautiful, very dignified, with the bun of hair graying carefully knotted.
We smoke, looking in the same direction, as friends.
- Why you came here?
Uh. I came here to be there. How to say it?
- Where is your husband?
is true that, where it is?
- My husband and I have not found it yet. And you, your husband, he is where?
- At the rice field.
- Ah. We look
pigs gnawing thongs left at the foot of the stairs.

The night falls, the others have returned from their bathroom. We moved into the house, around the home - a square of dirt. No opening in the roof to vent smoke, no window except a small day in a woven bamboo walls. In one corner, an ancestral altar with plastic flowers and garlands. Wall, an advertisement for a beautiful glossy red car is used for decoration.
A young man brings a small chicken for our meal. He will be killed without a noise, a knife in a dark corner of the house. A woman brings her vegetable garden: several kinds of cabbage are cooked with chopped meat rubbery and peppered with cinders.
We observed all smiling. Our small group behaves quite well, I feel. Squatting or sitting on the ground, many villagers are there to see falanga. Children, especially. Some women, including Akha, who came to visit a village a few hours of operation: traditional costume, headdress ostensibly tree. While they were setting up for the night - it takes the place of children who, themselves, go to the neighbors - each of our actions and our objects is discussed in whispers.

During the night I'm going to pee outside. In one house away from town, wheezing and sounds dull and regular. I'm telling myself that it was the shaman who lives there. Or a prostitute.

Heartburn Continuously

Bansa

awakened about five hours. Near the fire, crouching, woman of the house after rice without noise. Then she spreads it on a clean mat, and knead the "hatchet" with a machete until it forms a homogenous bunch. She now divides it into two balls in tea stores. Above the fireplace, a square frame, through which the smoke shelf on which it arranges its utensils.

In the morning, we embark down a piece of the Mekong. A dozen villagers seize the opportunity. Among them, a young woman disguised as a geisha. I have seen yesterday evening.





Water khaki. Violent rapids. A barge Chinese stuck. Our captain drops us Burmese side: they will walk. In the sandy shore, gold dust.

Meutoh, Akha village
The guide tells us the chief's house and disappears. We had the same shot to banns. History to do something, we decided to go and wash the water point. While they were changing behind a pile of wood, forty women and children settled around us. Mired in our sins, we begin to wallow near the faucet. But as the public watches all our actions, we will consult in whispers so as not to seem indecent.
- It is how to wash?
- I know!
- soaped as sin?
- I prefer not ... If anything, it's very shocking to them!
- It's true, you're right! One only has to wash that which exceeds the sin, right?
- OK.
When we finished our show, three women are pushing us to take our place and we spend the public side. In
looking straight at us, they remove all their clothes except a panty-like shorts and small cap and they begin to vigorously rub all over with laundry powder. They point the finger at us talking on an ironic tone. Support - we excepted - laughs. And, as if to prolong the joke, one of them grabs her breasts with both hands as big as butternut squash maturity and waved to us. This time, we also laugh. Clearly, our modesty is misplaced here!


- What do you do for a living?
- I cut the trees around the village.
- Why?
- The Chinese company pays me for it.
- And what do you do after, when you cut all the trees?
- will be planted rubber trees. The Chinese will pay us for that. And they give us some money for eight years, until the trees grow. And later, when the trees have grown, I'm rich and they built the road to transport rubber. I can have a car. (Chief of Meutoh)


Night falls. A woman sitting on the terrace of his house, wearing a skirt and a cap, nothing else. It looks light blue of the night descend upon the village, offered her breast to the air soft and mosquitos.