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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