The pace of life is wonderfully soporific, starting daily with the 700-odd monks making collecting alms of sticky rice from locals and visitors as the sun rises, a seemingly endless snake of orange robed, po-faced young, and occasional not so young men passing in silent single file along the main streets. Their unsmiling faces perhaps reflect the fact that those making offerings are achieving ‘credits’ in the next life, so are not further entitled to a smile of gratitude for their efforts. Who knows? Certainly not the transient visitor.

  As the monks return to base, the side streets fill with fruit and vegetable markets, the visitor contemplates a trip perhaps to one of the many temples, or to the royal palace built in 1904 for King Sisavang Vong (now a museum with exotic wallpaper featuring Japanese coloured glass and much gilding), or taking a coffee or bowl of noodles looking down over the Mekong river, which flows past this strategic peninsular.

  The pace slackens after lunch during the afternoon heat until early evening when the main street is cleared of traffic and transformed into a mile-long pedestrian market of multi-coloured handicrafts and Chinese imported silverware, lanterns and jewellery, all lit by naked electric light bulbs. Occasionally, visitors collect to watch a spirited performance of the Ramayana and strange dances performed by northern Lao tribes – strange in that women and men vie to lift huge full-up water jugs between their teeth.

  There is no visible police or military presence on the streets; even the airport immigration staff, collecting their sizable visa fees, do so with slightly more grace and better organisation than last time.

  It is a wonderful place to chill out, have a foot massage for less than two pounds, or beer for 60 pence, with a zero chance of any snow or frost.

  In a few days, we head off for the eastern mountains and the Plain of Jars plateau where we can expect lower temperatures, as well as crumbling pitted roads and a less sophisticated style of life.

  The journey from Luang Prabang up to the Plain of Jars takes about seven hours over mountain roads. The temperature dropped from high 20s ˚C in Luang Prabang to zero during an unusually cold spell and we found ourselves ill-equipped, clothing wise, for the change. For the last four hours, we crept forward on mist-cloaked roads fortunately passing less than twenty cars, two trucks, one on its side lying in the two-foot deep culverts which drop each side of the road, a few farm vehicles, and contraptions with a lawnmower type engine attached by a long steering column to a wooden cart. However, this modest volume of motorised traffic is the least of the potential hazards, as the road through most villages we pass are littered with pigs/ piglets, ducks/ducklings, chickens/chicks, buffalo/cows/calves, goats/kids and mothers/sisters/grannies with sprog backpacks. Only our slow speed, induced by the weather conditions, saves their lives, as no concession is made by the driver for these obstacles.

  Fortunately, huge log fires at our destination take off some of the chill, but not by much. One can understand why the H’mong minority tribe people in the mountain villages give the impression that they do not change their clothes every day; the prospect was daunting enough for us, and we were not confined to crudely constructed huts with large cracks between the bamboo-panelled walls, the only protection the locals have to fight the fierce winds and sub-zero temperature. Much burning of wood in little fires at the side of the road.

  The sun, if not the heat, returned for our day visiting some of the sites where these curious large jars are to be found dotted over the hills outside the local town. To give a first impression, it was a bit like Avebury Circle combined with some of the stone-age circles on Dartmoor. However, the bleakness owes a great deal to the activities of the B52 bombers during the Vietnam War (the site is about 120 miles from the border with Vietnam). It seems likely that the pilots must have aimed at these landmarks on their return from bombing missions in deciding where to dispose of unwanted ordinance. The net result? Large numbers of huge damaged jars, often large enough for a human being to get inside, 30-foot wide waterlogged craters, home to evil spirits according to the locals, and, in every direction barren hills almost devoid of vegetation, but littered with unexploded bombs and mines. Visitors, of whom there are less than 100 a day so not yet big time, take care not to deviate from the well-marked paths, but some local children are less cautious in choosing their way home, mostly with no ill result. It is entirely understandable that seventy percent of the locals have moved away, where farming is not so dangerous and more productive.

  The countryside had a distinctly parched look, as the rainy season, when rice is harvested and everything turns green, is still some months off. The major risk in the wet season comes from landslides and slippery roads which can cut this area off from the rest of the country.

  No visit to a new location would be complete without a trip to market, and this one had a few surprises in the comestibles department: the usual frogs (miniature and king size), buffalo meat etc., but for the more adventurous, ants’ eggs were also on offer, porcupines, bats, swallows and an interesting grub like a caterpillar tucked up inside a stick of bamboo, which has to be sliced open to reveal the hidden delicacy. On the way back, we also popped into a villager’s kitchen in the mountains, where a pot of squirrel and two veg was on the boil, not much sustenance there to fight the cold. We didn’t stop for lunch.

  Sadly, I was parted from my mobile phone on the way back to LP in the junction village of Phon Kone apparently, not the first victim in these parts. What the new owners will do with it when the battery runs out, I don’t know.

  The scenery changes dramatically south of Phon Kone on the main road between Luang Prabang and Vientiane as limestone peaks become dominant in the landscape, reminiscent of Krabi province in Thailand or Guilin in China, providing a wonderful backdrop as we head for Vang Vieng.

  So, a day’s rest in this backpacker town. where all us oldies are out cycling, kayaking, climbing up to local caves and generally working out, while the younger brethren are all holed up in cafés watching old episodes of ‘Friends’ all day long.

  NB. Good news: if you find my prose style tedious, we are pleased to inform you that a proper professional travel writer is here at present writing it up for a future edition of The Times so watch out for what travel writing should really be like.

  We returned back north by road to Luang Prabang in order to pick up our boat travelling north up the Mekong. The driver seemed a bit anxious and indicated he did not want to stop on the way as armed ‘bandits’ had been reported on our route. We were obliged to lie flat in the back of the vehicle ‘for our safety’. We passed through a village called Kasi populated by the Kamu tribe, (so as they might have been known as kamukasis?), it seemed like a good idea to keep moving. We did, however, make one stop to report my stolen phone. While we were successful in getting the incident logged, we failed to get a report confirming this for insurance, as the chief of police wanted the equivalent of two months’ police salary ($150) to provide it, so I said thanks but no thanks (I think I forgot the word thanks as the phone was not worth that amount).

  The last time we did the trip north up this part of the Mekong, we arrived in the riverside village of Pak Beng in pitch dark to overnight and left the next day in morning darkness, so we decided this time to spend a whole day in this peaceful spot in a Robinson Crusoe type wooden chalet high up overlooking the turbulent river below and the jungle-covered hills beyond, disturbed only by chomping goats and a herd of cattle on the river bank. There are a number of odd things about this section of the river. Firstly, we only saw three birds in ten hours; were they all shot in China under Mao and the species never recovered? Secondly, there are very few visible villages along this section of the river, yet frequently, on what appeared to be an uninhabited sandbank or clump of rocks, we spied a couple of people fishing with nets; indeed many unmanned rods too, and a few children playing happily, yet with no visible means of getting off their sandbank in a really remote spot with no boat moored nearby. Sandbanks also often supported lush crops of vegetables or peanuts, and yet when the seasonal rains come, these banks and most of the rocky outcrops will once again be submerged under the rising water level.

  The village of Pak Beng was a bit like any airport hotel: there is a major exodus early morning as the boat leaves, and no activity at all until the evening boast come in around 5 pm, so we had the place completely to ourselves, stirring only to look out at the odd passing boat, a long kind of barge with living quarters at the back and seating for about 35 passengers, or occasionally a fishing boat or noisy speedboat disturbing the peace momentarily as it fought the rapids going north.

  Then a bombshell: I took a call from London on our private boat steaming up towards our eco-resort near the Chinese border, where we had planned to spend the weekend, informing us that the resort had suddenly closed because the manager had been kidnapped, it was believed, by Chinese gangsters. All the residents took flight in the middle of the night when they found out. There has not been much of a response to the vacancy announcement for a new manager apparently. Now as my Chinese is limited to ‘cheers, I love you, and see you again soon’, I did not feel this was a propitious time to visit, exposing ourselves to being marched to the nearest (and, at the time the only) ATM in Laos to empty my Nationwide account, as it is located 200 miles away in Ventiane. The manager’s chances of survival are put at only twenty percent. The reason our driver was anxious when we left Vang Vieng was that he initially thought that the kidnapping might have been political and unrest might have been expected further south too, though this subsequently proved unlikely. I am all for adventure holidays, but this is a bit too much adventure.

  So, we were obliged to retreat back to Luang Prabang. On the way back by road, we were advised that we were in a protected area, so curious to observe that large trees had been felled all the way along the route every twenty yards for the next twenty miles, so it was not clear who was protecting what from whom.

  Again, it is interesting to note the custom of the mountain tribes to build their houses precariously along the rim of a precipice, so it obviously important to get out of bed on the right side. The custom of also building the house on stilts also offers additional accommodation under the house for the women to set up a spinning wheel – a sort of loom with a view one might say (or they do say in Japan, of course).

  In this area, a new rice crop was being grown (not the case further east as there was better irrigation here), alongside cotton, pomegranates, pineapples bananas and tobacco. The male villagers seem to be un- or under-employed, unless communally building an occasional new house, while the women of child-bearing age are clearly employed fulltime as baby factories. In fact, there are two road signs you see frequently: ‘sharp curve’ and ‘children ahead’. Both are ubiquitous and somewhat redundant.

  So it was that we were fortunate to spend our last night in the Souvannaphoum hotel, the finest in Luang Prabang, and one-time residence of the crown prince. Apparently, it had, some months before, we were told, accommodated Mick Jagger and Demi Moore (not together as far as I know). I wonder who the guests will be talking about in two weeks’ time.

  It will be wonderful to return to the warmth of Bangkok after two unseasonably cold weeks here in Laos.

  After what seemed like a lifetime on the move, we have migrated to the recovery phase of the trip in the warmth of southern Thailand.

  It is increasingly difficult to ‘discover’ a spot that not too many people have also discovered, but we seem to have hit the jackpot on that score, since neither the taxi driver nor the types hanging around the pier seemed to have heard of our small island destination.

  Needless to say, on the day we transferred from our Chinese hotel in Phuket town (the taxi driver at the airport had not heard of this hotel either), the waves had been whipped up by a stiff breeze, causing some anxiety about the boat trip: how far, what type of boat, where exactly was the resort on the island (bay or seaside). Of course, it turned out not to be a solidly built ferry, nor a smart speedboat but a clapped-out-looking 95-decibel long-tail boat. Luggage loaded, anchor stowed, engine spluttered, anchor back out, screwdriver out for much banging of rusty engine. All very comforting as the waves increased to over a metre, but at last, we were off for a thirty-minute rocky crossing, soaked to the marrow from the spray, but it was all worth it.

  The ‘resort’ has only about eight cottages, mostly beachfront, interspersed with exotic vegetation, palm trees, bougainvillea, bamboo and tamarind trees. The beach, steps away from the balcony, is white sand but at low tide, much evidence of now defunct coral reef.

  The aural delights are as great as the visual: varied noisy tuneful birdlife, and the nearby periodic call to prayer on this mainly Muslim island: a magical combination.

  This is all shared with an array of other creatures: frogs, chitchats, two-foot salamanders, an occasional mosquito, cockroaches (is the female a henroach?) and massive jellyfish, but there is a lovely under-used pool. In fact, it is curious that one only seems to meet any other human being at mealtimes while for most of the day, we have the pool and/or beach to ourselves, except for the odd unexplained footprint.

  Away from it all, but for occasional access to this ageing computer terminal which also seems to take siestas, absorbing the atmosphere of this sleepy but well-run place. Its name is being withheld to protect the innocent.

  As we are both on our last books, we are planning to restock in Singapore on Wednesday.

  Chapter 6

  Southern India

  This must be the first computer I have ever used which starts up with the following message on screen: ‘The Lord Jesus Christ is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart’.

  But this is the country of useful guidelines for a happy and full life, for example: eat cardamom seeds to put years on your life, and life into your years etc.

  The trip started in the city of Cochin, which lives up to all the things previous visitors have said about this throbbing city: absorbing history and culture, a wonderful setting for the various islands surrounding this deep-water harbour.

  I was mistakenly under the impression that the Portuguese had introduced Christianity to India but apparently Vasco de Gama, who died here, was amazed to find 1,500 hundred churches already here when he arrived in 1498. So today, sixty percent of the population is still Christian, and churches are everywhere, with the oldest in India built in the mid-sixteenth century.

  Things of major interest to the visitor include the curious fishing contraptions introduced by the Chinese many moons ago, the oldest synagogue in India supporting just four Jewish families, including the youngest member a 35-year-old unmarried girl with rather limited marriage prospects within this close community.

  And for the evenings, the wonderfully expressive Katha Kahani dance along Ramayana lines, but with curious billowing dress and heavy and colourful make-up, all men of course, and with the longest staged death scene I have ever witnessed: at least ten minutes of facial contortions and simulated bleeding from the mouth (he/she was knifed).

  Onwards from the steamy coast to the more temperate climate of the Kanan Devan hills given over to vivid green hills of tea plantations as far as the eye can see, interspersed with eucalyptus trees and large granite boulders. Truly awesome scenery, we arrived in the middle of the nationally celebrated Diwali holiday, we are overwhelmed by what seems to be most of the 33 million population of Kerala, celebrating, constantly snacking, laughing and clogging the roads with a display of alarming driving habits.

  Of course, one of the major attractions of a trip to the state of Kerala is a stint on one of the favourite Keralan houseboats, generally called rice barges because of their previous role providing rice transportation throughout the complex network of canals, lagoons and lakes. Made from local materials, they provide a romantic way of experiencing the slow pace of local life and come complete with a small crew who are happy to share the steering or meal preparation if you can rouse yourself to get involved. Transfer to dugouts is required to navigate the narrower channels in order to witness daily life on the riverbank.

  This will have to suffice for now as this PC is so old, it precedes the original version of Bill Gates’ Windows and is not likely to last much longer.

  Chapter 7

  Vietnam and on to Thailand

  Hoi-an, Central Vietnam

  Well, I guess some people freezing through a traditional English winter will feel comforted to know that Asia is not all sun and heat. A tropical low has brought incessant heavy rain, high winds and rough seas to northern Vietnam, ‘a cold snap afflicting the old and the young’ according to the Vietnam news today.

  With stoical fortitude, we, look forward, nevertheless, to entering the UNESCO World Heritage Site of old Hoi-an town tomorrow to absorb the atmosphere of a town claiming 844 historic houses going back to the middle ages when it was an entrepôt for international trade between Japan, China and the West.

  As the guidebooks say, Hoi-an is a town oozing in charm and history and, remarkably, the Americans failed to bomb it to bits, despite it being so close to Danang where they were much more successful.

  So pretty, it attracts film crews. We inadvertently walked on to the outdoor set of a German film crew making a movie revolving around a game of chess; it seems to be appropriate to say that I never thought I would appear in a German pawn movie after all these years.

  The old town is traffic-free and comprises almost nothing but bridges, cosy bars, restaurants, pagodas, Chinese temples known as assembly halls and ancient wooden or yellow ochre houses, mostly converted into shops selling lacquer-ware or multi-coloured lanterns.