A very Hopkins Holiday

 The smell of cooked spices, burning plastic and sewage mixed with one another at times and at others stamped their individuality onto the moment.  The air raced passed my head and bending forward I tried to listen to what the young Laosian driver of the motorbike was saying.  I had landed at the airport not an hour before, possessing someone else's passport I did not know where my own was, and the deathly river of black, Laos's bloodstained road's whiped passed.  I was back in Asia and it felt magnificent.


Its always nice to start a piece of writing with a bit of Drama, but drama is as far away from day to day life here as anywhere else I have experienced on the planet.  The whole passport dillema was sorted in a sort of sleepy Sunday manner interspersed with laughter.  As we set off the second morning after we arrived we did it with passports in hand, bikes delivered and along roads with drivers and motorbikes considerate of others and thier own safty.  Perfect place for a bike tour.


This fact was no coincidence.  The Hopkins' (Ross and Christine) had noted this before and this is their third bicycle trip to the area.  It was at their strong suggestion that Graham (Ross' father) and I came along.  Tallin is here due to a biological imperative, being the small child of the Hopkins' his days are consumed rolling, in the chariot behind his father.

The road so far has rolled through villages seeming never to straighten. One uphill section becomes a downhill section before  I had time to analyse my surrounds.  Perhaps its the massive change in weather from the low negatives of Sweden to the absorbent atmosphere of the jungle but my mind has gone passive.  And the blob is happy.

We have had two sleeps on the road so far and each has provided an interesting experience.  The first night was at a little truck stop outside of Phon Hong.  Christine asked me early in the piece whether or not I thought it might be a brothel.  Having no idea what a brothel was I asked her to clarrify her statement.  Then she entranced me with a story of hers and Ross' from a previous trip to Thailand where they had in fact stayed in a house of midnight pleasures.  After discovering a horizontal mirror next to my bed I begun to wonder.  Such daydreams where confirmed shortly thereafter when Christine saw a pert little Loasian girl emerge from a room slapping her behind for the pleasure of a towel clad middle age man woozy from a combination of sun, booze and store bought sexual dynamism.

The second night was more confusing.  The Hopkins' have taught English in a town called Vang Vien on a few occasions.  Each time it has become more touristy, with the guests choice of activity a drug fueled float down a river lined with bars and clubs.  Previously this activity has been contained to the towns center and had not disturbed the tranquility of the organic mulberry farm at which they had stayed.  A bit like a poorly placed benign lump, annoying but manageable.  On this arrival however we observed that the town had crept its way up the river, the lump had grown, and the thump of bass towers in the clubs filled the afternoon air, it had become malignant.

I have not been able to get my head around this.  Having enjoyed intercontinental shenanigans in the past I see the fun in loud music, sun, new friends and beer.  Having lived in the country for a lot of my adult life I would hate for that activity to encroach on my patch of paradise. Seeing the need for development, especially in poorer countries I can understand its value.  Basically, I cant achieve clarity.  Any help from readers will be greatly appreciated!

I am hungry now.  After two meals at the farm, (fantastic, fresh and light combination of vegetables, spices and rice) whatever I shove down my thoat now will have to be brilliant to compare.