Another gap between updates, and I'm doing things quicker than I can find time to record them. I'm setting off towards Cambodia in a couple of hours, so it really is time to call it quits on Laos. There's also a bizarre time skew in many of these blogs because I've started writing about things which have happened now, then resumed a previous narrative. At this rate, in about a month I will jump over around 2 months to arrive back in the present. By that time the bridge will, I assure you, be completed and I will just roll to a safe stop on the other side of the ravine.

So after leaving Luang Prabang I headed north to Luang Namtha. I was just going to pass through but the guidebook claimed this was the 'real Laos' and great for trekking. I have little patience for the kind of people who go to the 'real' places, or treks, so I hired a mountain bike (for once a really good one, not the arse rippers they offer in Luang Prabang) and set off. I only met a few other people on the route, even though I was heading to a very highly recommended temple which was damaged during some kind of insurgency or war, although the local people maintain the lie that it was a weather disaster (or maybe my book was lying, imperialist western pigs).

As a brief hint, should you decide to do this, it's great but don't bother with the map. It will confuse and irritate you as it conforms neither to scale nor any iconography known to man. Just sort of head south-west, it'll save about an hour of frustration. After the temple, there are some really interesting villages to go through. I had lunch at a roadside place which was fun, and stopped at 2 small secondary schools (one inside a temple) which was really interesting because classrooms seem to conform to certain ideas in every culture, but there were local touches too with all the bamboo. I didn't see any whipping canes, which is probably a good thing, but all the rumours of brutal schools in SE Asia seem to be just that. The homogonisation of our attitudes to child abuse is a little disappointing, if we don't have varied opinions how can anything ever change?

It's also worth noting that the bus continues to Thailand (some guys on the bus told me they'd been massively ripped off for the same service I had, which is always reassuring), so you get dropped off at Luang Namtha at about 5am. There are no taxis operating, but the bus drivers huddled around and (because it was unseasonably cold), burnt stuff. Mainly plastic or cardboard. In an effort to bond and reduce the fumes, I proffered some paper. I'd printed a downloaded copy of the lonely planet guide, so was merrily discarding paper as I went (so that my bag got gradually lighter). Unfortunately I got a bit carried away, which I only noticed as I saw the 2 pages of notes I'd written on the back of some of the pages curl and blacken. A few of the drivers wanted pages for souvenirs, I suppose they found the script a novelty. I shared some cookies and so got a bargain ride into town, where I could get breakfast at 7 but not check in until 8.

After 2 days in Luang Namtha (it also has a good night market and other stuff to look at, but mostly it's a trekking or biking base) it was time to bite the bullet and cross into China. I noted that China visas were in fact possible from here, although there was a $50 markup on the price in Vientiane. Still, to send papers all the way down and back in 2 days is a pretty big ask with their infrastructure, so I won't begrudge them the fee. I'd already got mine though, so took the 'international bus'. This was a bit like those ones that special schools show you when they're trying to raise money for a new 'sunshine coach', to show you how miserable and dangerous what they have is. A jolly 6 hours later I was in China. The border crossing was amazingly futuristic, and computers spoke to you in your own language after scanning your passport. It seemed to do it for all comers - I heard Spanish, French, Italian and English. I was slightly disappointed when the Australians got the same as me. I'd really hoped that it would be in some terrible accent, ideally clearly done by the same person who did the British recording. There's no budget for humour in bureaucracy anymore. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos of this revolutionary technology. The duty free was good but I couldn't be bothered carrying a litre of vodka on another series of buses. Only a couple of hours later I was in Mengla, a fairly decent sized Chinese city.

I wasn't particularly pleased to be back, although this attitude did change into the trip. I couldn't get (or be understood in my desire to, either way) to anywhere I wanted to go from the bus station. So I walked to the other bus station (each Chinese city has about 6 bus stations, none of which are convenient for the centre or connected with anything, and between which destinations are distributed randomly). From there, I was put in a taxi to be taken to the right bus station - the one I'd just walked from. Fortunately there was a new person on the till, and it turned out I could actually go where I wanted. It was another overnight trip so I went for a wander round the park, then for a Dico's. This is like China's KFC, only more oily and with a 50% chance that the chicken isn't fully cooked. Only about 500 miles to go before I see Claire again - it's been about 6 weeks so enthusiasm can even surmount this sleeping bus. Well, at first. Don't think Harry Potter Knight Bus, think beds slanted at 150 degrees for no obvious reason, ridiculously narrow, and short even by Chinese standards. By curling into a ball and rolling over every hour, I was able to sleep fairly well. Next stop, Kunming - where after 2 nights on buses I thought it was time for a decent hotel instead of budget travelling.

I'm now only 2 countries behind! Yay! If you're still reading with me, well done.