different children !

I bet you never knew them like that.... see how travelling transforms you to the soul !

Luang Prabang, the spiritual town

One of the many many wonderful stencil work in the beautiful temple. This one is by far my favourite. It depicts paradise, here, the Budhist Nirvanah. I love this man floating in the air, only met by an unespected fellow perhaps wanting to share his felicity, or warning him about the dansgers of floating away. Who knows ?

This is a usual sight in Luag Prabang. With around 10 active temples, many monks very naturally mix in the city life. Women are not supposed to touch them, but they are very surius and chatty if given a chance to spent a few quiet moments with you. Some of them are still children; they start at 8.

Monastic life is very flexible in Budhism; you can be a Monk for lifr but very often, you are a monks for a few years or months. Becoming a monk is something that a fervent budhist would want to do once in his life to aquire merit.

This is a very touching scene taking place every day at 6 am in Louang Prabang. Monks come out, bare feet and beg their food, as Budha did in his time. It is a religious act to give to the monks, mainly rice and fruits.

Here, some religious offering made of bananas leaves and flowers are being made for a typical Lao religious ritual celebrated at home : the calling back of the spirits/soul for somebody, a mixture of animist ( still a strong influence in Lao and Budhist ritual ( often celebrated by Bhudist monks) . Indeed, your spirits have a tendency to go away and have to be recalled on important occasions to make sure everything goes well.

Following the same kind of ritual, the old lady of the guest house, just beforewe went, recalled our spirits back to us, blessed us and fastened to our wrist 2 of these typical plain cotton bracelets supposed to hold our soul fast to our body.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Our first impression of the town was so joyful : we bumped into a festival de la francophonie, organized by a groupe of artists from Tours. How homy that felt, I can't tell you !
Here, the girls are dancing at the Guinguette with an amazing singer who has an "opera like" voice. We called her the Diva and she was then with a great Frecnh music group called Vaguement la Jungle.... a good dose of delirium !

The meat stall at the market.... mmmmmmmmmmh ! Let's not let the flies eat it all !

One of the many Budhist temples in Luang Prabang. Very old, wise and inspiring

Our daily card game - le mao mao - waiting for the dishes to arrive at the restaurnt... along the Makong river. This is 5 mn walk from the guest house.
We liked this town so much we stayed there 10 days. Our guests were 2 amazing sisters, doctors a s well, working at the hospital, trying to help poor families who could no afford admitting their babies to hospital .. we heard terrible stories from them and found out how lucky we were to have our health system.

Halong Bay

People semm to transport anything on motorbike. Here, on the way from Hanoi to Halong bay, under the rain, this motorbike must be loaded with around 20 hens !

The fishermen here only survive with fishing. We see women on the peer of Catbat, the main Island in Halong bay selling a few huge calamars, still full of black ink, but no mass fisheries here !

THE Halong bay picture, as best as we could do it. Indeed it is beautiful, very crowded too ! Last night, we slept on that boat....with a crowd of another 50 boats !

Before Leaving Hanoi, we had to send this image, so typical of Vietnam. Throughout our trip in Vietnam, we have seen hundreds of these women ( oddly, very few men !) carrying these loads, sometimes almost a whole kitchen allowing to settle anywhere on the pavement to serve meals.
But in Hanoi, using these is a skill because it is such a crowded place. You could knock somebody,or have a basket knocked over in a matter of seconds. Yet it never seems to happen.

Sapa- A little town in the mountains

In Sapa everything is different : the weather is cool ( jeans and jumpers are back) and especially the people. The ethnic minorities as they are called, mainly the Hmomg and Dao people have astrong cultural identity, due to their isolation in the mountains. The adults are mainly illiterate : there are now schools in the villages but it's fairly recent (15 years or so). It is striking that these people in colourful traditional outfits say "vietnamese people" as if they didn't include themselves in it. As it were, their isolation served them well during the wars and they don't seem to have suffered from the endless conflicts, with the French, then the Americans ( 14 millions tons of bombs dropped on Vietnam in the last war !).

Hmong women are incredibly friendly and, although illeterate, managed to teach themselves enough English to have a basic conversation. Mai and Bla we met that Sunday and they arrange for us to visit their village. We went into their incredibly poor house ( no furniture except beds, no windows, no toilets ) and managed to understand that they were mainly in charge of supporting the family by selling their Handicraft in town.

I was amazed at how joyful they are knowing how hard their life is. It must be said the landscape is really breathtaking though : teraced rice fields on the hills everywhere.

This is a Dao lady, a happy mother of 10 children ! The headcarf is just folded on her head, and, somehow, stays there... perhaps it help these women always stand very strait.

This is the day when we rented motorbikes to visit a Dao village with another French family ( from London as well) whom we had met in Chile before. We were amazed to bump into them ( Caroline and Alan and their children Billy Jane and Jules) by chance in Hanoi, for the greatest joy of all of us !

Hue - An imperial city

We arrived in Hue, having spenta night in a bus ( trains full )... an interesting experience. Although well organised and clean, what kills you is one, the states of the road, and the two, the states of the shock absorbers !

Anyway, to put you in a nice mood, here is "Uncle Ho" smiling, alias Ho Chi Minh, the first communist leader of Vietnam. Communism is, for sure, not history here in Vietnam. We have had some interesting propaganda songs plays in the bus, where women soldiers appear as happy as can be to go to war and where farmers also happily turn into soldier to save Vietnam from colonialism. The message is very explicit and the actors completely over do it. In a time where publicity tries to hint us its messages, we are not quite used to this !

Here is the typical Vietamese drink... to make a man out of you ! That night, we were trying the basic little Vietnamese restaurant... no big success ! The kids only ate plain rice, and we could not finish our dishes either... we were not too sure of the meat - that you dip in boiling water to cook - in such a smelly place. We prefer eating in the markets where you can see food freshly prepared for you. They make a lot of fried dishes that the children like better ( bananas, spring rolls, rice balls and wonderful fruits ready cut for you).

This is part of the immense palace built by the emperor beginnnig of the 19th century... of course he needed space, he had more that 100 concubines ! Even the gay one ! Poor woomen unable to go out, they must have gone mad !

We had a lovely show there, with one dance where dancers hold one candle lantern in each hand and, at the same time make human pyramids. Nor sure how this is possible. Health and safety regulators would become mad in th UK !

We visited Thi, a business and designer women who has a workshop of 40 women and does simply incredible work on silk shalls. She came to visit us in ondon last year on a propecting trip to Europe and was surprised we paid her the visit back ! The girls got passionate about embroidery and still now do a lot... a great way to kill time in transport.

Hoi An, the city of light

Hoi An is, by far, the most charming town we have visited in Vietnam. Happilly, we'vr been able to stay around a week there; we have been enchanted.

Thanks to its protection by UNESCO as a world heritage, it has prevented wild tourism and was able to keep the town small. The lovely architecture of its old wooden houses in the streets along the river was preserved. What's more, the tradition of Chinese lanterns had endured and still now, every full moon night, electric lights are shut down and only traditional lanterns lit by candles are allowed. Even cars and motorbikes are not allowed in town at night.

This is where Caroline has had her 40th birthday. Steph had booked a little hotel facing a rice field with a swimming pool. The children were very much involved and excited and prepared all sorts of things. On the 5th of March, we thought of all our friends in France who are turning 40 sooner or later this year.

We've had a couple of meals along the river ( witht he lanterns just behind) and Manon is proud to say that one good reason to become Vietnamese is that you can use your sticks everyday !

Romane has had a nice Ao Dai made, a traditional Vietnamese outfit for the 5th of March. The 2 girls wearing their Ao Dai together don't go unoticed in Vietnam. Old people in particular appear touched. Here, Romane is trying to catch a little turtle in a pound in one of the numerous temples of Hoi An. These temples - from the Confucius religion - are strange to us. The statues are fairly ugly, if not frightening by their fierce look, and they seem so open to the outside, in there architecture, that there is no silent place for meditation. Religion in Vietnam seemed to us more a cultural habit than a spiritual experience... due to the repression of the communist regime ?

Hoi An is a town of tailors, there must be around a hundred of them in town. They really work well and can make about anything. This lovely lady almost became a friend : she made around 10 pieces for the whole family, and even had a similar shirt as Thomas's (the one on the picture) made for her own son. Here we are, newly clothed !