Some differences between Laos and China shock me. The floor, for example, is no longer seen as dirty - Lao people slip off their shoes outside, and plonk themselves down to watch tv or chat. In many of the guest houses I've stayed in, the owning family sleeps on the floor, pulling out a duvet or a mosquito net over the thin carpet.

Lao people don't really bargain, not anywhere like the Chinese did. Lao people seem to decide a price for you, and budge only marginally from it. Sometimes the price seems fair, sometimes not, but people seem content to let me walk away if I don't want to buy. They definitely lack that Chinese hyper awareness of who's got the upper hand in a deal. What I mean by this: in Pak Beng there are lots of little shops selling water bottles, you can buy a refridgerated one for 2000 kip. I saw a stall with no fridge selling bottles - they also wanted 2000 kip. "Sorry, but I can buy a cold one for 2000 somewhere else, give me a lower price", I asked, but they refused, and somewhat puzzled, I walked off and did what I had promised.

There are several other things I noticed about the Lao, such as the people on our river boat were extremely reluctant to step over our sleeping legs as we lay - they daintly edged around us then continued - but I haven't spent enough time in the country to find out any explanations of where these customs come from.

But the really interesting thing about Laos is...

Another thing about Laos is that, I've now discovered, there aren't any cashpoints or banks capable of cash withdrawal north of Luang Prabang. Although I had withdrawn one million kip back in Luang Prabang, I had been spending it quicker than I thought I would, and when I did a count up of how much I had left, I was in something of a crisis. I had been spending perhaps ten pounds a day (circa. 180,000 kip), as I kept finding meals and other expenses were just a bit higher than I would have liked. So, in Houaxyi, discovering that while the local bank could change money, it could not give it out, I had a bit of a problem, with only 250,000 kip remaining.

I couldn't afford to do my planned loop through rural north west Laos, so as I saw it my options were:

1. Jump on a bus to Luang Prabang and get more money out then resume the trip. But I felt unwilling to spend 15 hours+ just to get to the place I'd already been, then another x hours getting back to the north...

2. Change my emergency dollar fund into kip, and I would have about enough for my planned journey back to Luang Prabang. But that would mean I would have no money to buy anything beyond daily expenses (so no shopping on the Myanmar border for example). And, more seriously, if anything were to go wrong, I would be in northern Laos with literally no money of any kind and with limited ability to communicate with the outside world. This seemed like a fairly bad idea.

Plus, and this was the decider, Laos still wasn't lighting my candle. I'm not sure why, sure all entirely a subjective response rather than my discovering anything bad about the country. But, travelling around was feeling more of a responsibility than a pleasure, as if I was spending time in order to be able to speak with some authority on the place. I'm just going to have to accept I haven't really seen Laos, perhaps for another time. Perhaps because the things that were readily on offer in Laos - relaxing, trekking, village life - these aren't things I especially travel for. More time, I think, would have uncovered other aspects of Lao life, and I do feel sad not having seen the capital Vientiene, but I did feel that leaving was the right thing to do.
The regret is letting Can down. There's not much I can do beyond sending him an apologetic email, and telling other travellers heading to Luang Prabang to go and visit him (I have already begun this process).

I went back brisquely to my guest house, packed and explained why I had to leave. They told me I was not the first visitor to leave in a hurry because of this problem. I told them Laos had been very nice and the Laos people were very friendly. The very tiny young woman behind the desk had a wonderful smile and replied, "And the tourists too! You have good hearts"! She put her open hands together under her chin and bowed her head to me deeply.
I walked back to the ferry point where the exchange office was. They tried to persuade me to stay, working out how I could exchange dollars for a bus ticket to Luang Prabang - sorry, sorry, not something I want to do, I told them. My passport was stamped, they asked, "Once you have got some more money, will you come back to Laos"? "Sorry", I apologised, "I can't afford another thirty dollar visa"...

I boarded a thin long boat for the short trip across to Thailand, and soon was steppping on to the brown sand of the Thai side of the river. As I write this, my mini bus speeds towards Chiang Mai

Daniel, 6 May 2004, northern Thailand