Staying with Gil

VIENTIANE: So after meeting Gil on the first day we decided to hike out to his guest house to see what joys a village stay presented. I kept my room in town and let Nadine stash her gear so all we had to take was too light tracks. It's not the nicest walk to Huay Bo - the slash and burn to make way for a soon-to-be-built road takes the beauty out of it - but after an hour or so we reached the conflicting signs that mark the way to the village and its competing guesthouses.

When we located Gil he was only too happy to have us and we dumped our stuff in the last two rooms (he only has three) then tried to follow his directions off through the jungle - on well trodden paths of course - to find a fabled waterfall. It was not to be, though our efforts were rewarded with a scenic climb through some hilly farmland before we decided to turn back two hours later. Apparently we didn't miss much. Marketing has caught on in a big way. The Laos have decided, quite rightly it seems, that falang love waterfalls, so in the best snakeoil traditions, they'll sell anything as a waterfall. Apparently this one was a little trickle down about four metres.

Back in the village we met John, a Welsh guy who'd been staying with Gil for a couple of days. We chatted for a while until our host presented the dinner options: chicken or duck. He was only going to kill one. We settled on duck and I went off to join some of the village kids for one of the most surreal games of football I've ever partaken in. Played on a pitch formed by the dykes of a dried rice paddy, with a couple of bamboo sticks as posts, the field of play actually curved like an elongated kidney bean. Rather than employ an kind of tactical sophistication, the kids belie their interest in takraw with a neverending series of unsuccessful kung fu style attacks at the ball that would leave Jet Li shaking his head. It soon became evident that playing with a cigarette and beer probably wasn't the best tactic so I retreated into goals where I put in a performance worthy of Buffon with only waterbuffalo, infants and limestone mountains to watch me. Seriously, my keeping kept my side in the game, that's how bad the kids were.

After dinner I sat round various village campfires, listening to the sounds of the animals, trading shots of lao lao and smiling at the locals. The next morning I was awakened before dawn, as I was every morning up river, by the chickens, dogs, roosters and pigs who sounded like roosters. We spent the rest of the morning wandering around the village playing with kids, watching mats being woven, knives being forged and animals being farmed before we bid Gil good well and walked back to town; a long river swim being my reward for a hard day's work.