Beer and pineapple in Luang Prabang

Sweet new encounters.

It usually starts with a where are you from and how long and where have you been traveling, and it can lead to a long conversation without ever knowing each other’s name.

I was sitting in a tuk-tuk going from the bus station of Luang Prabang to the town center when she asked me “Are you traveling alone?”

Camilla and Sharon had met in the bus and had connected immediately.

Sharon, a 65 year old Canadian, has been traveling for 10 years, and would like to travel until she’s finally ready to die in Guadalajara, Mexico, her favorite city in the world. She usually only thinks to the extent of her next day in life, whether she will go around the town she’s visiting, spend the day reading, walking, being a vegetable or a radish, or move on to the next destination.

Camilla, 21 year old Danish, will have travelled for 5 months when she completes her adventure and inspires to travel and explore the whole world. An elderly colleague once told her “you can always study; go on and travel now”. With a heart as big as a mountain and inquisitive to learn from every body she meets, it is no wonder that people are drawn towards her.

When she asked me that question in the tuk-tuk, I didn’t know that I would be traveling with both of them for the next one week.

Besides the market, lying in wooden cots on the streets, with people passing by or sitting or smiling, the night market and its vendors unfolding, a book in our hands, the sun setting, good company, and the charming little town of Luang Prabang and its people, I experienced a moment of delirium happiness.

Beer and pineapple in Luang Prabang.