24.June.2008
Woke up bright and early at 5:30am to catch the 6 am bus to the boarder city of Chiang Khong (say it with a Thai accent really fast and it sounds like King Kong) where we took a tuk tuk to the river and exited Thailand. We then took a boat across the river and entered Laos-hurray for more passport stamps! We then were approached by a guy selling tickets for the slow boat who seemed really genuine so we followed him to his office with a few others and bought our tickets. Then we were driven over to the slow boat dock just a few minutes away. We bought some cushions for the wooden benches we would be sitting on for the next two days; the ride to Louang Prabang is notoriously cramped and uncomfortable, and was even worse than we expected! They were absolutely tiny and the benches were so slim it hurt to sit on because it wasn’t wide enough to hold your butt comfortably, and the best part was we sat on the boat for over two hours while people filtered on and then argued to get another boat going because there were clearly not enough seats on the boat for all of the passengers…there was a bit of yelling and sure enough they got another boat.
I am not sure how but we managed to find comfortable positions from time to time and just kept shifting between them and before knew it the first day was over. Consuming delicious BeerLaos also made the comfort level increase and people just sprawled out in the tiny alleyway between the benches. It was fun suffering with the other travelers and just joking about the situation, you pay for what you get… We pulled into Pakbeng around 5pm and there was a big welcoming party ready to show us all to their guesthouses…so kind of them, huh? So we found a nice cheap place that had a mosquito net and no electricity…good enough for the one night we would be there. We checked in and Dave instantly befriended a group of three Aussies from the boat who all worshipped metal. I never realized one could actually discuss metal bands like one discusses fine wines, but they managed to. We went with them and met with more fellow boatgoers at a restaurant nearby which promised a free glass of Lao Lao Wiskey with a meal…doesn’t bode well for the food. So they ended up just giving us a full bottle of whiskey for free…bad idea, we ended up spending a lot more time there, but not money. After that we headed to the one bar in town and enjoyed some more BeerLao….
25.June.2008
Up and ready to go on the boat at 8:30am to get a good seat but of course we didn’t end up leaving till 10am or so because people got on late and then the late ones complained there was no seats and they finally got another boat to start its engines. Then there was a massive exodus of people to the other boat….which made it much more comfortable today…the bench was almost big enough to fit a whole butt comfortably, plus we each managed to get a whole bench to ourselves for much of the journey. The weather was much clearer today, we actually saw some blue sky, which was very exciting. The trip passed relatively quickly and we were in Louang Prabang by 4 or 5pm. From there we went looking for a place to stay and with minimal stress we found a really nice little hotel in an old colonial building and our balcony area overlooked the Mekong…very lovely.
We were anxious to explore the town so we just set our stuff down and grabbed our camera….we inevitably ran into many of the people we had met on the slow boat; small town. Louang Prabang is full of cute cafes, boutiques, wine shops, bakeries…I would never have imagined to find a city like this in Laos. I have always thought of Laos as fairly undeveloped, definitely not expecting to find what we found in Louang Prabang. They have a really nice night market every night with all sorts of beautiful souvenir items and the best part is; the vendors leave you be unless you approach them with an offer…so quiet and peaceful! We went to dinner with our Aussie friends Dale and Tisso at a place listed in our guide, which ended up being pretty disappointing. Dave was feeling sick so we had an early night.
26.June.2008
We had a bit of a late start this morning…we went in search of a nice looking cafe for breakfast and found them all to be relatively expensive but found a decent place and ended up running into just about every one of our new travel buddies (the three Aussies, two Brits and an American) from the last couple days. We all agreed to meet up a bit later and hire a tuk tuk to the waterfalls near by. We tried a number of tuk tuks to get a fair price but they all seem to be in cahoots and couldn’t talk them down any…we finally gave in and all hopped in for the 45 minute ride to the waterfalls. On the way to the waterfall was a bear sanctuary for Sun Bears, because the Chinese have devastated their populations due to their use in certain Eastern Medicine practices (i.e. putting them in small cages and draining them of black bile which is used to make men “last long time”)….not fun. Once we got to the waterfalls we were stoked, the water was so unbelievably blue, the whole thing was like a water park but all completely natural…it is what water parks are trying to mimic. We first walked to the top and walked over the top of the highest tier of the water fall and then walked back down and stopped at various tiers to swim in the pools. We had a great time in one little pool because a massive rock funnel dumped a torrent of water into it. We all played around jumping into the falls and trying to swim against the massive current…life is rough!
We took turns jumping off the rocks and trees around the pools, all good fun…would have stayed longer but our tuk tuk driver had to get back because he has class in the evenings, studying to be an English teacher…although it seemed that he still needs to learn English, maybe he already has the teaching thing down. We all went our separate ways after that to get cleaned up, but we then met up in the evening with Kelly and went to a really cute wine shop and sipped on scrumptious Cabernet Sauvignon and enjoyed the cool evening air. We then met up with our Aussie/English friends at their hotel room for a while and off to bed well after the midnight curfew….good thing it isn’t strongly enforced for forgeiners (only the hotel/restaurant owners who get a HUGE fine if we are too loud).
27.June.2008
Today we rented bikes with a few friends and rode around the city despite near constant down pour! We rode around to a few temples but mostly just to check out the city a bit….we had some amazing noodle soup at a random restaurant, which we ducked in to escape the rain, and ended up hanging out there for a couple hours because the rain refused to stop. Every time we thought the rain would stop it just started going even harder…it was so ridiculous all we could do was laugh and order another beer, after all we’re all on vacation!
We came across a local market selling all sorts of fresh fruits and veggies and we bought all sorts of strange new and exciting tropical fruits to take home and eat for desert at the hostel. We then biked home, but stopping to take pictures the whole way because the whole town is one big postcard, every where you look is picture perfect. Once we got back we all scattered taking care of various things…like buying bus tickets, eating and getting cheap massages. Well I got the best 3 dollar massage I have ever gotten and then Kelly, Dave, and I met up for dinner and some shopping at the night market. We then returned to the hostel to share some fresh fruit and then off to bed before the hotel manager yelled at us for disobeying curfew.
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