Pai (Thailand) to Luang Prabang (Laos) by road and the slow boat

Putting our luggage on the tuk tuk to go to the boat office

Funny sign in a shop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I thought that travelling in Bolivia by bus was a bit of an adventure but I hadn’t reckoned on the roads in northern Thailand and Laos!  Our adventure to Laos started with the 8pm mini-bus from Pai that basically took us almost back to Chiang Mai (where we’d been before Pai) via the road with a million curves up and down mountains.  Even in an AC min-van it was impossible to sleep as our driver drove Michael Schumacher style around each corner (I was sat behind him and I saw him physically lean into every bend!).  We had a couple of toilet/snack stops at some 7/11 in the middle of nowhere before finally arriving at the guest house in Chiang Khong at 3.30am (instead of 2am).  The thought of having to get up again at 7am was not appealing but we needed to do that to cross the border to Laos and catch the slow boat to Luang Prabang.

Slow boat - day 1

We’d booked the bus and boat separately, rather than booking a bus and boat package from Pai.  Turned out this didn’t actually save us any money as planned and worked out exactly the same cost, oh well.  After exiting Thai immigration we crossed the river (which I guess is the Mekong?) to Laos immigration.  We filled in a couple of forms, attached a passport photo, paid our US$35 and had our Laos visas within 15 minutes (a proper full-page sticker visa, not just a stamp).  Then there was lots of hanging around for the boat to leave.  This gave us time to buy sandwiches (for some reason they sell baguette style sandwiches everywhere in Laos – probably for tourists but also a lasting influence from French colonial times) and marvel at the snake whisky on sale – yes, bottle os whisky with a snake and some herbs inside which is supposed to make men strong (whatever??!!).

Of course the boat didn’t actually leave at 10.30 and I think we actually got on our way about 12.30 but not before the boat was overloaded with tourists and local people.  We were all supposed to have allocated seats but this turned out to be a bit of a joke as people who paid the same as us for a seat ended up in the back engine room with one small window, sat on top of their bags and whatever else.  As you might imagine, these were the people who got off the boat after two days saying it was the worst two days of their lives.  We were lucky enough to bag a car seat each (yes, they literally had pairs of car seat placed in rows down each side of the boat that were not even fixed in) and our big bags were stowed in the hull of the boat.

Village by the river

The trip down the Mekong River was pretty amazing, even with all the smog you could make out the hills and mountains as we passed by.  We also passed by lots of small villages and picked up people and their luggage (including their motorbikes) and saw people going about their daily lives in and along the river – washing, fishing, sifting stuff (still don’t know what) and zipping up and down in little motorized boats.  It was obvious that people lived a subsistence life and the villages we passed looked pretty basic in terms of housing and facilities.

 

 

 

 

So how did we pass two days on the boat?  Well it was a combination of sleeping, watching the scenery, eating snacks, drinking beer, chatting with fellow passengers, braiding each others hair (apart from mine), making hemp bracelets and hair wraps (yes, I’ve become a handicraft hippie), taking silly photos, reading, listening to music and generally watching the world go by.

Beautiful sunset - day 1

The boat stopped for the night in Pakbeng where we were enthusiastically greeted by the guest house touts.  We accepted a lift on the back of a truck to one guest house and after a quick look around, agreed to take two twin rooms for 100 baht pp/pn, after all we were only here for one night.  After a delicious Indian meal (although Rebecca was a bit taken aback by the fact her curry had banana in it) we crashed early after not getting much sleep the night before.

Everyone learnt their lesson from the first day and got to the boat much earlier than the 9am departure time to grab a decent seat.  I felt sorry for the guy who’s girlfriend had slept in because they got their late and had to sit in the engine room again for the whole day (the second day is longer with a journey time of about 9 hours).  We got the last seats at the back of the open part of the boat, next to the toilets, engine and snack bar (selling crisps and beer).  I was very glad to have my ear plugs!

We passed another day much the same as the last and with more stunning scenery.  It was made slightly more eventful though when the boat started to leak (or something) and the boat lady (she seemed to be in charge) ran up to the boat driver and we had to turn of the engine and float to the shore and wait a bit.  With the water levels so low at this time of year it was easy to see how the boat could get damaged scraping on the rocks of the river.  Becky said they fixed the problem with a rag and a couple of knives and we were soon on our way again.

Enjoying the best things in life - Beer Laos and seaweed flavoured crisps

We were very grateful to eventually get off the boat in Luang Prabang.  Again we were greeted by a bunch of guest house touts and by luck more than anything we ended up in a nice little guest house about 15 minutes walk to the night market in a nice and quiet part of town.  Obviously we were lucky with our experience because we heard so many bad stories about the boat and the people who paid the same as us and had to sit in the engine room obviously got a bad deal.  That said, it was a great adventure and a wonderful way to reach a new country where the local beer (Beer Laos) is better and cheaper than Chang beer in Thailand.

Anoushka braiding Rebecca's hair

Snake whisky

Maria (with new hair braid), Ivan (from Argentine who we met at Laos immigration) and Anoushka

Beautiful sunset - day 2