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Anyone travelling through Thailand and Laos should take the Slow Boat down the Mekong River, no doubt about it. This is definately not a trip to be missed! It is one of my highest highlights in Laos, not just for the incredible views of the mountainous shores that surround you, but also for the amazingly social nature of a journey that takes two days and has at least another 60 passengers, backpackers, locals and otherwise. It is a great opportunity to meet like-minded people, drinking, playing games and soaking up the scenery. What more do you need! (apart from more time, maybe?)
There were so many of us taking the trip that day they had to use two boats, so we got split from a few people we had met but this suited us fine. The trip started out fairly boring, as we arrived quite late there were no seats together so the four of us (Naomi and I, Jack and Jim) were split up and sat next to randomers. My randomers turned out to be the most fun, three girls from Australia called Cilla, Tara and Michelle. After an hour or so everyone on the boat seemed to loosen up a bit and left their seats, sitting up on the boats' edge to get a better view or just walking up and down the long boat chatting. It was very sunny and lovely and lots of people with SLRs were taking pictures of the landscape, whilst Cilla and I had our cameras out looking through eachothers holiday pics so far, when disaster struck...
I had forgotten my camera was in my lap, and when I moved it fell onto the floor with a massive THUD. And literally, the whole boat went silent (ok at least the 20 seats surrounding me) and everyone was looking at me with horrified faces. The SLR users looked like they were about to cry. So I picked it up to check out the damage, and found luckily it was only the UV filter on the front of the lens which was cracked, easily fixable! People were still staring silently at me which was making me uneasy, so all I could do was laugh and say "Don't worry everyone! I have insurance!" That seemed to satisfy the majority, although it took a while for the general noise to pick up again. It was a massive shame I couldn't get any decent pictures of the journey, it was so glorious, but I was thankful that I hadn't completely f***ed my camera :)
At random points along the way the boat would stop at the shore briefly for some unexplained reason, and it was at one of these stops that we encountered the other boat that had caught up with us. The other boat was full of Irish guys drinking BeerLao and being loutish, and this made the other boat The Party Boat. Being moored next to it was an amusing contrast to say the least. They looked like they were on some bizarre 18-30's holiday (copyright Jim). They would shout and jeer at us and call us boring, but we had travel chess and we didn't care! Jokes, though. Now there were some crazy frechmen on our boat who decided our boat was s*** and they wanted to be on The Party Boat instead. So after maybe too much deliberation they decided to get their backpacks and try and jump the gap between the boats, while everyone else looked on in stunned disbelief. The people on The Party Boat were going mental, cheering them on, it was so funny. But oh no! The boat started to pull away from the shore, and the gap was getting wider! The Crazy Frenchies ran to the front of the boat, where there was still a point of connection, but as one jumped over, the gap became too wide, and the other was left standing on our boat still! There was a number of gasps and "ohhhhs" and "awwws" from both sides as our boat chugged away, dividing the two friends forever......... (but not really because we arrived at the stop-over town a few hours later...) After this encounter with The Party Boat we decided to spice ours up a bit by banging out the Uno.
Arriving at Pakbeng was a little bit scary, as it was already dark and all we could hear from the shore was shouting. Crazed shouting, which in the pitch black we couldn't make out as welcoming or abusive. Very disorientated we found our bags in the huge pile in the engine room and filtered out onto the shore, where we found out all the commotion was people trying to sell their hotel rooms and loads of kids asking to hold our bags while we jump down etc etc. So we were like... nooo thanks haha I think I'll keep hold of it (not that they would have got very far with 8kg of my crap weighing down their tiny bodies... but still)
I don't know about the rest of Pakbeng town, but all we encountered was the river and a very steep hill that led up to one lonely street filled with guesthouses, a couple of shops, some restaurants and a bar. After settling in to our room (there's no bartering here and it's all quite expensive; they have the monopoly as the stop-over point) Naomi and I, Jack, Jim, Cilla, Tara and Michelle, and two Americans Galen and Piper set out to find dinner. We ate at a nice Indian restaurant and got a free bottle of Rice Whiskey afterwards which tasted like paint-stripper. Yumm. Generally very funny night getting to know everyone. It is very easy to get drugs here if you wanted to, everywhere sells "Happy Pancakes" and pizzas, and it's not like it's on the sly, either. When i asked the Lao bar owner where the toilets were, he said "you smoke weed?" before pointing the direction haha.
Later when we were settling down for bed, we heard our door opening and we were like "what the f***!?" thinking it would be a murderer, as you do. Turns out we had left our key in the outside of our door and an Irishman was just warning us so, you know, we wouldn't get any murderers coming in or anything. Makes sense. We let him sleep on our floor when his mates were passed out and didn't open their door... we are such good samaritans us :)
The next morning the Irishman had disappeared, but all our stuff was still there plus we were still alive so it was ok, he wasn't a murderer. After getting a baguette made for the journey we re-boarded the boat at 9am, and everyone was together of course, plus the Crazy Frenchies and their friends. Now we will be The Party Boat! Apart from our boat was different now. The boat we were now on was much narrower, with wooden seats that were all full so Naomi and I ended up on the floor in the middle, getting in everyone's way as they walked up and down the boat. The journey went on like this for an hour or so, everyone rigidly guarding their rigid seats, until people started to loosen up again. We met two more Aussies called Shaun and Tina, who had seen us all at the Indian restaurant and called us the Skins Crew (because we are young and British and I look like one of the twins, apparently?)
We ended up sitting on the floor at the front of the boat with The Frenchies: Alex & Morgan, Marie, Laurenza from Landaan, Cardmaster Felix, Magical Patrick and his Stoned Friend Tony from Finland (loving the nick-names, no?) We all sat in a sort-of circle and played Mafia which sounds ridiculous but it was SO funny. We also found another group at the back of the boat playing a game called Ping Pang Pong which is equally as hilarious. I'm taking these games home with me! By the end of the journey everyone's seats were askew (yes, askew) and everyone was just wandering around having a laugh and chatting with new friends. Very cool atmosphere.
When we arrived at Luang Prabang at sunset it was time to leave the Slow Boat. I didn't want to get off! It was sad to leave because we had such an amazing time and met so many cool people, but we were excited to see Laos for real.
Conclusion: Amazing Experience! I don't know if it would be the same for everyone, obviously its about the people you meet and how much you put yourself out there, but I highly recommend it as one of the best things I've done so far. So many memories. I wish you all could have been there!
Next post Luang Prabang ;)
Lots of love x x x
- comments
SJ I think I just wet myself at this randomer Irishman....lol love you xxx
Sam askew. that is all
Sam it ended my comment really blunty then, i did actually put a few hearts afterwards, i'm not that lameeeee! sounds brilliant anyway :) x