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Upon boarding our bus at Chiang Mai our hearts sank and we quickly realised it was not to be the comfy ride we had expected but instead we were to spendthe next 6 hours squished into a severely small space with a Thai man on our left. We are really not exaggerating when we say squished. The seats were obviously designed for Thai people, and small Thai people at that. The width of the seats ensured that never could all 3 of us have our backs against the seat at the same time without rubbing and pushing shoulders. We took turns leaning forward to allow the other two to sit properly. Well, Miriam and I did anway, the Thai guy spread out, stretching his legs across as if we weren't even there. Tres annoying.As well as the seats being below par, the whole bus seemed to be also. The journey was very scenic, curving up, down and around the mountain tops surrounded by low clouds and raining on and off all day. Every time we headed up a decent hill the bus would struggle very slowly up, almost coming to a standstill at times before the driver grinded noisily into a lower gear. We passed the time well by listening to an audiobook of Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone. Aren't we just so cool! We Arrived in the border town of Chiang Khong at about 7pm and were greeted at the bus stop by an entrepreneurial Thai woman who managed to get all the foreigners from the bus to stay at her guesthouse. We opted for a basic and cosy fan room and ordered some disappointing dinner before bed. As we ate breakfast the next morning we looked out at the impressive view from the balcony over the Mekong River towards Laos. A 5 minute ute-back ride later and we were being stamped-out of Thailand and jumping onto a long tail boat for the 30 second ride across to Laos.
The Laos-side border town of Huay Xai was a small and basic town catering mostly to the travellers passing through every day to get the slow boat to Luang Prabang. After buying our Visas and clearing immigration we walked through the slowly increasing rain towards the slow boat landing about 500ms away.The difference you first notice between Thailand and Laos is the abundance of bread available in Laos. We had struggled to find any bread in Thailand, let alone decent bread, yet within 15 minutes of arriving in Laos we had salad and tuna baguettes in hand and were ready to board our boat to Luang Prabang. The journey to Luang Prabang is supposedly safer and possibly quicker by boat rather than the bus, however it involves two long days of 6 hours sailing and an overnight stop in Pak Beng in between.The seats on our backpacker-laden boat were barely more than wooden-fence style planks nailed together and were no more comfortable than they sound attractive. We finished the Harry Potter audio book we started on the previous day's bus ride and spent the next few hours staring out towards the apocalypse-now type jungle and occasional river side villages, naked children and all. Friday night was spent in Pak Beng, a small village surround by mountains, the Mekong River and abundant low-lying cloud. We followed Lonely Planet's advice and had dinner at a small Indian restaurant overlooking the river but were once again let down! The food was both expensive AND plain, no "great vindaloos and naan" there!
Jumped on the boat again the next morning, loaded up with several tasty baguettes, and dreamily sat through another 6 hours of wilderness before finally arriving in Luang Prabang at 5pm.
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