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Monday 15th October - Huay Xai & Pak Beng - Laos
Sabaidee! After being identified by our green stickers upon our arrival in Laos (pronounced like the 'lou' bit in woodlouse, silent 's'), we were whisked through immigration to collect more pretty passport stamps, and sent to wait in a concrete bunker-like travel agents for further instructions. From there, we were herded onto a jumbo (like a pickup truck with a higher roof on the back and wooden benches down each side), and dropped off at a shop to pick up snacks and change some money, as Laos currency can't be bought outside the country.
Armed with 50,000 less kip (about two pounds fifty), than intended after being short-changed in the shop without realising, we set out on the next part of our journey - a two day slow boat to Luamprabang down the Mekong River.
I'd fallen for the 'the boat has really uncomfortable wooden seats' story and had purchased a 40 baht cushion for the journey, and we both stocked up on water and crisps, already in possession of Mr Sayan's wife's salad baguettes which were part of the deal with the boat tickets.
We headed for boat number 75, and managed to get one of the last pairs of 'comfy' seats - there were wooden benches, but we got there early enough to avoid them - and waited. And waited. About half an hour after the boat was supposed to have left and appeared to be full, yet people were still squeezing on... a group of about 20 tourists attempted a mini-protest and demanded another boat, as advised by the guidebooks, but the captain gave the option of either taking or leaving it; since leaving it would have meant paying for another night and another ticket, the boat eventually launched, groaningly full.
Not that we're quite ready for the pipe and slippers yet, but a group of about ten english girls and canadian blokes spent the whole seven hours getting drunk and singing and shouting loudly at the back of the boat - this made it near impossible to sleep or concentrate on a book, so whilst we enjoyed the amazing Mekong views and took it in turns to listen to the ipod on loud, we arrived in Pak Beng for our stopover a bit frazzled.
Our first task on arriving was for me to leg it up a steep sandy hill to retrieve Dave's bag which had wandered off on the back of a random person, and for Dave to bravely enter the lions den of the back of the boat to hunt for my bag in the melee. After batting off several bag-boys and guest house touts, we decided on where to stay and lugged our rucsacs up the rest of the hill - although we were kept entertained by one of the drunk english girls sobbing after losing her backpack, then groaning when she had to pay $4 to retrieve it from an enthusiastic bagboy.
The guesthouse proprietor gave us a crash course in Lao, invited us to his baby's christening party the next day, offered us 'something special to smoke', and then charged us 150 baht for the room - just over two pounds. All seemed well, until sobbing english girl was dragged up the stairs and dumped unceremoniously into the room next door to join her delighted friend by two patient bagboys... then the electrics for the whole town went off at 9.15pm, and we discovered that there was no water in the sink, shower or toilet, but it was too late to change guesthouses.
Having resigned ourselves to an unwashed, sweltering night, we decided to try to get some sleep - and of course we were thrilled to be woken at midnight by our previously sobbing and still drunk english neighbour, shouting loudly about her intentions with one of the locals she'd met that evening and telling her friend not to wait up... minor acts of violence crossed our minds.
Back on the boat the next morning, except this one was full of tiny wooden benches... making me pretty smug with my up until now useless cushion. We squeezed in, with much amusement at the small trail of hungover brits and canadians who dragged themselves onto the boat to join us, although this time much subdued. The very full boat was listing disturbingly to the right, but the mutual concensus was to pretend that it wasn't happening....
We met up with Caroline and Fleming again on the boat, a couple we met at the Bamboo Guesthouse in Chiang Kong, and decided to travel with them for a couple of weeks; Caroline is my age, from Newcastle, and has been travelling for 4 years. Fleming is Danish, and has sold up his business to move to Australia, so they're seeing the sights of South East Asia before heading to Oz to see what happens.
Eight hours down the Mekong later, we arrived in Luamprabang...
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