Slow Boating To Luang Prabang

Wednesday, March 23rd (Chiang Khong)

After a full nights sleep we were up early to catch our mini bus (10 seater van) to Chiang Khong just on the Thailand side of the Thai/Laos northern border. We were able to get photocopies of our passport so we could cut the picture out and use it for our visa application… sketchy but it ended up working. I guess that’s all the travel agencies here do when they apply on your behalf… which was good to know and it saved us $30 each. I honestly don’t know how we arrived in one piece, our driver was going as fast as he could the entire time and he was passing going into traffic and they’d just move over to make a 2 lane road into a 3 lane road, seat belts were on tight as we white knuckled our way to Chiang Khong. We arrived pretty early in the day, which was nice, and our pre-booked guesthouse turned out to be nice. It was clearly not making any money off of the bookings as you had to pay for everything else and it was expensive. We ended up running into an older gentleman from Nanaimo who just retired so we shared travel horror stories and split a few last Chang before heading to bed. This may sound weak, but we’ve been in bed before 10 almost every night… but up at 7, defiantly using the new time zone to our advantage to make the most of our holiday. 


-Jason

In the land of 7/11's, Lisa gets her first slurpee. 

Thursday, March 22nd (Pak Beng)

So today our exotic trip on the slow boat begins. It wasn’t exactly what we had expected. We were told yesterday that if we gave our hotel our passport and the visa forms that everything would be done for us before we got to Laos, that sure wasn’t the case of course. They took all of our information for really no reason because once we crossed the river into Laos we were given back everything and nothing had been done with it. Oh well. It was pretty hectic at the border. In one window everyone dropped off their passports and forms with one of the guards, and then waited by the other window for it to be finished processed and stuck up against the glass for you to run and go pay a certain amount for your country. You can imagine when you get around 30 people all waiting for their passports to be processed. It gets a little vicious. Another MAJOR problem was the fact that Jason with his UK passport only had to pay $35, while I with my Canadian passport had to pay the most out of every country, $42. I was less then impressed to say the least. After the whole scandal had cooled down, we were on our way to the slow boat dock on another, extremely cramped minivan. Once there we had the luxury of waiting 2 hours for our departure, after watching a group arrive later then us and leaving before us. The thrills of travelling. We were conned into buying cushions for the boat because we had heard that there were no seats, but we were pleasantly surprised when the boat was equipped with 2 rows of minibus seats. The 7 hours on the boat was not how the travel agent had described “ you can relax outside on the top and go fishing off the back”. Not quite. When we were finally off, we were pretty happy that we had motel hotel reservations before we left. We were greeted by every single hotel rep in the area trying to convince us to come stay at their place and the whole thing was pretty exhausting. After a “traditional” Lao dinner completed by an eccentric waiter, it was an early night for us. Part 2 of our slow boat experience tomorrow.

-Lisa

The dirty dirty MeKong River in low season.

Friday, March 25th (Luang Prabang)

We thought day 1 slow boating was brutal, it had nothing on day 2.  After being scorched the day before we assumed (as well as everyone else)  that it was going to be a hot day again floating down the river. Turns out it was windy and grey out, the river had kicked up just enough to be cruising into a mist. We had been told day 2 was going to be another 6 hours so we would get into Luang Prabang at a decent time in the afternoon… not so. It was just getting dark and a slow boat of a 100 people or so cruised up to be greeted by the frantic mob of local tourist hustlers. Without anything booked we were eager to snap up a good deal. We ended up walking about 30 mins to avoid paying for a tuktuk and to get some exercise. We finally arrived at our guest house which ran us 60,000 kip ($7 total!) for the two of us to get a room with a king bed and a private bathroom… by far the best deal so far. Second place was a local meal in Chiang Mai $3.50 US for two dinners and two drinks including a tip at a local café. Finally here and in a room we headed out for some dinner and a stroll through the night market before heading to bed. We ended up bumping into some friends that were on the trek with us (who we are meeting up with tonight for a drink) and shared horror stories, I guess the bus was a worse option, 22 hours through the night. Laos is by far the best value for money of any of our travels so far. Can of beer or pop $.90, bottle of beer that only comes in 700ml bottles $1.10, street crepe which are amazing $1.10, American Breakfast $3.00 (2 eggs, bagette, sausage, bacon and ham, coffee and OJ), Dinner for two with a drink each $6.

-Jason

The little one went Mekong Crazy

Saturday, March 26th (Luang Prabang)

It’s time for us to explore Luang Prabang. After walking out onto the main street, most of the magic that we had felt in the town last night was lost. We walked the street trying to find the best deal on getting to Vang Vieng tomorrow and then continued to walk down to the end of the street. What we saw were a million temples and guesthouses and cafes. Seems like there is huge French influence here. We made our way to the Mekong River where we were quick to find a guy selling a fishing tour. Exactly what Jason wanted. After waiting around for a bit for it to be organized we headed out on the mini slow-boat. We grabbed a fishing rod from another guy across the river and headed upstream to where it seemed to be the hot spot of fishing. Jason had been at it for about 20 minutes when he reeled it in and to his surprised there was a catfish on the other end. A very mini catfish that was about as big as his hand. After trying for something a little bigger for half an hour, our driver decided to take us to another part to do some net fishing. Jason had to get waist deep in the water in order to do it, but he seemed like a natural because he was getting at least 2 of these little silver fish every time he pulled it up. He even caught another catfish this way. After we had been out on the water for 2 hours, we’d figured it was time to head back onto the land. We had made a compromise that if I had to go fishing, then he had to come with me to get a massage. So next up we found a reasonably priced place (they are everywhere, $6/hr) to get a Traditional Thai massage (in Laos). We had both never gotten a massage before and the women that gave us our massages proved to be extremely strong and very successful in giving us Charlie horses.

-Lisa