The Slowboat of Fun

I'm so glad I decided to take the slowboat to Laos, it was an experience I wouldn't have wanted to miss.

The actual border crossing itself was quite stressful, you took a longtail ferry across the Meh Kong river where you picked up your passport (which had been removed from us the day before..much to our angst) and visa. Then we got a tuk tuk to the slowboat pier where we were installed in a shop and told that we should book a room through them, stock up on food as there would be none on the boat(lie) and that we should change money with them as they don't take baht or US dollars in Laos (double lie).

This was all so stressful that we had to have a beerlao at 10am.....and we didn't stop until about 3pm by which time we had practically drunk to boat dry, and by 3:30 we were snoozing like babies.


Overnight in Pak Beng was ok, you could fit the entire town onto the palm of one hand (exaggeration?). I shared a room with Katrin, the shower was a very poor show in the evening and the next morning there was barely any water at all. Lovely view of the river though.

The next day started out looking like it would be horrible. It was a different boat and the seats weren't good so we headed to the back and snagged an area where we could sit on the floor. It turned out to be the best thing we could do. A Lao family (brother, 3 sisters, mum and elderly uncle) were sat opposite us, and a little way into the journey they started sharing out the big bottles of beerlao they'd brought with them. So we subsequently started buying from the bar to replace what they'd shared with us and everyone got quite drunk. They were great and spoke a little english, we spoke almost no Lao, and it all disintegrated into screams of 'BEERLAO!!!' by the end.

A really old dude got on halfway through the trip and was loving the fact that he was being bought beer and snacks by all the drunken falang (caucasians). He spoke no english whatsoever.

All in all a most excellent journey, one of the highlights by far so far! I might be able to get some pics up for you later once I locate a card reader, I'm so buying one once I get to Hanoi!

What I'll remember most about Chiang Khong: Drinks in a bar by the Meh Kong

What I'll remember most about Pak Beng: Bedbugs and good indian food.