First up, we were to leave Pai Saturday evening on a 5 hour bus ride to the Thai/Laos border. Fine. Only the bus ended up being a 7 1/2 hour journey. At one point it seemed the bus driver had went the wrong way but someone later mentioned to me that he was showing another bus driver his new house...Ok... He was also a fan of stepping on and off the accelerator giving us a nice new dose of motion sickness even on the smooth roads.
We arrived at 2 in the morning and had to be up by 7 for breakfast, after which we were herded into the back of a pick up truck to be taken to Thai immigration offices. Of course, me and Lorna didn't have our departure cards from when we arrived in Phuket two weeks ago. Panic. Our 'hostess' person told us to fold 100baht into our passports when handing them in and hopefully we'd be fine. We were examined carefully but we got through. (By the way, Lorna, I saw a sign saying we could face two years in jail for not having all our documents. I kept that quiet.)
Loaded up again into little boats on the Mekong river we were taken across the water to Laos border control. We filled out our visa application and our arrival/departure cards. Three separate forms requiring the exact same information. Efficiency at its best. We handed our three forms, passport and picture to the man dressed as a hobo outside the office and waited for our names to be called. Exhausted from the night before, this was a big breaking point for us both. Lorna went off to find a quiet corner while I stood directly in front of the window like a psycho. We had each 35 US dollars on us exactly (a pre-meditated currency conversion strategic decision) the amount quoted EVERYWHERE to pay for our visa. Imagine our frustration being told that we couldn't get our visa unless we paid the full 36USD. Sure enough there was a minuscule sign way at the back saying an extra dollar charge applies on Saturdays and Sundays. We managed to scrape together two extra dollars leaving us with no cash on hand at all. (By the way, when I say hobo, I don't mean it in a horrible way. It's just that the people inside the Laos visa office were very smart looking in uniforms and the guy outside was wearing a shiny Adidas track suit circa 1992.)
And so we were herded up again and taken to the slow boat. Our passports were taken for the third time so we could be 're-issued' with new tickets. I'm still confused about that. Meanwhile we got a speech from our 'tour guide' to say that the town we would stay in had no ATMs, no electricity after 10pm, no wifi but there was also only one hotel there and he could offer us a great rate. I didn't hang around for his sales pitch and went in search of an ATM. No use though since the one ATM I found would only take visa (which I don't have). Lorna managed to get about 15Euro out. We bought a small sandwich to share and vowed to sleep outside before we'd book a night in yer mans hotel.
6 amazing hours later we reached our little Mekong town, Pak Beng, for the night and lo and behold there was a string of guest house owners lining the dock offering rooms for a third of the price of yer mans hotel, with wifi, hot showers and electricity after 10pm. Score. But before we could get a lift to the guesthouse in yet another pick-up we had to form a human chain down the length of the long boat to get everyone's bag off. I thought this was a nice 'we are all in this together' moment. Actually, the best moment came when we realized there were two ATMs in the town and we would be able to eat that night after all. High five!
I slept like a baby. Although I should point out that a side effect of my malaria tablets is to have very vivid dreams, verging on nightmares and truthfully I was a bit exhausted at having to chase Leonardo Di Caprio for a work project and entertain him AND his 3 unicorns at my parents house for a weekend. Or it could be down to the fact I (along with a dozen others) took a shot of 'Lao Whiskey' from an obscenely drunk waiter in a restaurant where half the slow boat ate themselves sick. One or the other.
And so the second day of the slow boat was spent looking at the scenery, reading a bit of James Joyce (my new thing) and sipping slowly on a beer hoping I wouldn't have to use the toilets down the rear of the boat. I wasn't able to sit beside Lorna the whole trip and while I was next to the smallest Laotian man on record he took up 80% of the seat (seat being loosely defined here).
The above is just a summary of how we journied into Laos. The reason we did it was for the view. It was truly out of this world. The Mekong region is a special place and the lifeline of the Laotian people. The length of the river to Luang Prabang is dotted with small villages, traditional fishermen, craggy rocks, farm animals getting a drink and the occasional naked child taking a dip. A different world than we are used to. My pictures don't do it justice I'm afraid and while I know I sound moany above I would recommend to anyone to take the slow boat into Laos.
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