Moving on

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We moved on. Two days on a slow boat with an overnight stay at Pak Beng. Slow boats are mean inventions. They are not only slow, they leave hours later than scheduled and are filled up to the last square centimetre, but have only about a quarter of a normal seat made out of bare wood to sit on. These self-made benches are not fixed to the ground and are uncomfortable as hell!
We had been convinced to spend 100 Baht on cushions, which was definitely the best investment of our entire trip!
Speaking of such, the opposite is true for our choice of accommodation at Pak Beng. We paid more than ten times as much compared to other places we stayed at and never felt so uncomfortable. The setting was nice, but we were surrounded by old-old package tourists enjoying a cigar after a well served dinner.
Too much for me, especially if see that decadence in a Lao context. (“I know that country…they are like Thais who eat rice with their hands” we had posh purple sticky rice, including an introduction to how and what locals eat…)
I was scared, my Mum could get used to this standard of “travelling” and would miss the beauty of Lao, but all she wanted was to get away ASAP. She even felt assaulted when a tour guide, mistaking us for people of his group, asked if we wanted to see the local market in the morning!
All she wanted was to get back onto the boat packed with young backpackers!
And that’s what she got and more... About ten minutes before we reached Luang Prabang, we dropped off a few people and got stuck in the river bench. Spates were presented and the felang passengers (not us though) helped to dig us out. Task fulfilled under encouraging words and backwards we went, just to get stuck in shallow water! This time it was villagers working on their fields who walked towards our boat to push (the water up to her waistkeep in mind that I am taller than an average Lao!).
It didn’t work and they had to evacuate to get rid off the weight of a hundred “fat” felangs. I thought it was hilarious, but my Mum didn’t. She kept telling me she wasn’t getting into the boats provided by locals, which leaked threateningly.
In the end she didn’t had to and we arrived LP after sunset.

We spend beautiful days in LP. We went up “Pussy” Mountain, visited several Wats and did A LOT of the obligatory shopping in the night market and beyond.

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