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Published: February 18th 2008
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What an experience waking up next to the Mekong River
We were still on Thai soil, however, across the river was Laos Hello!!
So we've done a bit of travelling since we last updated, but we wanted to pack a lot in before we uplaoded some more info, so here goes...
WE left Chiang Mai on Weds the 6th February, once being picked up by a cockney speaking Thai guy, we endured a typical 'Thai Style' journey to the boarder of Thailand. It seems that in this part of the world, you dirve as fast as you can, and hope to Buddha that no one gets in your way! Thankfully, we were sat at the front so we didnt have to experience the lumps and bumps those at the back of the mini bus did!
Having arrived at the Boarder town, Chaing Khong whilst it was still daylight, we were lucky enough to see our first sun set over the Mekong River- wow. We threw our bags in our room, and rushed out the door to our dinnner at 7pm. Whilst Dan tried to lock the door, he noticed there were 3 nails holding the lock back. which he then proceeded to pull out with his very snazzy and handy leatherman. (Thanks mum and dad). This lock worked a little
Sunrise
Watching the sun move up and down was turning into a hobby!! too well and it soon became apparent that the nails were there for a reason, as the key wouldn't open the door... After the landlord broke into our room through the window, he advised us to use the padlock that was there in future. After this we sheepishly went to what ever was left on the dinning table (not much)!! Curosity killed the cat.
Anyway, after waking up to what can only be described as a spectacular sun rise over the Mekong River, we had to make our way to immigration to start our epic 14 hour journey to Luang Pra Bang in Laos. Immigration into Laos was an interesting experience. We handed our passports over the previous night to get the visa sorted, so we literally had the go and track them down in immigration. The officials were 'waving' peoples passports and if you were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of your own you wouldnt have to stampede through the crowd, as we did, well Molly did, Dan got eggy and had to stand on the side.
We were lucky enough to be on quite a spacious slow boat, as we refused to get on a
Sunrise
We had to wake up early to start our epic 2 day long journey down this monster of a river. We ate scrambled egg looking over this for a good half an hour as the sun rose over crowded one. This was a memorable experience, the scenery really was amazing. The current was unusally stong and it looked like small whirl pools were in the water. Thankfully we were surrounded by a real nice group of people which made the whole expereince a lot more enjoyable and worthwhile. We did 7 hours on the boat, had a stop over, then 9 hours the follwing day to Luang Pra Bang.
We arrived in Luang Pra Bang at 6:30pm, everyone was racing to get off the boat to find a room as rumour had it all guest houses get full very quickly. Guess who were the unlucky ones!! We must have searched for 3 hours, looking through 30 odd different hotels and guesthouse, blood, sweat and molly's tears!!
We contemplated spending 110 dollars on a fancy room to a night on the street! sweet. We were both very eggy!! Some good fortune came our way when we bumped into a couple we met on the boat, who had a spare bed in there room for an extra 5 dollars on top of there 10 dollar bill. We treated them to dinner, as you can imagine!
Luang Pra Bang turned
'The Boat'
We refused to get on a full boat so we were lucky enough to get on this one and lucky enough to meet loads of nice people to pass our time with out to be wonderful, a beautiful Post French Colonial town with night markets, lovely French restaurants lining the Mekong and a lovely guest house waiting for us the day after our 1st night.
We spent a lot of time with the people we met on the boat and visited the most gorgeous waterfall any of us had ever seen. We managed to swim in the pools at the top of it, there was turquoise water in all the pools and big rocks to jump off. The people were exceptionally friendly, and we tucked into our 20 pound budget nicely. We even managed to hire an ''old school' bike for a quid for the day.
During our time in Luang Pra Bang we booked a flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia which got us there on the 14th Feb. Food poisoning corrupted us yet again, so went we spent Valentines day in our guesthouse along with a fair number of mosquitoes. We're now in an 'expensive' hotel for 15 quid a night.
When we felt better we bought our 3 day pass to the Temples of Angkor. Some of the temples date back to 800 AD. We saw the place
where Tomb Raider was filmed where they have massive trees growing over the ruins. The scale of these temples is very impressive. Yesterday we visted a Land mine museum which showed all the devestation these have bought to Cambodia. It was especially interesting as this is such a current issue today, there are so many poeple with missing limbs!
We also saw Angkor Wat yesterday which was mighty impressive and grand. We're going to see the sun set over it tonight which is meant to be spectacular.
We're both having a really good time, and would reccommend such a journey to any one whose thinking about it.
So we carry on, We go to Vietnam in about 4 days time, after visiting the South of Cambodia. Then we fly to Australia on the 28th Feb. We'll update soon.
Mols and Dan xxxxxxxxxxxx
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