Slow boats, gangsters and randomness

We leave Chang Mai to head to the Laos border but all buses are fully booked so we end up getting a 6 hour Taxi to the border with Sarah, Susie and Laura. We have our furst nice surprise - only 5 baht to leave Thailand!! So its pastures new and we're looking forward to our first beer lao (bout 20p for a pint bottle - legendary stuff).

The slow boat from the border takes 2 days to get to Luang Prabang. As soon as the boat fills - probably 3 times too many people, with water lapping round the hull - we're off and a wee kid is pushing the beers on everyone. Half the boat is Irish. 6 hours later and a load of beer, we land in Pak Beng, a stop over for the boat. As soon as we are off the boat we're asked "Room Sir, weed sir, opium sir" Absolutely crazy. It feels pretty intimidating, especially when the guys come into your room in the guest houses to ask you!!

Back on the boat the next morning and hardly anyone is taking a beer, 9 hours on the boat today!! We get to Luang Prabang and get a guest house with Paddy (obviously Irish), Blair (Kiwi dude) and 2 South African/Dutch/German "yeti's" - lovely girls actually. $1.50 a night ain't bad. We head off to investigate town and we keep bumping in to people from the boat so we get a train going and all land in a beer garden. Laos law states that these places should be closed by midnight but there's too many there spending too much money to close. We've a 12 curfew so its an early night for us - except for Blair who stumbes in to everything in the room bout 3.

Its the 12th - we all don our Northern Ireland tops and keep an eye out for some monks marchin so we can join the procession....No joy so we go off to some waterfall 30Km out side of town. As we pass locals they all wave so we wave back. We pass the army (we think - its bandit country) all with rifles and one guy with a bazooka, all waving and smiling (thank god, but i wish the bozooka wasn't pointing our way!!).

Representing on the 12th

The waterfalls are class, theres a few pools you can swim in, a rope swing and wee cliffs to jump off so we mess about there for a while. The randomness kicks in. There's a guy from Edinburgh there I know his face. 10 mins of to-ing and fro-ing I realise he was on my brother n law's stag do and he shared a flat with him at Uni. Crazy crazy. We head back to the same beer garden and at closing everyone heads on to the Vietnam bar - a total underground bar you need to knock the door a few times to get in. It stays open til the last people leave (definitely illegal in Laos).

We're all pretty hung over so not much happens today. We just wander about town and watch the sunset up a hill overlooking the area. Dinner was interesting. Me and Paddy order "Meat Paradise of Luang Prabang", supposedly 5 different meats and what turns up is a plate of hot beef jerky. Blair orders steak and is sure its dog steak!! We're heading off tomorrow so we just have a quiet one.

---

---