Blogs from Pakbeng, West, Laos, Asia
November 3rd 2011
Finally seated on the boat in some ripped out commuter bus seats, nailed into the floor, we were on our way down the Makoun River heading for Luang Prabeng. This was called the slow boat trip, which is generally thought of one of the best adventures South East Asia has to offer. Brushing the quality of boat/seats aside you could see instantly why this is so popular with great views of wildlife, the surrounding villages at the waters edge & huge mountains. Our first stop was Pakbeng where I had heard that the village is run on a generator after 11pm, so all lights will suddenly go out for a split second at this time. I had also heard that the village was patrolled by people with machines guns, these people being young children...crazy!? Needless to ... read more
October 28th 2011
Getting back into Thailand I wanted to take the spectacular boat trip up the Mekong river. Two days to Huay Xai with a stopover in Pak Beng for the night. After buying my ticket from the boat ticket desk (all of the tour operators were charging commission) I quickly stopped by the morning market to buy some snacks for the journey. The boat is literally someones house boat, but it is very long with wooden benches and tables in the middle of the boat with open side's so you can take in the amazing view and at the front of the boat there are some, more comfortable chairs. They give you cushions to sit on but your bum definitely goes numb sitting on a wooden bench for two long days straight. We left Luang Prabang at ... read more
June 10th 2011
Up extra early to get our ticket, the price you pay for taking it easy and not planning or booking tickets in advance, ha to that. Got our tickets and nervously walked the narrow wooden plank to get onto the boat and took our car seats, weird. Strangely comfortable car seats all in rows of two, not bad considering we saw people buy cushions for the 9 hour journey of day one slow boat style. I was really looking forward to this, one of the main reasons I wanted to come to Laos was to do this. And as we set off on our journey I could see why. After a few minutes down the Mekong we were surrounded by mountains, secluded beaches and small fishing boats. We were the only boat for the majority of ... read more
April 29th 2011
Up for breakfast and back on the boat for the day! I spent a lot of my time sitting on the front of the boat taking in the scenery! It was overcast all morning but it got sunny in the afternoon. Most people played cards all day on the boat. Ate another full lunch and I tried everything (which I later regretted). Had a stop at a Cave that was cut out of a limestone cliff. Walked up the stairs to the cave and inside there were a bunch of Buddhist statues. It was so hot in this cave with no air movement so I found it hard to enjoy this as I thought I was gonna pass out. I quickly went back down the stairs and onto the boat where I thought for a second ... read more
March 22nd 2011
Tuesday 1st February 2011 In the morning we were rudely awaken by loud and ferocious knocking on our door shouting 10 minutes till we leave for breakfast... we were a little perplexed as we’d barely had 5 hours sleep and had been informed when we booked that the guest house was opposite the boarder so it shouldn’t matter to them what time we got up. We got taken (all 12 of us with our bags) on the back of a pick-up truck down the road to another hotel for a very basic breakfast, and then told we would have to wait until 10am to go to the boarder which was still miles away... unwilling to wait for 3 hours, we insisted they take us immediately as we had not paid this companies extortionate fee to get ... read more
February 17th 2011
Here we are in Laos...I've been living in Asia for nearly 15 years, and nver made it to Laos, so this is a first for our little family. But much more important, Mari just published the pictures of Tiffany visit to Bangkok. You will need to clik on her page to find the story and the pics....that was indeed a fabulous week! Back to Laos...we crossed the border in Chiang Khong. Easy passport control on the Thai side. From there, you take your longtail, and five minutes later you land on the other side of the Mekong in Laos. And yes, immigration formalities here are pure chaos. One window...actually two...but there is not one line here, there are easily 100 people trying to get at the same time their visa. Depending of nationality, it will basically ... read more
January 6th 2011
It was an early start as we were heading to cross the Thai/Laos border by boat. As some of our group was hung over and Dean has started to get lazy and doesn’t want to become the bad guy, I definitely started to take it upon myself to start pushing people in the right direction. One person forgot to get stamped out of Thailand upon arrival on the Laos side. We still don’t know what he was doing for 30 minutes while everyone was waiting on line. He smiled and thought it was funny to go back to the other side of the river – I told everyone he had the shits. Anyhow, this was a pretty smooth process considering we have a few Forrest Gump types on our trip who like to drink a ton ... read more
November 18th 2010
Today started super early as we had a lot to do. We had some breakfast and we were ready for the bus at 6:45am; not everyone else was though, much to the displeasure of others, some of the group was still fast asleep as they had not got in until about 5:00am. Finally we were underway though, just after 7:10am. Today we were crossing the border from Thailand to Laos. The drive to the border was short, only about 2hours; most of which everyone slept. On reaching the border we had to take our passports to get stamped to say that we left Thailand then we had to get in little boats, cross the river and get off on the other side in Laos. Once on the other side we had to get our visas; for ... read more
14th October: This Way to Laos (Anyone for Cricket?)
Published: October 27th 2010Asia » Laos » West » Pakbeng
October 14th 2010
We set out early, Molly keeping us in order like a mother duck, to get a jump start on the backpackers and tour groups that would be queuing at the border. Once we'd completed the departure paperwork, it' was down to the waters edge to grab a long boat, across the river to Huay Xai. This bustling riverside border town was once an important link in opium trafficking through the golden Triangle. Here we met our local guide Tui, picked up our Visa's for Laos and exchanged money to Lao Kip, Then we headed back down to the river to catch a slow boat to Luang Prabang...a two day trip down the Mekong. The slow boat is one of the more popular ways among travelers to get to Luang Prabang, although it can be done in ... read more
April 28th 2010
We woke up bright and early to get to the bus station and book our tickets to the Laos border as we were advised. Had brekkie at the hostel and the owner a really nice guy even drove us. We arrived before 7:30am and joined a bigger than expected cue at the Thailand Green Bus company to buy our tickets. When we eventually got to the counter....disaster again struck! The 8:30am bus had completely sold out! We were left with no choice really but to get tickets for the 1pm bus or stay another night in Chiang Mia. So reluctantly we bought the tickets and faced a 5 hour wait in the station. We were both pretty cheesed off and spent the first hour barely talking to one another. After a little exploring we found an ... read more
