Choppy waters

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The next day we rose early to get some food and a place on the boat. The ‘first class’ comfy seats were all taken when we arrived, but following some quick thinking by Sammy we got some reclining wooden chairs on the raised section near the front of the boat. This would turn out to be a fortuitous move in more ways than one. Despite the journey being slightly longer this leg of the trip was much more enjoyable. The seats were very comfortable, the boat was less crowded and it had lost some of the annoying characters. We continued east along the Mekong, passing numerous Lao villages were the boat would swing in to the shore to pick up or set down local people. I spent most of the journey people or scenery watching, occasionally dipping into a book or puzzle. Sammy, meanwhile, had hidden herself under a sarong (a) to keep warm (!) and (b) so she could see the screen of her laptop which she was using to watch a film.

It was a different crew to the previous day, seemingly a family with the dad captaining the boat for the more difficult bits while the older son would take over for routine sections and the youngest son (who couldn’t have been more than 10) piloting the safest sections. The mother and daughter ran the small café (for want of a better word) at the back of the cabin. At first this seemed like quite a nice arrangement, but after a while I began to wonder at their piloting skills after they kept bumping their boat against rocks or other boats when pulling up to the shore. Soon everyone (except Sammy) began to wonder. We were passing through a narrow stretch when another boat came up from the other direction at speed. Its bow waves crashed against the rocks and bounced back just as we went through. I noticed a particularly large wave heading our way and shut my book, expecting to get a bit of spray. Sure enough I got a few drops of water, but the people sitting lower down in the comfy seats got several bucket loads. Fortunately most of them found it funny and had spare clothes to change into. I felt quite smug about our seating arrangements at this point! Sammy surfaced from her hidey hole about half an hour later to ask me why everyone was standing up, completely oblivious to the whole episode.

We arrived in Luang Prabang late afternoon, hoping to get into one of the hostels listed in the Lonely Planet. What we found, instead, was that the prices listed were completely wrong and that nearly all the hostels bumped their prices up in the afternoon when competition for rooms became more intense. A helpful Australian family explained all this to us, perhaps taking pity on the poor flustered backpackers lugging their bags around. They made some suggestions and the son imparted some useful information to Sammy should she want to attend a rave in Australia later in the year...
Sammy then spent half an hour checking out various places (while I bravely guarded the bags) and we eventually found somewhere cheap, if not ideal, quite close to the main road. After checking in we visited the night market and found a restaurant for dinner before returning to consider the next week’s activities and plan.

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