Boat Rides And Multilingual Birds

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My Lonely planet is well and truly packed away, where it will remain until it gets placed on my bookshelf at home. In my bid for freedom I find myself on a boat with 9 other backpackers, 4 of which at any one time during the 7 hour journey can be found reading the f*****g lonely planet.

But Im happy. Im on a boat going up river, and its stunning. At times the water was churned up white by the rocks and trees beneath the surface, and the ride in our rickety and uncomfortable boat was far from either being smooth or reassuring. The journey took longer thanks to a predicatable but comedia breakdown which left one of the two crew bailing out water from the flooded engine while the other held onto a branch to prevent us from being swept away. Then minutes later we had to stop again, this time on a small island in the middle of the river while the same poor guy had to duck behind the boat and cut weed away from the prop. It did thankfully give us a much needed toilet break though.

The scenery we passed through was at worst beautiful. At best I can only describe it as indescribable. Huge cliffs tower above the river, mountains shrowded in mist and mottled with trees hem them in. At the waterline life goes on as it has for centuries. Despite rice cultivation much of laos still works on 'hunter gatherer' type living and as we passed the areas around villages the riverbanks were lined with traps and nets, while small canoes of villages went about hunting in a more proactive manner.

I had lost all feeling in my buttocks by the time the boat finally pulled in to Nong Khiaw, so I was keen to get on my feet and explore. My first impressions of the town were how lovely a setting it had. Huge mountains towered above the town on each side, and with most structures quite shabbily built it had quite a 'frontier' feel to it. There were quite a few tourists, and a lot of guesthouses, but for some reason it didnt feel touristy.

I went to eat at a pretty basic place which served 'any curry, but only pork' and 'any rice, but only sticky'. So pork curry and sticky rice it was.... and I was kept company by a bird which apparantly spoke vietnamese. Among shouts of "Gi Oi" and "Em Oi" it also did a perfect impression of that very discusting S.E.A habit of the throaty, graty, phlegmy thing. Nice!

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