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
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