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Published: January 19th 2008
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Slow Boat Docks
Ross eyes up the Slow Boats with growing concern Right then, onto Laos. We headed out of Chiang Mai on a fully loaded minivan heading for the Thailand/Laos border at Chiang Kong. Normally I wouldn't have mentioned such a mundane event but we had the strangest fellow on the van I've ever come across (well nearly, I am traveling with Ross... ho ho!). He was clearly of Thai origin but he spoke with the
worst cockney style accent I've ever heard in real life; imagine Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins and you'll pretty much be there - he even uttered the phrase "cor blimey!"after he sneezed at one point, pure brilliance. Anyhoo, bit of a prattle there so I'd best move on... We got to the border at Chiang Kong and quickly realized there was very little to do, we had an early boat across the river into Laos in the morning so we decided to get a seldom occurring early night. The following day we headed across the river and into Laos where we'd be getting the fabled "slow boat" (basically a kind of long boat with us all crammed on like sardines) down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang, our first official Laos destination. As the boat
was sooo slow it took two days to get to Luang Prabang so we had a nights stay in a little town up river - not much to report really except that I had the best pancake I've ever had. The second day took us through some really nice scenery along the Mekong but other than that it was a bit of a chore quite frankly.
When we finally arrived in Luang Prabang we were pretty jaded from our two day boat stint so we just got to the first guest house we could and crashed out. A couple of days down the line we managed to rouse ourselves enough to head out to some of the waterfalls just outside the town (that’s not to say we actually stayed in bed for two whole days; we just didn't do much - I'm lazy, but I'm not that lazy). The waterfalls had some awesome scenery around them but they were a bit busy for my tastes - damn tourists, they get everywhere... We'd been told that there was a designated pool to swim in somewhere around but we really couldn't find it so we decided to throw caution to the
wind and just swim in one of the pools that didn't have a "no swimming" sign. Needless to say the water was lovely and we didn't get swept over any precipices so it's all good.
After our time in Luang Prabang we set out for Vang Vieng where we'd heard we could mosey down one of the rivers there in big rubber rings - the fact that the river had loads of bars staggered along the banks was just an added bonus you understand, it had nothing to do with our actual decision to do the tubing... So one afternoon we found our way on a Tuk Tuk up the river to begin our 10km drift down the placid River Song. We had a pretty good start; Ross got obliterated on the first set of rapids we got to (no thanks to me careering into the back of him - I haven't laughed so much this entire trip) and then I got taken out on the second set, it was a fantastic beginning. The rest of the ride was somewhat uneventful but it did have one major floor; we'd decided on doing the 10 km trip as opposed to
Ready for anything...
The start of our 10km rubber tubing voyage the 6/4 km one as we (rather foolishly) thought we could easily do it in a few hours before it got dark. Traveling at less than 2 km an hour.... In a rubber tube…. Stopping at bars along the way….. What great thinking boys! Needles to say it got dark (and freezing) when we were about 7km or so in and we ended up getting a Tuk Tuk back with some hammered Auzzie blokes. Ho Hum, another successful journey! Other than the tubing there wasn't really that much to do around Vang Vieng so we stayed for a few days chilling out (we did a hell of a lot of this in Laos) before heading down to the capital Vientiane. This was just a brief stop for us though as we were eager to get to Saigon in Vietnam for Christmas. We took several looong buses through Laos (and Vietnam) after that but didn't quite make it to Saigon for Christmas, not because we couldn't but because we found somewhere better. But I'll leave that for Ross to elaborate on. Sainara.
Best Wishes,
Sean
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