Vatsana Guesthouse Pakbeng

... on board and the alternative was a wooden bench seat.<br><br>As good as his word, when we arrived our names were on two of the best seats on the boat &#8211; we were really pleased! Sitting opposite us were a nice Swiss couple and so we were set up for good company. We were due to leave at about 11am and by 12:15 we were on the way. This was after hordes of more backpackers had arrived and a second boat was filled ...

... behaving like louts sadly the Laos people I met<br>were all very nice and not one tried to do the amazing feat of<br>Robbing/Shooting while Drink Driving that the Thai guide outlined for<br>us, maybe he believed it to be true and to prepare us for our trip<br>into Bandit Land he robbed some of us with his really bad Money<br>exchange rate, gladly I stuck to my rule of never trusting anyone who<br>eyes are to close together and only changed a small amount ...

... got shown around, the lao mong people basically live 80% off the land for their whole lives ! Back on the boat we sunbathed, slept, listen to i-pods, played cards and drank. We arrived in Pakbeng at about 17:30 and went straight to our guest house with no air con and the ELECTRICTY GOES OFF AT 10:00 ! it was a pretty cool experience though as we stayed up drinking by torch light

... from London. We all bought cushions for the slow boat, garishly decorated with puppies and other such animals, as the seating was apparently rather uncomfortable. After far too much waiting around, our passports were returned to us, and a mini bus eventually arrived and took us to the river. We piled into a rather unstable little boat and crossed to the other side, which took all of three minutes. Once there and into Laos, we queued at the immigration desk ...

... off on the sleeper train to Chiang Mai, where we enjoyed a surprisingly good dinner, washed down by some fine Singha beer. After a night of intermittent sleep as the train swung and jolted its way north through Thailand, we arrived at Chiang Mai where Rachel took a cooking class, and therefore had three lunches before midday (damn fine grub though, if I do say so myself) and Mike caught up on some sleep&#8230; <br><br> Leaving the markets ...

... the way." We saw a couple of speeders in action from the banks of Luang Prabang, and the sight of a large number of crouching, huddled tourists, each complete with crash helmet, lead us happily to where the slow boats roam.<br>Furthermore, we'd heard from a fair few people that it's a stunning route, and that if you had time on your side it would be worth taking it slow, so that you might take everything in.<br>We bought our tickets at ...

... they turn the power off for the whole town.<br><br>Day 2 on the boat involved me managing to get a comfy chair, great start. At some point we also managed to organise a poker match at the front of the boat using anything we could find as the chips.<br><br>The river had some amazing scenery, huge cliffs along the banks, small villages dotted among the jungle, kids herding cattle on the mud banks. A very cool journey to make.<br>

... and was asleep soon after.<br><br>The pain now is manageable and a lot of people have been really great, offering to carry bags for me and so on. But it definitely does stop me doing stuff, e.g. on the slow boat I just sat in one area for most of the time and didn't really discuss, for the same reasons as at Julies in Chiang Mai.<br><br>I'm actually wondering if I'm going to be able to meet as many people as I'd hoped because I ...

... Prabang. Buying everything locally also saved me a few hundred Baht, but that's nothing. It also gave me the option of choosing between the fast boat or slow boat and choosing my own food. In the end I had a great group in the minibus and we all stuck together for the few days down the river. I never got a pic of the group, but we were 2 Americans, 3 Ozzie, 2 Irish and a Brit. <br><br>Boat rides down the Mekong are notorious. There are fast boats that are known to be pretty ...