Villa Salika Pakbeng

... Altogether there was about 120 people doing this journey and 80% were backpackers all of ages, shapes and sizes! <br> <br>The river was fast flowing and mostly wide but there were big rock islands and rapids interspersed along the way. The skill of the captain was to steer us between these rocks and not get us grounded &#8211; which he did expertly. The scenery was fantastic as we past jungle with occasional small ...

<br>Slow<br>Boat<br>Early the next day the bus took us to Chiang Khong after a long<br>ride I was glad for a stop over at the Guest house, some people<br>headed straight for the Laos border which was just over the River,<br>but most of us chilled out in the one horse town that is Chiang<br>Khong, so it was early to bed and while I got a good nights sleep<br>some of the people on the other side of the hut complex were kept<br>awake for most of the night but ...

... the typically bored official took our passports and stamped them. Darren got charged $1 for no apparent reason! Corruption... lovely.<br><br>It was now time for even more waiting around while tuk-tuks were sourced to take us to the slow pier. While waiting at a cafe, we met another bloke, Paul, from Wales, and now there were seven of us. Soon a tuk-tuk arrivd and after piling into the back, we arrived at the pier within a few minutes. There was then a ...

A long journey of many legs brought us from the tropical jungle of the Malaysian National Park to the urban jungle of Bangkok. Here we joined our Intrepid trip that would take us around many of the sights of South East Asia, starting with a longtail boat tour of the khlongs (canals) of Bangkok. Quite a different slice of life could be seen there compared with that on the streets of the city, the waterways taking the place of roads through a ...

... dock, and had the slightly disconcerting task of 'walking the plank' from the shore to the boat, to get on board. We settled down, and spent the next eight hours fighting against the current, journeying upstream. The boat was only one third full of passengers (it still being low season), in equal parts tourists and natives. We tourists half-watched the world whilst we chatted idly or napped, wrote in our journals whilst listening to ...

Caught the early morning bus up to Chiang Khong to get the slow boat into Laos. Border crossing all went smoothly and just about made it to the boat for its 11am departure. Of course it didn't leave until midday.<br><br>The boat was a long 12' wide wooden boat with hard upright benches - 6 hours on one of those was not pleasant. Of course there were plenty of Beer Lao available to ease the pain. <br><br>The river itself is pretty ...

Today we left Luang Prabang early and set off on a slow boat on the Mekong towards the Laos/Thailand boarder. We spent 9 and a half hours on the boat in car seats. The scenery was beautiful but after the first four hours we were kind of over it. That <br><br>night we stop at a town called Pakbeng. There wasnt much here apart from a few ...

The last night in Chiang Mai was a weird experience - knowing I was there for just one night, I found it quite hard to make an effort with any randoms (but equally nobody made an effort to start a discussion with me). I guess to be fair to myself, most people wouldn't be at their most friendly with a broken leg! Turns out it actually is broken, BTW. I eventually gave into pressure and let a girl from the guesthouse book me into the ...

... that make the journey in one day. The slow boats take two days and are usually PACKED with tourists sitting on tiny wooden (and quite uncomfortable) seats. I've talked to many who have made the trip and most said that the slow boat was a great experience, but that they probably wouldn't choose to do it again. I have the same feeling. The scenery was wonderful, but one gets burned out of jungle and mountains when your ass is flat as a pancake and you're looking forward to ...