Today we got up bright and early to make our boarder crossing into Laos. Of course I needed a last minute Thailand selfie!
So we exited through the Thailand boarder and boarded a bus to make the pretty short trip across the Friendship Bridge into Laos. We had to get our visa on arrival and pay $35 for the privilege, but I made it and got another visa in my passport yay! Quick time for another boarder selfie!
We got into a couple of buses called songtheaw which are like cattle truck for humans.
We then drove down to the Mekong river and went to find our boat. We were taking a slow boat down the river for two days. They have a fast boat which does the same journey in 7 hours, but they look like total suicide boats! We had a massive boat all to our selves which was very luxurious!
It was a long relaxing 8 hours on the river to make it to our overnight stop of Pak Beng. I thought we were staying on the boat but unfortunately not. As we were about half an hour to our stop, the wind increased and we had to pull over and stop at the bank. As the boat is flat bottomed it wasn't safe to carry on. There was a lot of bush fires too so the wind was blowing up a lot of ash and then sand too as we wee stopped on a sand bank. The crew had to work really hard to tie us up and stop us drifting. A bunch of local children and down and stares at us for the whole time. They wee so cute!
It passed and we moved on. Were stayed in Pak Beng which was a tiny village which I think it's main purpose is for the slow boat stop. We stayed in a really nice hotel which was hits over looking the river. It was beautiful and the views were amazing. And we got a towel swan! Amazing!
We went out for dinner and had some bad food and even worse Laos whiskey. Yuck! Whiskey is a very loose term for moonshine! Bad hangover the next day! Got offered opium too, "happy happy" says the man! Ha no thanks!
We set of the next day for another 8 hour float along the Mekong. Another lovely relaxing day! This day we stopped off at the Pak Ou caves. This is a buddist shrine with loads of statues of buddah. The outside was cool as it is a natural cave in the side of the river, but inside was a bit creepy, like one of those gardens full of dolls or gnomes. Quick exit!
We then made our way to our next destination of Luang Probang.
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