This was one of the worst parts of my trip, getting to Laos. You could fly but this was with Laos Airlines, which had managed to get the worst safety record in the business, the speed boat which took 5 hours, which was also very dangerous, and a life jacket and crash helmet are provided for the trip so I was put off by that one, so I went for the only option left, the “slow boat”. It was called this, because, it literally was the slow boat to Laos, taking 2 days in total to get there!
I got picked up from my hostel at 10 am to take the 5-hour minibus trip to the border. I met a lad, Simon the previous night and he booked the trip too, which was good as at least I had someone to talk to on the trip.
As with anything I have experienced so far, nothing is ever straightforward and this was no different, the company decided to split the ride up with random stops, and when the driver asked if we wanted to go to see the “White Temple” yet another stop, a collective “F**k the temple” was shouted at the driver after spending time at other temples already and the fact that it was white did not seem to appeal to everyone onboard.
We eventually arrived at a place called, Chang Khong, and we were all shown to our rooms. We were told we all had to share a room with someone, which was a bit weird, thankfully, we got on, else it may have been awkward. We then had tea that was laid out for us, rice, and an egg.
We then decided to go for a walk and explore the town and we soon realised the place was tiny and not really a great place to wander around. If I lived there I would swim across the river to Laos myself, it was utter crap!!!
We decided to have a drink in a bar and maybe try to get some football on the TV and bumped into a guy from our trip, called Greg. We managed to find a bar, took a seat, and found some random football match. Now I am pretty good with taking a hint, so when the owner turned the TV off as we were watching it, then refused to exchange my warm water for cold (just gave me some Ice) and served a plate of chips that we ordered with as many chips as there were people in this town, we could literally count how many were on the plate. So, we decided it was time to leave and headed back to the room.
I went to the toilet in our lovely room only to discover about 10 ants crawling on the wall. I told Simon, and he came up with the “genius” idea to spray the wall with bug spray.
Just as I was about to turn the lights off, I looked at the wall, and it was like they had all come around for a massive ant orgy, all sizes were there wanting to taste the spray. I then started to pack our stuff up expecting to move rooms as Simon went to find someone. The woman came into our room very casually thinking we were being typical dramatic westerners, when she saw the ants she shit herself too and shouted, “GET OUTTTT GET OUTTTT NOW”. We then all ran out of the room together, we got a room upgrade (had a small tv and no ants). I had an awful night’s sleep, I could hear all sorts of wildlife sounds from the river by us which did not sound great.
We woke up in the morning, went across the river, and queued up for our visas, Jesus you would think they do this every day they may actually realise that having a proper queue is the right way of doing it.. 2 hours of standing in a queue, pushing and shoving we get our visas, pay the $36 and we are in Laos.
Right, I know that the country is next to Thailand, but I can’t see the difference, they look the same, and act the same, we just went across a river, so I cannot really say “omg Laos is amazing”, its just Thailand, but cheaper and no McDonalds or hookers on the street offering sexy times.
We waited around for a few hours, and the “only pink bus in town” picked us up.
We eventually get on the boat, not as bad as I thought it would be, there were seats!!!! The journey started, and again it was fun for about 30 mins, but then the boredom kicks in, the arse goes dead and the only excitement you get is the occasional speed boat going past with scared-to-death passengers holding on for dear life.
The views are nice and guess I can say I have gone down the Mekong, only so many times you can look at hills, dirty colored water, elephants, and small huts on the side until it gets a bit boring.
It was lovely how the villagers ran to the side of the river, to wave at us as we passed, I didn’t wave back, but it was a nice touch!
In my lonely planet book it mentions this is one of the “must things to do on your southeast Asia trip”, what it did not say in the book is if you drink 5 litres of beer whilst, on the boat, the boat trip is even more enjoyable, I would advise this if anyone does the Mekong, get pissed on Lao Beer, awesome!!
We arrived at Pak Beng on the day of the Carling Cup Final. Ohhh I was excited. Room, wash, change, and out for a pre-match meal. I had a curry and then headed to the bar for the footy, the owner promised me it would be on and even told me what the game was. I had a few drinks, and kept looking at my watch, and at the owner, did it come on ??? did it hell as like, he lied to me. I was not pleased.
Twenty minutes later we all got kicked out of the bar anyway as some lads, who I was not even with decided to set fire to some toilet roll that was in their arse to the floor, so it was probably best we did not have it on. So, the whole group from our boat had managed to get kicked out of the only bar in town!!
So, I had an early night and was up fresh as a daisy in the morning. I found out the next day we had won the League Cup, just gutted I missed it.
We went back to the boat and this time got some awful seats. We waited around for 90 mins for the last people to get on, and it was the same two lads who got us all kicked out of the bar the previous night, and a lady who had held everyone up.
When they got on the boat, we all sarcastically gave them a round of applause. The lady decided to sit in front of me. The seats are not attached to the floor so they slide easily, so she decided to give herself more legroom and pushed her chair back leaving me with none. I politely asked her to move forward as I had no legroom, and she gets up, shouts at me, going mental, and keeps pushing the chair so I cannot move. I give her a bit of stick and she moans more, after 5 mins I push the seat forward and she gives in. Everyone on the boat gives me a round of applause as they had seen how she had behaved the last 5 minutes or so.
Nine hours later we arrive in Luang Prabang tired, stinking from not showering in days, and ready for a meal and bed. As we were heading back to our hotel we passed 2 monks pissed up, they obviously had a good night.
I also withdrew a Million Kip out of the machine, I have always dreamed of being a millionaire, little did I know that Laos is one of the world’s poorest countries, and people earn a dollar a day, and there I am in the street having photos and wafting around my million Kip like a right knobhead.
