So we made it to Chiang Mai safe and sound, sat around in the airport for a while and then jumped on a bus to start the journey to the Laos border...
The bus ride was rather uneventful, although the roads the further we got out became more and more riddled with potholes. I think we saw in the hundreds of thousands of rice fields along the way, I assume its what we flew over on the way in. We met some British travellers on the bus and drank into the night at our stop over in Chiang Kong. The room there was interesting with mouse poo on my pillow to greet me. The geckos didnt allow for a restful sleep and some bat thing kept trying to break in!
Jumped back on the bus the next day and made it to the Laos border crossing, for two minutes as we crossed the Mekong we were in no mans land! Got our visas stamped and were officially in Laos. Next stop was the slow boat to Luang Prabang, two days of cruising down the Mekong. We tagged along with our new friends and played drinking games to make the time go quicker. The boat no longer had wooden seats, rather car seats clearly removed from a minivan.
We made the first leg of the journey to Pak Beng (we think) which was a tiny town with 3 restuarants, 1 bar and power generators that continously flicked on and off during our first storm of the rainy season! After a night of drinking and froverlities with our new found traveling friends we awoke to a picture perfect view looking over a cloud filled valley, it truley was a post card view of Asia.
in Laos the beer is cheap and strong the whisky is free and stronger, and they got confused and decided that the right hand side was the correct side of the road to drive on, the people here dont quite get our humour, with a lao lady sitting laughing at us the full last quater of our slow boat ride beacuse we turned Cranium Cards into a drinking game.. (thanks MC for the cards)
P.S. dad go nuts on the rum however i only have one rule it must be consumed straight... you wont drink i tstraight your scared...
