The journey from chiang mai to luang prabeng was long. It started on Saturday at 9.15am and we arrived at Khammeny Inn (our hostel in Luang Prabeng) at about 6.30pm on Monday.
The first day was a pretty uneventful 6 hour bus journey that ended in Chiang Kong where we spent the night. Chiang kong is on the Thai/Laos border on the thai side. We stayed in a guesthouse called Namkong Boutique. It wasn't exactly boutique but the rooms itself were fine and since it was included in the price of the journey (as was a buffet dinner and breakfast) we couldn't complain. The hotel also had a pool which you could use for 50 baht which we tried to take full advantage of but only managed about half an hour because it was freezing. The dinner was fine, nothing special and I couldn't really tell you what it was bar a coconutty curry, rice and some kind of noodle dish. The actual night wasn't so great because the rooms were not even a little bit soundproof and there was a cockerel crowing for hours.
We left about half 8 the next day ready to make our way across the border and onto the first leg of our two day boat ride. The bus ride to the border didn't take long at all and we got through passport control very quickly and got a 20 second bus ride across the no mans land between Thailand and Laos, it was just the visa that took forever. The system to get a visa on arrival was ridiculous. You had to queue up to hand over all your documents - the arrival card, your visa application and passport - which was fine if not a little worrying because they take the passport and give you nothing in return to prove it. You then join a mads of people all pushing their way to the front of the other desk to pay the visa few and collect your passport. The way they do it is they just hold the passport up and everyone looks around to try and see who the picture is of. Then you go to collect it and pay the visa fee of $36. It took forever, especially because there were two chinese men who pushed to the front and demanded that the passports of their group of 15 were done first, so the lady had to go through every single passport she had for him to see if it was theirs or not whilst there must have been 100 or so people waiting.
When we finally got through that we got on another bus and drove down to the port. There was a man sorting out accommodation for pak beng there and we were pretty sure it was some kind of con but we booked it anyway and it was fine, there was someone waiting for us (and the 20 other people that had booked a room with him) with a pickup truck when we arrived that evening.
The boat ride was nice the first day. The views were pretty enough and it was much smoother than a bus would have been. Amy wasn't feeling very well so she didn't have the best journey but she promised to be more positive on Monday. We arrived in Pak Beng ahead of time and checked into our room. The guesthouse was expensive compared to others but it was fine. We all had a bed (although it wasn't too comfy) and an ensuit with hot water so its all good.
We were all pretty so we went for a quick dinner ( I had a vegetable pizza that had cucumber and carrot on it, very odd) and went back to the hotel to bed.
We got up and down to the boat early the next to get better seats. We were sat at the back the day before which are apparently the worst seats on the boat but it wasn't as bad as people say, it was just loud as we were sat right by the engine room. We were sat pretty much at the front today which was much quieter. Again the journey was going fine, pretty smooth and fairly pretty with a very cold morning. It warmed up about midday but it was still pretty cold. We all bought snacks the night before in Pak Beng because the boat is smaller than we'd thought it was going to be so there wasn't much to buy, you could get a pot noodle type thing and some drinks but not much and it was quite expensive. The first section of the boat where all the seats are is about the size of a train carriage and there is a back room about half the size with the engine in it.
The main drama of the day started around 1/half 1 where we went over a patch of rocks and felt the whole boat shake. It was so loud. None of the crew said anything and the boat just carried on as before so we thought nothing of it really. About an hour later someone noticed that in the back section of the boat there was a pool of water that the crew were trying to empty, still no one said anything to us though so we assumed it was still okay-ish. About half an hour later the boat pulled up to a beach and we saw one of the owners diving under the boat to see the damage. At this point we thought something was seriously kicking off. People started to get off the boat and the workers were donning tools and hammering at the boat so we got off too and sat on the beach that we had pulled up to. Still no one had really said anything to us so it was all quite funny really. After 15 minutes or so we all got back on the boat and sailed off again with no more issues. It wasn't ever scary or worrying to be honest (except the initial rock hit), the biggest concern was our stuff getting wet. The boat was never far from the shore so if the worst had happened it could have just pulled over, but it was all quite exciting all the same.
We arrived into Luang Prabeng at about 6.30 and checked into our hostel which was called LPQ. We were expecting it to be grim but it was actually pretty nice to be honest.
Thats all for now, Martha
