To get to Luang Prabang from Chiang Mai, there are basically 2 viable options for people on our kind of budget, both of which being boats, called, somewhat imaginatively, the slow boat and the fast boat, i believe. now, the fast boat might sound like a more enticing option, but apparently many a person has been killed on the fast boat, so, sensible people that we obviously are, we went for the slow one. which was actually incredibly fun.
the boat takes 2 days, and is not the most comfortable, nor least crowded thing you would've sat on in your life, but we had a really good time. we met some other australians, another californian and a new zealander in huay xia (the laos border town - not a particulatly lively place, can i just say. although they do sell $3 bottles of very bad vodka and apparently $1 bottles of whisky, so maybe it gets better at night. i dont know) and travelled with them for a bit both on the boat, and once we got to luang prabang. we proceeded to somewhat annoy the rest of the people on the boat by rearranging seats and getting to know each other by basically being unnecessarily loud. but what can i say. being unnecessarily loud is what we do best.
in the middle of the biat trip we stayed overnight in pak beng, laos, fortunatlely saving us from having to spend a night on the boat, and rampaged around a little guest house in an equally small place where the entire profit appeared to come from the fact that the slow boat stops over there every day. but we still had fun.
after that there was another day on the boat, with much of the same as the first day, except this time for 9 hours rather than 6.
and that night (being wednesday the 17th, in case you wanted to know specifics) we got to luang prabang, which we really really like. just like with chiang mai, we had reasonably simple demands in that we wanted to eat a lot of french bakery food (check) and swim at a waterfall (double check, as we also got to jump off it), so luang prabang is doing well for itself so far! we also hit up the only bar in the whole place, charged around on bikes, saw a temple and generally had a lot of fun with some new people.
tomorrow we're making our way down to vang vieng, with the sole purpose of upping my injury tally (not really, mum and dad), but actually for tubing, which we're also looking forward to - appraently its a must do, and i am certainly up for that.
so we promise photos are on their way - slowly but surely, and we will keep you posted on whatever it may be that we do next!
much love,
vivienne (and iona)
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