THE JOUNEY FROM THAILAND TO LAOS

Our final morning in Thailand, and we set off for the border town of Chiang Khong. As we got to the bus station we thought our luck was in as there was a bus ready to leave a few minutes after our arrival, so we got on and got settled noticing the two other "farang" on there with us. The driver sat down got settled and we were off...except for the small problem that the engine wouldnt start! No worries the conductor pulled out a spanner and a stick of bambo and went to fix it, the battery was deemed to be the problem and conveniently instead of being under the hood near the engine it was on board the bus...under the seat of John (a dutch bloke who we got talking to a little later with his girlfriend Rose) So this kid was whacking the battery with his bamboo stick and occasionally twiddling with his spanner a bit...meanwhile the locals are getting off so we start to worry if the small of burning and the sparks flying off the battery was something we should worry about when miraculously the bus sprang to life and we were on our way. the journey went smoothly for 15 minutes or so..until the battery gave out and no amount of battery beating and twiddling was going to fix it! So we all had to get off and wait for the next bus which arrived 45 minutes later and happily for us was a much nicer bus than the last. The rest of the 4 hour journey was uneventful and we got dropped off on the side of the street in Chiang Khong, hopped straight into a tuk tuk for immigration. We saw John and Rose looking a little lost and they said they were going to stay in Thailand for one night before going over in the morning, and being the good samaritans we are we told them to go over today so they could get up early and get good seats on the slow boat in the morning so they did. We cleared immigration and walked under the "Gateway to Indochina" got on a small boat and chugged across the Mekong to Laos. Immigration on that side was quite simple as we had our visa's, got them stamped and we were in to Laos in a small town called Huay Xai. After walking round we found a guest house that seemed resonable and set off in search of food, this was when we realised we were not in Thailand anymore. We found the cleanest place we could which by no standards was clean the kitchen outside, flies everywhere, all the food open to the elements and the same utensils used over and over again for everything from raw meat to veg...luckily things were stir fried so that killed of all the bugs.
The on the way back to the guest house we bumped into John and Rose looking for an ATM. We had the unfortunate job of advising them that there are none in Laos and you had to get money from Thailand or wait until a big city and use a bank. We felt awful as we'd told them to come over but when we next saw them they had managed to get hold of some luckily so to celebrate we sat down and had a few drinks. Come 10.30pm everyone was hungry so we ordered some food, as we were waiting we Rose's eyes grew as large as dinner plates and we all turned round to see a huge rat leaping form the kitchen cupboard into the roof...nice! However by 11pm we were all shattered and had an early start so we went back to our guest house, and on the way walked past Rose and John's hotel which was all locked up and we both said "I hope they can get in". As we arrived back at our own guest house, with no lights on and the doors closed the realisation set in that we hoped we could get into our's! After much banging two locals who were hanging around came over and showed us the door bell, still nobody came. By this point we were worried, but the helpful local advised us that at the other end of town (which was tiny) there was a sister guest house and they would have a key, so off we trotted back past the place we'd just been sitting in to the sister guesthouse, only to find it was also closed and there was nobody there. On the other side of the street we'd disturbed two sleeping dogs and whilst one barked and glared his teeth the other was joining in with sorrowful howling! So i picked up a plastic dustpan to whack them with if they tried anything but in the end they seemed contented that we didn't come near their sleeping quarters. After having no luck and banging for sometime we went back to our guest house, to find the two locals hanging around had grown considerably in number to about 15. So again we smiled and began ringing the bell and banging, by now it was midnight and we were getting worried. So another local comes over and tries the bell and the doors, but theres something different about him...ahhh he's got a massive rifle over his shoulder! Then his mate comes over also with a rifle and another with a semi automatic, in any other situation it would have been the most frightening experience of my life, but in honesty they were really nice and helpful and seemed genuinely concerned that we were stuck outisde, so they tried climbing up, shouting banging and even kicking a door in (bless them) in the end a rather sleepy man emerged from the side of the guest house and sprinted up the street. we guessed they'd woken a guard or something...but where was he going? We had our answer 5 mintues later when he returned with a sleepy looking old woman...still in her night dress! How bad did we feel...really bad! however 5 minutes later the guard that we had woken was inside (how he got there we have no idea) but he opened the door and an hour and a half after we started trying we were in, the locals were happy and relaxed and we were very grateful and said goodnight and that was it! When we got back up to the room the realisation set in and it was like a made rush of excitement! We had a twin room but huddled on one bed for safety and to comfort ourselves as there were some wierd sounds coming from outside but neither of us got up.

DAY 2

When we got up at 7am we had had about 3 hours sleep and were exhausted, but we trudged down for breakfast, and the staff were either completely unaware of the goings on the previous night or didnt care as they were totally normal. So we got snacks and headed off to the meeting point for our bus to the pier. Then after buying cushions and french baguettes (mmmmmmm...proper bread!) we set off and were pretty much the first on the boat...so result we got the best seats. The boat itself had packed in tiny rows of benches with three to a bench, a toilet then beyond that was the engine room with some floor space. Our bags were packed under the hull as we settled into our comfy-ish plastic chairs at the front of the boat, John and Rose also joined us and another English couple Matt and Sarah. The amount of people they crammed onto the boat was amazing and we had no idea where they all were seated (until later- when we discovered they were all crammed into the back of the boat by the engine and it was so noisy that you couldnt read or talk and whenever you went back there to go to the loo they all glared at you with hatred). The journey itself was very boring 7 hours of river and jungle. The river was huge and very powerul with waves and whirlpools, and also a lot of rubbish. The journey tooke even longer due to numerous fag breaks the crew has where they would just park in the reeds somewhere and stop for 15 mintues and out of nowhere little children with baskets of crisps and pop would appear! There was lots of beer lao to be had and it wasn't too bad, but we were all glad when we got to Pakbeng. We got off to be faced with a really steep muddy slippery bank, not easy with rucksacks. Si went back on to wrestle for our bags as the men on the boat charge you if they take it off for you, whilst I waited on the bank to grab them off him. Whilst waiting there were lots of children clambering around asking you for your left over food and drink from the trip...by far the poorest people we have ever seen. But there was a sudden uproar from the boat , and lots of people started scrabbling for bags. Si saw the capitain get a meat cleaver to pry off the top of the baggage hold and there was then a fight from the crew as to which way they would put the board and thus who would gain first access to the bags, at this point the captain had to use his cleaver to get order from them, once the top was down they all dove in and it was every man for himself. Shouting fighting pushing and shoving Si found his bag then had to wrestle with a man to get mine off him! But we had them and a man said he had a room for us so we followed him to get there and found it was full, so we had to go elsewhere and the half decent places were all taken up so we stayed in the dirtiest nastiest place so far. It had river water coming from the shower and the bed was filthy, but it was cheap and we had sleeping bag's so we made do and went for dinner. As we were all shattered we were back home and in bed by 10pm (plus there was the fact that we were petrified of being locked out again!) So we were just about to get settled when the electricity in the hotel was cut off, and so was our fan. No worries we were going to sleep anyway until the noisiest man in Laos decided to come and see the door guard at our hotel and stood outside our window shouting for an hour or so. The strange thing was it was dark and i mean pitch black you couldnt tell if your eyes were open or closed it was so dark so there was no way he could've seen his mate. Finally he did one and after wondering for a very long time...what have we let ourselves in for, we could sleep.

DAY 3

Up at 6.30 to have breakfast then back on the boat (best seats again along with our friends!) More french baguettes for breakfast and lunch, and we were off. To pass the time there was a lot of reading but more beer Lao, and we played spot the dead pig in the water (we counted 4) and took the piss out of the Dutch guy with the really big camera lens (he must be compensating for something!)but he was so rude taking pictures of people (including me) getting right in their faces and just snapping away not asking permission or anything, how rude! We also discovered that Matt was born on the same date in the same year as me! 20/01/1985 except he was born about 3 hours later, and there were loads of us who were all born in january as well, was very bizzare!
As we were nearing the end of our journey a local man began to move all of this things towards the front of the boat near us and matt pointed out that one of his bags had a claw coming out of it. After much whispering we asked what it was and in charades he started explaining and sarah (who is an animal expert) was shouting sausage dog, and otter! It lives in water, no it doesnt! Fiinally he got it out (pictures to be posted when we get them) and it was scary, all black and charred in a growling pose, it looked like some kind of weasel (a Thai lady later told us it was a Musk Rat) and the man told us that it was for his dinner, a spicy musk rat soup! Which had us all in a fit of giggles. After 7 hours again we finally made it to Luang Prabang, civilisation and our first hot shower since Thailand...Welcome to Laos!