The best boat trip ever and a very dull Huay Xai

The day following our truely amazing bus ride we were due for another LONG day of travelling, which was, as I'm sure you can imagine, just what we were all dreaming of. We left Pak Beng early in the morning and boarded a boat which was to be our home for the next 10 hours. But this wasnt just any boat! oh no..this was a boat of huge proportions which you could actually stand up on...and....gasp!....walk around on. It was fabulous. And actually, it was a really nice boat ride. The scenery was beautiful obviously but what really made this boat journey was games we played! Cards, celebrity heads and my personal favourite - wink murder, meant the time flew by! It was excellent, particularly pleasent were the strange looks we were getting off the other passengers as we all 'died' (especially a rather elaborate death scene by one of the girls - I am suprised she didnt have fake blood splattering everywhere and everyone. It was spectacular). Another personal highlight was trying to teach one of the guys on the trip how to play Blackjack - Im not too sure but I dont think he quite grasped the concept of the game as he kept saying 'cards' each time he picked up and was pretty certain the game ended when someone put down two sevens.

Anyway, all too soon the boat journey was over and we found ourselves in Huay Xai. Now, Huay Xai is just essentially a boarder town from where you get the boat over to Thailand, but you would think it would make some effort to make itself slightly interesting. There is nothing there. At all. And we were there for 2 nights. Hmm. The night we arrived we just all went out for dinner and back to the little bungalows we were staying in. The next day we bummed around in the morning, walked into 'town' which was as exciting as a wet fish, and in the afternoon we did a little trip with the group. This trip was to a local 'tribe village' where there would be a crafty place to buy things and it was supposed to be very interesting. However, when we got there it wasnt quite like that. The driver took us initially to a local school where the kids were trying to sell us bits of paper, and where the kids from the local tribes werent allowed to attend. Our local guide was a realy sweet guy but it all just felt very weird. I felt like I was at the zoo - especially when he pulled over a local woman started pointing at her saying 'look at how yellow she is! and she has no eyebrows!'. It was really uncomfortable and I was very happy to get out of there.

That evening, our last in Laos, was another family affair with dinner and drinks. The next morning we left Laos and returned to Thailand. This was via 'customs' on the Laos side which appeared to consist of a plastic table, an umbrella, and two chairs with a sign saying 'passport check'. With no one there. A 10 minute longboat ride later (i thought we would never make it to Thailand again, never again have mango sticky rice, as there was water gushing in the boat by my feet). Luckily we made it to the other side and suddely we were back in civilization.