We’re now in one of the few remaining communist countries in the world, the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos. I’m fascinated by this, to see how life is for people in a communist country, especially as I think that in a few years there may be none left. I think it’ll be interesting even just reading the newspapers, as they’re state controlled. We’ll also get the chance to see another communist state in a week or two when we get to Vietnam.

But it’s not just the politics that’s an attraction. Following their revolution in 1975, Laos was closed to visitors, and it isn’t long since it opened its doors fully. So the country’s beautiful landscapes and towns should be far less developed than those in, say, Thailand. Although unfortunately I think a lot of those people who do come here are the type that can make going to the bathroom sound like an adventure unrivalled in all of modern history. Christopher Columbus would turn in his grave if he could hear them! These people are everywhere and they’re bloody annoying!

From Chiang Mai, we had to catch a 7 hour bus to Chiang Khong, on the Laos border. Not much fun – the seats were padded benches which they insisted on squeezing 3 people onto. We had to fit on along with another woman who looked like she was in a right strop, and just to top it off the air con was broken and the windows didn’t open! Great! So that wasn’t much fun.

In Chiang Mai I’d rung ahead to book a room in Chiang Khong. The woman on the phone said she didn’t like to take bookings as people often didn’t turn up. I had to promise to come about 5 times before she agreed! So imagine our surprise when we arrived at 8pm that we hadn’t booked a room! Bloody well have! Eventually they sorted it out, but the owner was a real arse and we didn’t even get an apology. But the location was nice, a wooden decked restaurant overlooking the Mekong river, where we chilled out with a couple of Changs.

We returned to our room to find that our bathroom had been the venue for an open audition of ‘Antz 2’. And these were the really big ones. Well, it quickly turned into ‘The Ant Bully’ after I got a can of ant killer! In the end they carpeted the floor, probably 500-1000! Yeuch!

We settled down to sleep, but after an hour or so Katie’s body decided (a couple of hours late if you ask me!) that it didn’t want that carbonara after all, and so she spent most of the night puking her guts up. It was really horrible for her, and I wasn’t exactly in the running for ‘most sleep in one night’ award either, so at about 5am we decided to defer our boat trip to Luang Prabang to the next day.

We crossed the Mekong on a small boat to enter Laos, and obtained our visas without any problems. Although I did read a notice which informed that the prime minister had ‘improved’ the visa fees for certain countries, including the UK. Well, it had gone up by $5, so I think we can guess who it was an improvement for! We quickly found a guesthouse –B.A.P- and were shown to an absolutely beautiful room, the best we’ve seen anywhere so far. Big comfy bed with this huge, faux fur quilt that felt so good (I know how gay that sounds but it’s true!) wood paneled walls, flowers, even dimmer lamps!! We were told it was 350 B (or US$10, or 4 gazillion Lao Kip; money is confusing here cos they accept all three everywhere, and it’s 20000 kip to a UK pound, you should see the stashes of notes we have to make up 50 quid!) and as you do in Asia, I tried to haggle a little over the price. There followed the most wonderful, hilarious performance I think I’ve ever seen. The woman, sister of the owner, launched into an absolute mick-take of me, making out in the funniest way about how I wanted to rip an old woman off, and all she does all day is ‘Clean clean clean clean’, how can I be so tight etc etc. I was in hysterics, I would’ve gladly paid twice the price for that performance!

We went for a wander around the town, but it was just a few dusty streets with nothing to see. So we returned to our room, thinking we should make the most of such a nice one! Katie slept most of the day, so later I went out to the guesthouse restaurant to get an ‘egg salad baguette’. I waited almost an hour, and in the end I got a baguette with the thinnest strip of cold omelette imaginable. You’d have to measure its depth in atoms rather than millimeters. Then ten minutes later, my chips arrived. I wouldn’t even have minded, but I’d paid 100B for it, which even in Thailand can get you 3 full meals, and Laos is supposed to be cheaper. But, as we’ve found out over the last few days, those parts of Laos that are most used to tourists have caught up very quickly with the overcharging and rip-offs common elsewhere.

The owner was a strange woman. In her 60s, she could speak Lao, English and French, she usually seemed to prefer a combination of all three in each sentence. She was very nice and sweet until we’d agreed to stay, and then she became a grumpy school teacher type, barking orders at us at every turn. And she seemed to deliberately make the already confusing money situation even more murky for us, presumably with the aim of overcharging us for everything. She was the same with everyone, quite the opposite of her sister who was brilliant.

We had paid US$48 altogether for two boat tickets to Luang Prabang, a two day journey. Note the word tickets there. The next morning we were given 2 sheafs of Lao Kip, to pay for our tickets ourselves! So all she’d done was exchanged our money at a rip off rate for us! But we couldn’t have bought the tickets ourselves, you had to buy from there or another agent. Stupid.

We knew not to expect great things from the boat. It was basically a massive long-tail boat with a roof, to seat about 70. Taking care to completely disregard safety and comfort, they crammed about 120 people onboard. We were 2 hours early and managed to get a ‘seat’ (never have inverted commas been so necessary!), plenty of others didn’t. Our ‘seat’ was a rough wooden bench 1 m x 20 cms, the width meaning that you had to sit completely upright, if you slumped your bum would fall off! (The seat that is. Otherwise they’d be really bad seats!). Our fleeces made inadequate cushions, and the sun shone on us all day. We were stuck there for 8 hours, it was dreadful. The only redeeming factor was the scenery, which was magnificent.

After a blind search in the pitch-black cargo hold amongst a hundred others, we stumbled into the tuk tuk waiting to take people to the guesthouse where we had pre-booked a room. It was really just a rickety old pick-up, a real ‘hold on for dear life’ job. Again, we weren’t expecting the Hilton, but for almost the same as what we had paid the previous night we were expecting more than rock hard (think granite) beds, and a broken fan and shower (bucket showers it is then!). Still, that was what we got. As we discussed with a random French guy, a few places have a monopoly, the encampment (Pak Beng) only really exists as a stop on the journey we were taking, so no one stays more than one night, and they just don’t care about their guests.

The following morning we got a seat on the boat again, but unfortunately the people in front of us had put one of their backpacks under our seat, and one under theirs, meaning that our feet were wedged in and there was literally no room to move. They were American (but then I bet you already guessed that didn’t you!), and despite numerous loud statements by Katie along the lines of, ‘I can’t believe anyone would be so rude’, and, ‘I wish they’d move their bloody bags’, (Mum – you’d have been proud of her, I could see you doing exactly the same!) they were clearly not going to do anything about it. Instead, we moved to the front of the boat with some cushions, and I can’t tell you how much better it was. We could stretch out and relax, enjoy the usually incredible scenery, and play cards (rummy, and for the record I won 20-9 mwahaha!)

The Mekong, as I seem to have read about a thousand times recently, is the world’s 12th longest river. This doesn’t sound very special to me (would you boast about coming 12th in a race?!), and why authors always repeat it I don’t know. But if they can, I can, so there you go! Anyway, it cuts through some gorgeous valleys, getting better the further along you go. We passed lots of small villages, and whenever we stopped, which was often, hordes of kids came running down the sandy banks, far more often to greet us than to sell to us. I wonder if that will have changed in a few years. The river became very wide in places, often with huge rock formations jutting out. The view was especially good in the morning when it was cool and cloudy; the clouds were low and shrouded the hills around us.

At 5 we docked and me and Katie were first out the door. After a couple of abortive attempts we were taken to a guesthouse with ‘shared bathroom’ for US$7 – quite cheap. We were expecting something nasty, but to our surprise the room was lovely, and the place is in a great location. The ‘shared’ bathroom is only for us as all the other rooms are en-suites, and when we went to pay we were told it was only $6! Great!

Today was our first proper day in the town. We visited the Royal Palace Museum, quite a strange place. It was the Royal Palace until 1975 when the communists took over and the Royalty were banished. But the museum seemed to venerate the royalty who they banished, and who have never been seen since. Afterwards we took a trip up the 300 odd steps of Phu-Si, a collection of temples built over a huge hill right in the middle of town. You get the most amazing views from the top, it was incredible. Panoramic views across the countryside, and all around the horizons huge hills. We had a chat with a group of monks at the top, haven’t really spoken to any before so it was interesting to learn a little about them. Following this we went for a wander around the old city, stopping to apply for a Vietnam visa which we should be able to pick up tomorrow. That conclude our Laos adventures for now, on Saturday we are heading to Phonsavan to see the Plain of Jars, and after that we head to the capital, Vientiane.