slow boating

What our slow boat looked like:


The lady that runs our guesthouse insisted that we be ready to go to the boat at 9:30am...even though we'd heard several rumors that the boat would not actually leave until 11:30. We didn't have much choice but to follow her directions, so we showed up at 9:30 and were on the boat by 9:45. We had seen pictures of the boat and were not impressed - let's just say we weren't expecting much in the way of comfort - so we had bought cushions and hats the day before. We even had lunches packed because there was supposedly no food on the boat.

We get there and we're like, hey, not so bad. We're early, and everyone seems to have their own little bench. Nice!

Before:




But people kept appearing. And appearing and appearing and appearing. Imogen and I were now sharing a seat. Everyone was now sharing the benches. People started to sit on the floor - in the front of the boat, in the back, and in the aisles. There were no less than 120 people on this boat. It was craziness. Somebody we met later in Laos said it was like a "refugee boat of foreigners." Haha.

After:

The boat actually did not leave until 1pm - we sat on it for 3+ hours just waiting to leave and THEN it was a 6 hour journey.So, as you might imagine, you quickly make friends with your neighbors. To pass the time, people played cards, chatted, read, slept in pretty hilarious positions, and stared out at the beautiful scenery slowly floating by. Drinks were available, including beer, but luckily nobody got rowdy on the boat.





The last picture was taken with Imogen's super nice camera. Lovely, hm?

We finally pulled into Pak Beng around 7pm. There was a mad dash for guesthouses, as you might imagine, with 120 people just suddenly arriving out of nowhere. Pak Beng is the standard stop on this boating trip, though, so they have enough accomodation. We found a nice, clean room with hot water for 6$ each and threw our stuff down so that we could go find a nice dinner. Guess what we ate this time? ...Indian food! So strange. But still good.

It was the slowest restaurant in the history of restaurants, though, so we didn't finish until 9:50pm and had to make a mad dash back to our guesthouse because the electricity was shut off throughout the town at 10pm. I had just enough time to take out my contacts before the lights went out. It was pretty early to sleep, so we visited for a bit by the light of a flashlight (or torch, as Imogen would say) before hitting the sack.