It is About the Journey Not The Destination Part 2
The Laos Border To Luang Prabang
The journey from the Laos border to Luang Prabang can be summed up easily in three words: long, tedious, and boring. It consisted of a 6 hour slow boat ride, a 4 hour local bus ride up north, and a 5 hour taxi ride back down south to reach our final destination.
The Slow Boat
If I were the owner of this particular vessel I would rename it the ‘HMS Crappy Floating Prison’, two hours into the ride and you’d want off. But surrounded by turd brown waters, inhospitable jungle, and large mountains, escape is not an option. Confined to ridiculously uncomfortable wooden pews that are arranged to be closer together than budget airline seats, you literally cannot move for 6 hours. The boats propulsion had less power than a second-hand hair dryer and was probably powered by a single AA battery (not even a Duracell, more like a Boots own brand). You could probably swim quicker if you wanted to risk getting peasant villager poo in your mouth in the middle of your breast stroke.
There was no comfort or luxury what so ever, even the toilet had more water/piss/fecal matter on the floor than there was in the actual river. The scenery while spectacular at the start slowly became monotonous and eventually even the exciting event of seeing the occasional fisherman or goat on the river bank began to bore me. The only joy I took from the whole trip was from a girl who was playing cards with her friends close by, every time she dealt or put down a card you could see right down her top (this didn’t get boring at all for 6 hours).
The Local Bus Ride
This bus journey was actually a million times better than the slow boat. Even though we were the only westerner’s on the completely rammed full bus it was quite comfortable as for most of the journey we had the entire back seat while the locals were made to sit on each others laps.
Travelling by road is far better, as instead of always having to look at river banks we actually drove over mountains, through farmland, and stopping in small village communities along the way. Whilst picking up and dropping off passengers at these hill tribe stops all the locals would come out of their wooden and straw huts to take a peak at us weird looking westerners. When I ventured out to purchase some food (Texas BBQ flavour Lays crisps) they all crowd around you. I felt like Lenny Henry, only I’m not black, not married to a fatty, I was damn sure I wasn’t going to dig a well or build a school, and the only money I was going to give them was in return for my packet of crisps.
Halfway through the journey a tiny asian baby was sick in the aisle. Not just a small baby puke but a gigantic man sized post kebab chunder. The smell gradually made it’s way through the bus making everyone gag, choke, cough, and splutter. Unfortunately baby sick must be sacred and against their religion here to clean up as not one of the parents moved to rid the bus of this monstrosity, and we were forced to put up with it until we reached our destination.
The Taxi Ride
After our ridiculous slow boat ride, and having to put up with stinking rice baby sick for most of the bus journey we opted to pay for a private taxi to take us for the final leg of our journey. Now when I pay for a private taxi in England I expect it to contain just myself and my luggage. A private cab in Laos however stops to pick up an entire wholesale store worth of goods, as well as the shop owners to transport them to my destination as well. I spent 5 hours packed in between multi-packs of Chinese soft drinks, boxes of crisps, eggs, and other assorted shop merchandise along with the Laos shop owner and his Mrs.
We eventually made it to our destination only to be pelted with rain while we searched for a guest house. The journey from Pai in Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos took a total of 44 hours (two nights and two days of travelling) and left me completely knackered for the next 2 days after that, so much so that I actually missed the England Australia game. If you come to Laos don’t ever take the slow boat journey, it’s far more fun to risk a quick and easy death on the fast boats.
Tags: Laos, Luang Prabang, Slow Boat
