It was the same scuffle as on the first day to board our long-boats again. This time Jen and I were less lucky and were seated on a boat with hard wooden benches.
Though it took some getting used to, we used our life preservers as cushions, and things generally went ok.
One of the highlights of the day was when we stopped at a small village and they dragged a squealing pig down the beach to put with the rest of the cargo (including several chickens) at the front of our boat.
As usual, all the village children came to wave us off.
As the day continued, the terrain became a lot more rocky and impressive.
Since we were a little late departing (for reasons unclear) they decided to skip our scheduled lunch stop, leaving us to eat whatever we had happened to bring with us. Fortunately, Jen and I had brought a few of the delicious Lao sandwiches, so we didn't fare too badly.
Around 6pm we finally pulled into beautiful Luang Prabang!
We're really happy we decided to take the slow boat. As the travel agent says: the slow boat takes 2 days, and a flight only takes a few hours! But watching the changing banks of the Mekong for 2 days gave us a much better feel for the countryside than we could ever get with a flight, or by hiking out of a city.
In our next post, the wonders of Luang Prabang!
1 comment:
See if you agree:unless you actually go and see for yourself, it is hard to imagine from the vantage point of superintellectual, super-urban, super-busy SF Bay Area that an entirely different world is out there. A big, big part of the world, in fact. Whoever would have imagined it??
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