Choose another map, showing:

• China
• South East Asia
• Asia
• Eurasia
• Eurasia, Africa & Pacific
• The World

Other entries in Pak Beng

mekong river

the boat trip up the mekong from lunag prabang to pak beng was advertised as 7 hours. glad I'm not wearing a watch these days so stayed pretty ignorant to fact that it ended up more like 10-11.

I woke up too late for breakfast (shocker), so bought lame snacks from a junk food stall. water, cookies and some mystery crackers labeled 'cheese' but in the end were sweet. SO not a breakfast of champions. even more depressing to know it was probably lunch too.

we had about 1 hr delay before leaving shore. at least I scored a bench all to myself (more on those benches in a bit)  but about 15 mins before we take off, all the locals pile off our boat and get on the other one. locals always know better than us (dumb) tourists so this was interesting, but their boat didn't have 1/2 inch cushions on the bench like ours (mine was even upholstered with fake hello kitty heads!) so felt like I had all I needed and had no motivation to move.

we finally pull out of port to head up the almost-full-on-flood-stage mekong river. this means it was slow going against the current and strange to see a 50 passenger boat plow up hill through rapids. of course it rained most the time. and we were passed by all those locals on the other, faster boat. oooooohhhhhh, now I get it.....

when I was in a good mood, the mist and clouds that got stuck on the limestone hills were stunning. when in a bad mood, rain (will it ever stop?????!!!!) was irritating as dog doo doo. and the benches must've been designed by ex-torture chamber designers - they were just big enough to SEEM like you could sleep on them, but just small enough that you can't. in ANY position (and I tried lots). then someone opened a can of fish. hated them for 2 reasons: that disgusting fishy smell and that they actually had something 1/2 way decent to eat for lunch.

wow am I bitter. still have remnants of the flu, SO tired of the rain, missing luke, have period.

but at least I have my ipod (go trance!), have re-joined britta and cat so have good convo (when we aren't in stupified haze caused by riverboat monotony), and am reading excellent book: satanic verses by salmon rushdie (tho hope I'm done by the time I get to muslim-based south thailand...). so all doesn't suck completely.

we got  into pak beng round 7 or 8pm (11 hours later....). had been pouring over lonely planet trying to decide what next: another day of river boat with britta and cat to the thai border crossing, or song tau inland to potential area of treking. met some aussies over dinner who said bus was running in the north so made last minute decision: tomorrow I say 'bye' to britta and cat. has been fab bumping into them since mekong delta in south vietnam and a fitting place to say good bye (on the mekong river in the north). and tomorrow I head inland and try to spend my last kip on something worthwhile (beer lao t-shirt?).

ps- despite the bitterness, I'm still having a great time. and hard travel really is what creates the best adventure. so sorry if I sound so lame - for the record, I'm still smiling (more or less :).

Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit

Photos / videos of "mekong river ":