I left Chiang Mai a few days ago with the basic idea that I would take a slow boat down the Mekong River. I really don’t have a good reason that I was going to be doing this since it was about five years ago that I did the exact same thing. I managed to rationalize it by telling myself that when I did it before I didn’t remember some of the key things that I had done. I remember tubing down a river, or I remember a certain temple, but I couldn’t remember what city I was in when I did some of these things. I was on a tour when I did it before, everything was taken care of along the way, so all I had to do was show up at a certain time and  get in the jeep or tuk-tuk. I think that made it so I didn’t have to remember the details. This time is different though, I’m doing all the logistics on my own and am forced to know what the name of the next city is.

My hostel was about 200 meters from the bus station and there is a bus leaving every half hour, so I left the hostel and was on my way to the border in about 30 minutes. The bus was old, maybe about fifty years old… maybe older too, it had wooden floors and very uncomfortable benches, but it was fun just riding along, the windows open and

The bus dropped my off at a bus stop outside of Chiang Khong where about five taxis/tuk tuks were waiting. Only two of us got off the bus and we both jumped into a tuk tuk. In about five minutes I was at the border to exit Thailand. The last time I went across the border here I had to take a ferry to cross the bridge to Lao, but now there is a bridge. I have to admit though I kind of liked the ferry better. It just felt more authentic, or exotic to get on this little boat and have it motor it’s way out of Thailand. Anyway, passport control took maybe five minutes and I was on the shuttle to cross the bridge in about another ten. Like I said things just were going so smoothly… it was almost scary. :)

As I headed to get my Lao visa I was approached to buy a ticket for the slow boat down the Mekong, which as I mentioned was my goal. So I bought my ticket and proceeded to get my visa. Because I was kind of late to the border and the slow boat was going to be leaving in about an hour the lady that I bought the ticket from gave me a ride to the dock on the back of her scooter. I’m not going to lie, I was kind of terrified that I was getting a ride from her. She had my day pack on, I was sitting behind her with my full pack on, and we were going down the highway at probably about fifty kph. I made it there though safe and sound and got on board the boat. Since I was running late I was probably close the last person to get on. It was okay with me except that there didn’t appear to be any seats. I finally asked someone if I could sit down and to my surprise she said yes. This part of the boat trip takes about seven hours and to be honest I had a really good time. The girl was from Germany and was taking a few months off before she goes to college, there were two guys sitting across from us were taking two months off from their jobs in London to see the area. It really surprised me how nice these three were. We even met up later for dinner.

I got on the boat about 7:30 this morning which was really too early. I ended up just sitting there for about an hour and a half before the boat finally left the bank. No worries though.

I am now sitting on the boat killing time writing for the blog. It about 11:30 and I think there is supposed to be probably another four hours before we arrive at Luang Prabang. The boat is pulling up on the shore to either pick up passengers or drop some off. More later….