An early start today, a pretty average breakfast at the hotel, we meet our driver and off we go, one other passenger picked up, a young Londoner backpacking the world after throwing in his job in the London financial world. His name is Reece.
At the border we’re met by the Nagi Mekong people, aggregated, stamped out of Thailand put on a bus in ” no man’s land”, we cross the Friendship Bridge No. IV into Laos. We go through the following steps;
- Bags are taken through customs etc by Nagi
- We line up at counter 1 to have our visa application taken, no questions are asked regarding our ppaperwork which confused us last night but we’re 40 baht lighter when we leave the counter.
- We go to counter 2 where we get our passport back with the visa stuck it.
- Near the turnstile we hand over the $40usd, they have to be crisp unmarked notes and then we’re given entrance to Laos officially.
- Aggregated on to buses and taken to our boat on the river.
A small boat of chooks comes in and we hit the Mekong heading south.
The morning is cool on the water, sparkles bounce off the brown water, whirl pools toss bits of rubbish and bamboo around and life on the bank goes on. Buffaloes on the waters edge, gold panners, fishermen, children, the water must be too cold for them to swim though.
Lunch is a chicken curry with lots of rice and vegetables. Its pretty good.
We stop at a village, its very quiet, apparently it’s a Friday public holiday for this small regional under resourced school. We leave a surprise for the teacher, a heap of exercise books, pens, pencils etc etc, all stuff for learning.
We tootle on down the river reaching Pak Beng at 4.30, just in time for a beautiful sunset with the Mekong snaking through the layers of mountains.
Our hotel is way better than I expected, not the one I stayed in 3 years ago. Nice rooms, views of the river, good dining room and lovely staff.
We decided not to venture down the hill to the village of Pak Beng, doing nothing has made us very tired.
Ciao from Laos
Pauolo
reidy55 