A Journey to Well Known Places

We woke relatively early and left our posh hotel room (no really. It was very nice. It had AC, hot water, AND cable) to head for the tour operator to head to Laos. We paid too much for a visa service that boiled down to someone standing next to me and saying in English “Stand in that line.” Whatever. The boat was set to leave at 11, so of course at 12:30 Laos time we set off. They over filled the boat so it ran low in the water. Then it started raining. Erica was fighting off a cold and had wanted to stay in Thailand another day, but I wanted to get to Laos in time for my birthday. After 30 minutes she was soaked to the bone, shivering, and glaring at me. Luckily the sun came out and they sold beer on the boat. We befriended some other travellers and all was OK in the world again. We spent around 14 hours in a slow puttering covered boat coursing up the Mekong river. It was beautiful. The trip was relaxing and scenic. Laung Prabang was a great first stop in Laos as well. It is a very well heeled tourist town with some pretty temples and great food. We climbed up 1000 steps to a temple on a large hill overlooking the city and surrounding area and watched the sun set over the river. Glorious. We spent my birthday drinking with a British couple and eating great curry by the river. I honestly never imagined I would spend my 35th in such an amazing place. And I got a Gameboy. Awesome.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 9:40 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.