13th February - Laos (1)

Well we have just left Laos after spending around 2 weeks traveling the length of the country and I have to say I had very mixed feelings about the country. It's extremely beautiful and most of the people are very welcoming, but at the same time it is very much a country in transition and still one of the poorest in the world. A small minority of people are out to exploit the relative wealth of people traveling around and as such some times it can feel a little unsafe. This though is definitely a very small minority and we have had some really amazing times, I'm quite sad to be leaving.
We left Thailand by crossing a small boat over the Mekong River separating it from Laos, bought visas at the chaotic visa control and were dropped off at a cafe, ready to board the slowboat we were getting down the river to Luang Prabang. This was the first of many attempted scams we would encounter in Laos! A official looking man starting giving a lecture about the dangers of the slowboat and scaring quite a few people about the impending ride ahead by saying it took twice as long as we thought and that many people fell in. He also gave some information about the town that we would be staying in for the night, Pek Beng, saying that it had no electricity, was overpriced, people would try and steal your bags etc... All the while though we still thought he was employed by the boat company and this information was for our benefit. Until that was, he offered us the alternative of booking a bus with his bus company! Around half the people with us were suitably scared and booked with him, even though they had already paid for the boat ticket, but at least it meant there was more room for us on the boat now! As it was the boat was amazing, traveling through the incredible tree lined mountains at a comfortable pace and meeting other people. The only thing the man was right about was when we arrived at Pak Beng, men from the beach jumped onto the boat where all our bags were stored at the back in order to carry them off for you and demand cash for the service. There was a bit of a fight in the back but in the end we all got off safely with our bags and found an acceptable guest house that defintely DID have electricity.
A further 8 hours on the boat the next day and we arrived in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Town in Northern Laos. It is an absolutely amazing town built on land at the confluence of the Mekong and Nam On rivers with a huge, lush hill in the middle of the town which has a temple built on the top. We found a really nice family run house to stay in and by this point we had acquired some more people; Jan and Jakob, two german guys that we met on the boat, and very strangely a guy named James (or Brain as I call him out of habit) who was in my halls of residence at university and had bumped into in Chiang Mai. We spent the next four days in Luang Prabang, paddling in the confluence, looking round the great night market and generally relaxing after the long boat journey. We watched a show of traditional Laos songs and ballet in the grounds royal palace as well as climbing the hill to the temple on top to see a supposed imprint of Buddha's foot and a great view of the city. Strangely we found in most cities in Laos the place to be after the strictly imposed 11.30 curfew was always a bowling alley just a little while out of town. We went a couple of times and was pretty fun bowling with beer and watching the bemused faces of the local young people as strange Falang danced to cheesy pop, my idea of the perfect night!