Our ten day trip through northern Laos began with a two day slow boat trip down the Mekong River. Each day was about 6-8 hours on the boat with one overnight stop. The boat was long and flat with relocated car seats for the lucky passengers, and hard wooden benches with occasional cushions for the late arriving ones. Not much can be said for the boat, but the scenery was nothing short of amazing. Both days the boat moved at a decent speed with the stong current of the Mekong and occasionally stopped at tiny villages along the way to pick up sacks of rice and produce or villagers. Aside from these tiny villages, we passed no development, just pristine jungle and beautiful limestone mountains. We stopped for the first night in a town called Pak Beng, filled with guesthouses, restaurants, and takeaway sandwich stands...basically a town set up for one-night visitors from the slow boat. It was a nice stopover – we had a delicious dinner and nice guesthouse, and in the morning we picked up sandwiches for the boat ride. The second day was much like the first, but we had a different boat and we found it was possible to be even less comfortable: no car seats, and no cushions! My back was very angry with me when the day was done, but once again, the scenery made up for it. We reached our final destination in the evening at a town called Louang Prabang, and we settled in to stay for a few days.
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