Laos to Thailand

 

January 6 2023 – River to border

Last day on the river. Breakfast, village walk, lunch and then across the border this afternoon.

Plans have changed, a minor since last time. They have changed about a dozen times already. Stay in Laos. Get speedboat to Luang Prabang. Get slow boat to Luang Prabang. Get bus to L.P.. Get bus to Luang Namtha and immediately get on train to Luang Prabang. After glancing at Lonely Planet, Lauang Namtha seems like a reasonable town for the night of maybe two and then catch the train to Luang Prabang and figure out the next leg to the Plain of Jars.

Vieng the guide said that it was just as expensive to stay on the boat and then pay for a second Visa of Arrival than it was to get a hotel in Laos, and the accommodations are probably better on the boat than in Laos.

I spent some of the morning fighting with the ship’s WiFi and finally got cellular data and made reservations for tomorrow night’s hotel in Luang Namtha, so that is off of my mind.

After breakfast another village walk. Not much different that the last 4, but it is probably the only thing that the company can offer since there are only 3 major towns out entire time. Vientiane, Luang Prabang and the border. The space in between is just villages, bridges and the damn dam. Except for a couple buffalo and a chicken those were the only things of interest to me in the town. There was one very handsome rooster who was tied to a post in the roof rafters. He was a special rooster. He was taken to the forest and staked out. Then the wild roosters would come and challenge him for territory and the farmer would shoot or catch them for tonight’s stew pot and handsome rooster would go home back to the rafters. He must be a pretty handsome boy, since the outside of the hut were 2 tail feathers from each of his conquests.

Now back on the boat, with nothing but eat and our own devices. By devices I mean cell phones and tablets. Bandwidth is limited probably because the ships WiFi is the same cell signal as my phone, and every cell phone on the ship is trying to get ail from home and a few (men) are hogging the already narrow bandwidth with high bit rate videos. Sigh! Either they don’t know how WiFi works or they are just wireless hogs.