So one thing I forgot to mention in my last post was the ride back from the jungle. I mentioned that you sit in the back of the trucks with the benches. Well, this truck was worse then any other I'd been in. Not only that, the driver wasn't aggressive and was awful at shifting gears. Add this to the fact that the truck had no shocks. This made for quite a dirty and bumpy ride. I have a picture of my face afterwards. My forehead was the color of dirty red. As I stood in the shower, it took over a minute for the dirt in my hair to stop staining the water brown. Yck. I'm sure you all wanted to hear that one!
So yesterday and today, I took the slow boat down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. If you don't have a map of Laos, you can scroll down to the bottom of this page and click on Country Map. The map doesn't have town of Huay Xia, but you can see the river in the Northwest that touches Thailand. Well, I was on a slow boat down that river to Louangphrabang. The ride takes two days.
They pack quite a few people on these boats. Overall, the ride was great. It was relaxing, read a bunch, met amazing people, drank a little, and played cards. More importantly, we watched the scenary slowly pass by. You would see the villagers fishing with their long bamboo fishing poles. The women cleaning their clothes. The naked children running and playing in the sand. The villages floating around in their canoe like boats. Men and women alike bathing in the river. It really gives you a brief sense of the life that the villagers live.
So now I am in the middle of Laos. Hanging out with some friends I made on the boat. Walking around the city. Walked through a very nice and relaxed night market. I'll probably be here for a couple of days before I head south.
My Visa for this country runs out on the 20th of March, so I either need to cross a border before then, or stop at a state office and pay to extend my visa. I'll probably do the later so I can take my time heading south.
L'hitraot,
Chad
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