Peso Millionaires: Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang

After the elephants we had a good night of sleep then hit the buses for a seven hour ride to Chiang Khong, a teeny town on the border of Laos and Thailand. We spent the night there in a freezing! hotel room (the sheet was so short that it could cover either our feet or our shoulders, we chose shoulders, but both ended up curled into little balls by morning). Once the sun came up we had a few cups of coffee and some noodles, then got into a little motor boat to cross the river to Laos. There, we realized we never got our Thai exit stamp and had to go back across the river, then back again, where we were given a Lao visa and were told to just, please relax :)
We couldn't really relax, though. Our destination was Luang Prabang, accessible by a looooooong bus ride, an expensive plane ticket or a two day slow boat trip down the Mekong. We did a lot of reading about the slow boat, and chose it as the best option, but we were still nervous. We didn't know what to expect, we'd heard people say they'd had a great time, but then also read about people being stuck in the basement of a boat and rats the size of beagles, so...we were expecting the very worst, and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
The other problem was that we had no money, no Lao money anyway, because the ATM in town wasn't working. Brad ran all around to the different ATMs in town while I stocked up on sandwiches, chips and beer for the long ride.

Finally, we had everything in order, so we made our way to the ticket office and then the boat, where we were pleasantly surprised. The boat had plenty of space, nice wood tables and benches, two toilets, a snack stand and a lot of friendly people. We sat next to two teachers from San Francisco, and had a fun day talking, watching the college kids get drunk and enjoying the scenery of the mighty Mekong.

The boat stopped in another teeny town for the night, where we huddled around a tiny TV to watch the US win! After that we hit the hay, but since I'd read about the giant rats I awoke to every single sound, "Is that a rat? I think it's a rat!" No rat sightings were ever confirmed.

The next day, the long day, was spent on a not-so-nice boat. Some sadist nailed together crappy old wood to make benches that only allow a person to sit in a stiff upright position, then filled a boat with them. I scoped out the situation and decided the bags of rice stacked in the middle of the boat would be a better seat, then claimed my perch. There I could sit, sleep, read, and sip some of the moldy red wine I'd brought on board. So, all in all, it wasn't a bad time. And like anything, it came to an end, in beautiful Luang Prabang, where Brad and I have been gorging on French food and marveling at the sights: the river, the monks, the buildings, the flowers. Ah, yes. We are on vacation!

On a bus