Thursday 21st June – Nong Khiew
First thing after breakfast we took a walk to the boat landing on the other side of the river to try and charter our boat to take us to Luang Prabang. This is the journey I had been waiting for, and pretty much the whole point of the last 3 days travels was to get here for this boat trip. I had heard and read that this was supposed to be one of the most stunning boat trips in Laos. When we got to the boat landing we were told that it was a Million kip to charter a boat, and it is normally split between about 10 people. We had 6.
We had spent the previous night asking all the westerners that we met if they were going the same way to try anf build up our group size, but didn’t find anyone going the same way. A group had told me that they managed to barter the charter boat down to 600,000 kip for a group of 5 or 6 coming the other way.... So that was my target. That would work at 100,000 kip each, or about US$10 each.
When we got to the boat landing the guy came straight out with a Million kip to charter the boat. I said we only had 6 people and he cames straight down to 850,000. I asked if he could do anything better than that and he thought for a bit, spoke to his friend and then say 760,000. I asked if he could do 500,000 and he said no. 700,00 was the lowest. I said 600,000 and he stood there thinking about it. Holding my ground for a bit, he agreed. Not bad bargaining I thought!
The boat was leaving at 11:30 so we had time to pop back to our guest house, chill for an hour and then come back with our bags.
As we loaded the boat, I figured it wasn’t going to be the most comfortable rides! Wooden seats that look like they are made for Kindergarten schools! Still. We were
here for the views and it was only going to be for 6 hours.
The sun was baking hot and yet again, I have managed to slightly burn my shoulders and back! Not too bad, just a bit pink. As soon as my tan gets better I won’t have to worry about it as much!!
The scenery did not disappoint. Ania and me just spent the entire time taking photos. She is also interested in photography, so we spoke a lot about that and compared stories. The mountains around the Nam Ou river were stunning, with great, vibrant
greens and a gorgeous blue sky. There was a lot to shoot on the river as well. Lots of people fishing, buffalo, kids playing in the river huts on the side, and much more. I was a bit irritated as I wanted to keep swapping the lenses on my camera between my shorter lens and my zoom lens. I think it is almost time that I started to carry 2 cameras, so I can have the best of both worlds. Of course this is extra cost, weight and worry. I’ll leave it until I get to Singapore and see what the prices are like. I also spent a lot of the journey just playing with my camera, trying different settings, seeing what works and what doesn’t work. This was a great opportunity for experimentation which I haven’t really had up until now. So I learnt a lot about my camera here. I struggled massively with getting the skies and foreground in the shot. I was using a polarizing filter, but I think that I need to invest in a graduated filter that will let me darken the skies whilst keeping the foreground visible.
We arrived in Luang Prabang after about 5 hours and headed straight up the steps to a road where there were a lot of guest houses. Business is competitive in Luang Prabang as this is probably the most common destination in Laos for travellers, apart from Vang Vieng maybe, so every guest house had touts outside trying to drag us in to see their rooms. We looked at a couple which were generally fine, all very similar, but we decided to go for rooms in the Phousi 3 Guesthouse. I am sharing with Ania again, and the other guys got 2 double rooms next door.
After checking in I handed my laundry into reception and met a nice Canadian girl from British Columbia. We spoke a bit about Whistler and hopefully I will bump into her again while we are here. She told me her and her friends would be drinking in Hive bar tonight if we wanted to go along. Sounded like a grand idea!
A quick stop in the internet café was called for as I hadn’t checked my email in a few days. We knew that John, Laura, Jo and Amelia (Part of our fun group in Chiang Mai) were coming into town today as well so we wanted to see if they had emailed us say they were in and where they were staying.
John and Laura had arrived, and we walked up to meet them at their guest house. No word from Jo and Amelia yet, but they were coming in on the 2 day boat from Huay Xai, so they might be a bit later. I am sure we’ll catch up with them tomorrow.
After a bit of dinner, I had the chicken curry again with sticky rice, but it was nowhere as good as the one I had in the small town of Nong Khiew, which was disappointing. We tried to fins a bar for a couple of drinks. Everywhere seems to close at about 11pm around here. There are a couple of bars open later, like Hive bar, but we were all so beat we just got a bottle of Beerlao and sat by the river. Then off to bed.
I am expecting to stay in Luang Prabang for a couple of days. I am really keen on trying out a 1 or 2 day white-water rafting trip from here, so I need to see if anyone else is keen. I might move on to Vang Vieng before Francois and Lisa, as they have a bit more time to spend in Laos than me, but hopefully a bunch of us can head down together. The tubing
and other outdoor activities are famous in Vang Vieng, and I am keen to give that a go.
Apparently there is a nice waterfall around Luang Prabang, about 32Kms out of the city, so we might try to hire scooters one day and head over to that.