craziness and scetchiness, but one for the books for sure!

Yay! I'm in Laos finally! After 3 days of voyage, Carly and I arrived yesturday afternoon to the little port city of Luang Prabang where we will be spending new years. But the way here, the voyage, was quite an interesting experience through and through... culture shock? Definitly. Did I learn from it? Of course.

From Chiang Mai, Carly and I decided to do an organized sort of "tour" for our journey to Laos - a country that only just recently opened its borders to the outside. We concluded that since the packeage offered a discount on the Visa - which I would receive directly at the guesthouse before departing on the boat - as well as 1 night's accomodation in Chiang Khong, dinner, breakfast, and a packed lunch PLUS our 5 hour bus ride to Chiang Khong, and a 2 day journey by slow boat down the Mekong River... well, thought we'd go with that so there wouldn't be any worrying envolved as far as how we could get all that otherwise. It was the safest way to pay for a Laos visa and receive it without question. So we took off in a mini bus to Chiang Khong on the 28th with other people from various guesthouses, and little did we know how close we would all become over the course of our journey...

The guesthouse was quite nice, right on the river, decent food, nice people. The next morning I received my visa as planned and Carly & I were of the first 8 to head down to the pier, ferried to the other side of the river, stamped our visas, payed for that night's accomodation in Pak Beng, and trucked off to another pier where we would board the slow boat. The slow boat can comfortably hold about 40 people and so when we noticed that there were much more than 40 people boarding the boat, we just assumed there would be another boat since so many were trying to get to Laos for New Years. Do you think this happened? HECK NO! If you can imagine, there was 110 people - mostly white tourists - packed like sardines onto a boat that was far from comfortable to begin with. This perhaps is usual for locals to be packed together so tightly, but for all the grumpy and complaining tourists, it was almost like a hell for them. I'm not saying I was happy-go-lucky for the journey, but it was really neat to have experienced that - on the bright side. We saved a couple seats for the 2 aussies travelling with their 1 year old baby boy since we knew it would have been quite difficult for them otherwise. Jetta, Neils, and little Elkin. Carly and I and a few others were babysitters for the ride! It was so cute! They appreciated it totally and in that journey we became quite close, as far as travellor's can achieve closeness to others. Between constantly standing up and sitting back down on the cooler so the crazy boat lady could serve beer to the drunken tourists - and one local who picked a fight with Jetta because he just wouldn't shut-up while Elkin was sleeping, was beligerant and puking over the side and then going back for more beer which the crazy boat lady cheerfully served him - and moving over every 5 mins for the idiots who didn't think to go to the washroom beforehand, and not to mention the jerks who were hanging their legs off the edge and leaning their chairs back who wouldn't budge to allow for more room to get to the toilet, oh ya and there was the heat and crampedness and constant loud droan of the motor situated in the back of the boat where we were also situated... it was a very unique and interesting journey! heehee Baby sitting Elkin definitly passed the time cuz playing with babies is always fun, especially smiley happy ones with really cool parents.

The arrival was a gong show, in its truest sense. It was dusk, there was hardly any light, everyone piled off the boat and waited on the steep sandy banks for someone to unlaod their packs so they could mad dash it to find a place to sleep for the night if they hadn't arranged for one already. But the bags never came. I grabbed mine before deboating, but still had to get Carly's and so while she waited with our stuff, I went back on the boat to see what was going on.
The dudes were moving them from to the middle, but not OFF the boat. I started an assembly line to get the packs off before it got too dark, and as they were coming off Neils was calling out their descriptions and trying to fend off the little local boys who would come and try to steal them (or bring them up the bank)! I got off, Carly went on the search for her's and some older local had it and another's and tried to get her to pay to get it back! Of course she didn't, but because this town was PURELY built for tourism - ie. dodgy guesthouses and restaurants are it's only industry - the locals don't really understand what that means... it's hard to explain. I saw a dude shove a poor boy face first into the sand because he was so fed up with them crowding around him. It was terrible. The tourists don't really understand either, apparently. So after all that crazy day, exausted and sweaty and sore, we found our dodgy guesthouse and went for some delicious thai food with Jetta, Neils, Elkin, Perdy and Abbey (the 2 british birds who were also on the mini bus ride as well as our boat).

Elkin was across the street being watched so Jetta could have some peace time. So cool. The other kids being watched were of the young girl who was cooking everyone's meal BY HERSELF as well as the girl's brothers and sisters. The babysitter? the girl's mother. But that's what it's like there... she is only 15 years old and just had her second child only months before. She is working from dawn til 10pm when the entire village's power is shut off for the evening because of the curfew. A very different way to live. It's incredible.

Day 3 will be written another time...