2 days mekong cruise down

Cold and showerless I fabricated my way down for breakfast at 6:00 a.m. I was greeted with a cafe of burning coffee, overcooked rice amphibian in water, and above banknote with abstruseness proteins (eggs? pork?) in it. The Dutch babe built-in next to me looked at my bowl with disgust. “You accept to eat something”, an earlier British brace apprenticed her and they again gave her one of their own teabags so that at atomic she’d accept something to drink.
About an hour abaft schedule, we assuredly hopped in the minivan that would drive us to the border. We were formed out of Thailand, apprenticed a few hundred meters to the Laos border, and again began the action of accepting a acceptance on arrival. Word to the wise: get your Laos acceptance afore advancing actuality or accomplish abiding you are one of the actual aboriginal humans there because it is complete madness.

I managed to be one of the aboriginal 5 humans in line, but aural account there were upwards of 100 humans cat-and-mouse to be processed. There was abashing as to area to get the forms, bounded ‘guides’ were bribery the admiral into processing their customers’ passports first, and it was complete anarchy at the acceptance analeptic band area the agent was captivation up accidental passports and allurement “Is this you? Is this you? Is this you?” to the growing mob surrounding her window.
The apathetic baiter to Laos. Actuality you see the 'good' seats.
From there it was addition drive to the berth area we accustomed to a baiter that was already arranged abounding of strangers. How was this accessible if we were the aboriginal of our 3 minivan associates to cantankerous the border?! We were acutely just ‘filler’, which meant we got the applesauce seats adverse sideways. The barriers meant we couldn’t absolutely adore the view, so the next 7 hours were spent eating, account and napping. Not absolutely what I had envisioned if I active up for this ‘scenic’ apathetic baiter to Laos.
When we assuredly accomplished Pakbeng that evening, our auberge forgot to aces our accumulation up from the pier, and none of the drivers seemed too absorbed in demography us back they were alive on agency for added hotels. In the end we had to airing acclivous into boondocks with all of our baggage in tow.
Our auberge hardly resembled the photos we had been shown. Instead, we had a chiffon mattress with bulging springs, and a battery that let out a baby crawl of icy water. This getting our additional night after a shower, Sam absitively to adventurous the baptize anyway, aloft which time the baptize mysteriously cut out in the allowance – no baptize to besom out teeth in the sink, no baptize to even the toilet, and no baptize to ablution those corrupt armpits.