Slow Internet alert… Rewrite alert.
Up early to grab some food and try and secure a seat on the slowboat. We were on a different boat – which was narrower, but not as crowded, so we managed to get a seat. It was quite a comfortable ride for the first couple of hours, and then we docked and loaded on a bunch of other passengers from Chiang Mai. Natalie and Yasmine, the Americans who’d been following me since Ko Lanta were in the group, so we exchanged hellos.
Uneventful trip, but I did manage to finish my book, which was quite good (“Clockers”, Richard Price). We stopped a few more times to load/unload locals, and reached Luang Prabeng just before dusk. Guto, Josh and myself had picked up three more travellers. Beth and Louisa (friends from England), and Andi from Germany. We all went in search of a guesthouse, and with the help of Josh’ guidebook found a decent one on the other side of the big hill in the centre of town.
We checked in, showered, and then headed out for dinner. Walked through the night market, and like every Asian city, it’s everyone selling the same thing. They had some nice silks and things like that, but nothing we couldn’t find in Thailand. We were all pretty beat, so after dinner we headed to bed.