Thankfully it didn’t rain for long and the first leg of the slow boat trip was a cool 5 hours downriver to Pakbeng.

They really do try to pack people onto the boat, but at least we all got a seat! The seats are old minibus seats with planks of wood attached to frames at the bottom, they move around a bit and get quite uncomfortable after a while. However, it wasn’t too bad — it wasn’t until the end of the journey that I realised they sell beer on the boat, and so I bought myself a large ice cold beer lau to drink whilst floating down the river looking at the fantastic scenery.

We arrived into Pakbeng just before it started to get dark, and to save carrying out stuff up the big hill and hunting around guest houses, we went with one of the touts that are always there when you get off a boat/bus/train — it was fine, and we ordered breakfast and packed lunch in advance before heading off to find something for dinner.

Pakbeng is a tiny place covering on main street with a few guest houses dotted around — it’s geared up for the slow boaters, plenty of shops selling sandwiches for the trip and charging hat little bit more for things.

We ended up eating at an Indian place, the food tasted bland and was war rather than hot, but we were hungry, and enjoyed the candle-light and listened to the terrible music which was turned up loud to cover the sound of the generator, but after having fun playing with the ubiquitous ants that get into everything, we headed for an early night.

We were up early for the boat the next day and foud ourselves waiting for the late risers anyway, they had to sit on the floor though, which validated our early morning.

The next 7-8 hours were spent crammed into the boat, watching the jungle pass by, and watching the locals go about their work on the river banks. It appeared to me that a lot of the ‘jungle’ was in fact farmland, despite it being on sheer slopes. It was surprising just mug of the river is utilised. It seemed that every stretch had a small house on it, or a small village, and every part had fishermen netting for fish, or a be strung out between rocks, or hung from a bamboo cane.

We arrived into Luang Prabang and worked out which direction to head in. We checked out a few guesthouse before settling on Nam Sok 3 (50,000kip fan room), which was pleasant and situated just away from a main strip of shops and restaurants.