MEKONG BOAT DAY ONE

The boat made its way along the Mekong river for seven hours. The views along the way were truely incredible. Some parts of the river were very choppy and my heart was in my mouth at times. There was a bar on board the boat so we got a few beers and read our books and the time passed. We arrived at Pack Bang around five thirty in the evening

and sure enough the locals were waiting by the riverside. Again there was lots of frenzied activity as they tried to secure a thin wooden plank for us to file off the boat. I do not know why they have to use such thin ones!!!


everytime I have to get off I just start to wobble and worry that I will fall in. Some people do fall in, but thank goodness I have managed, by the skin of my teeth to stay upright.

And I was really glad that we had the pep talk about the bags. They really do just jump onto the boat and start grabbing bags. Thankfully Don, the Canadian guy, spotted mine and shouted for me to grab it. There was also a very scary local man weilding a hacksaw at the teenagers as they tried to grab bags and shouting at them. So that was a bit of a deterrent. But they returned to chance their luck again.

It was quite scary just getting to the truck to be taken to our guesthouse. We had paid a fella at the border for a guesthouse when we got here. But in the chaos none of us took the name. We assumed we would be met. So we just followed a guy and hoped for the best. Thankfully he showed us to our rooms. We were given tourches because the electricity goes off around nine.There was no hot water. But we did get given large flasks with hot water so that we could have a washdown.

It is a very underdeveloped place, with the locals living very primitavely alongside the guesthouses that are springing up. After we settled into our rooms we headed to a local indian restaurant and had a good meal before going to bed.
Very early the next morning we were woken by a cockerill!!!!

The guesthouse owner says that local people use the early morning call of the Cockerill like a clock. They know that it is around half past five. So they get up, prepare the rice, then go to work. We on the otherhand could have wrung its kneck!!!
After breakfast we headed off to the boat for another lazy day sailing down the Mekong river.