A slow boat similar to the one we travelled on.
After a pleasant enough journey on the floor of ther engine room of the crowded slowboat we stopped in what (judging by the total lack of civilisation) clearly wasn't Pakbeng. Eventually we realised we all had to leave the boat with our bags and after a confusing half hour or so on a deserted river bank wondering whether we'd be sleeping on the sand and if not, how a hundred+ people were going to sleep in the rickety wooden boat with one squat toilet to share (but with plenty of Beer Laos). Instead we followed the Lao guy who seemed to speak the best english up into the hills. After an hours trek with all our gear and through a small village lined with locals staring at the confused and sweaty foriengers traipsing through their village we descended onto another river bank lined with slow boats and enterprising locals setting up stalls. Food, drink and accomodation for all! It ended up being a pretty fun night, there were bon fires lit plenty of food and alcohol and the local village kids even came down to join in. It had been evident as we treked alongside the river that that particular section was much to low to cross and as the sun was setting anyway with no lights the boats really were going nowhere. After a terrible sleep on a boat with no blankets and loud banging noises all night we set off to Luang Prabang the next morning and arrived ten and a half hours later - to pretty much paradise.
The trek past the low part of the river
You can see how low the river is in this photo
Our camp being set up for the night
Finally arriving in Luang Prabang just before sunset
Luang Prabang is a world heritage site and it is a beautiful, friendly city surrounded by jungle covered mountains. The French colonised Laos some time in the 18th century and were kicked out by 1975 and what that means for us is that we were able to eat the cheapest French meal of our life, wine included (the first glass in two weeks) in Luang Prabang. We also splashed out on a $40 hotel room with cable TV in english the best shower in the world and the comfiest bed we have slept in in SEA. So yeah it's pretty much paradise. Our first day here we hired bikes and rode out to Kuang Si waterfall, a journey Lonely Planet describes as "a gentally undulating 35km through rice paddy". I don't know where they got their definition for gently undulating but gentally undulating it was not. More like steep as hell and really freak'n hard. Especially on cheap bikes with no gears. We almost turned around but a combination of pride, stupidity and the thought of the waterfall at the end kept us going and it was worth it once we finally arrived, half dead, 3 hours later. Beautiful cascading falls, pristine turquoise swimming holes and a rope swing! what more could you ask for? The icing on the cake was that when we finally got out there it was so late in the day it was virtually deserted.