Adventures in Guangzhou!

Since the boat was packed, we had almost no room to maneuver and, as such, my rear end fell asleep periodically throughout the day. It was less than ideal. It also happened that the boat was full of foreigners (mostly European) who all decided that the boat was a lot like their local pub where everyone is expected to chain-smoke and drink cheap whisky. It really did smell like a bar, despite the open window-spaces on the side of the boat. I basically resigned myself to have a less-than-comfortable day and started to read and daydream.

We arrived in Pak Beng, a midway point in Laos, at around 6pm. The boat unloaded both passengers and baggage, and we were on our own to find food and housing for the night. Sitting in the back of the boat, we caught the end of the announcement that the boat would be leaving at 7:15am the next morning. Fair enough. The Pak Beng pier was at the bottom of a very steep hill and there were a ton of little kids waiting by the boat to try and make a buck carrying luggage up the hill. I said no thanks but felt almost compelled to give the kid who grabbed Tricia's bag some money anyway--it was twice the size of him!

Anyhow, we made our way up the hill, shopped a couple of hostels on the only street around, and settled on a place with a lack of hot water but surprisingly clean rooms. Exploring the small town, we quickly realized that it really only existed as a midway point between Luang Prabang and the Thai border. It was nothing but a few restaurants and hostels. Oh, and one very fancy looking and out-of-place hotel. I can't imagine who they're trying to cater to because anyone with the money to stay there would probably fly over the border. Anyhow, we actually found an Indian restaurant for dinner which, despite being sub-par Indian food, was surprisingly refreshing.

We stumbled out of bed at the crack of dawn the next morning and walked back down the hill. I could tell that something was wrong immediately because there were only four or five other people down by the boat--not the eighty or ninety who were there the day before. Huh. Well, it turns out the other people there were sitting in the back of the boat the previous day and also failed to hear that we were supposed to meet at the other pier. Oops.

There happened to be a younger Lao guy who spoke great English and decided to broker a deal with us--take his boat and we could pay half price. I was fine with that and we started to board the boat when an older Lao guy from a different boat started to yell at him. We stopped in our tracks and waited to see what was going on. The younger guy told us that we had to go back up the hill to buy official tickets and go on the other boat. I was annoyed about having to go back up the hill but, with no control over the situation, began the ascent once again. As we started to walk away, the younger guy whispered that we would walk up and then back down to his boat once the other guy left. I believe his exact words were, "We make old man think we leave, then we go back."

Eventually the older guy did leave on his boat and we went back down to the first boat and hopped on, paying half price under the table. I would have paid double for these conditions--not only was the boat itself nicer, but we were sharing the eighty passenger cabin with all of four other people, two Brits and two Parisians. We settled in and enjoyed better weather, more room, good company, and a tasty breakfast.

All was well in the world until about an hour and half into the ride when a speedboat buzzes up next to us and motions the driver to take the boat over to the shore. It seems that we were getting "pulled over" by the Lao boat police. A couple of serious official-looking guys boarded us and looked around. Clearly there was a problem, but we didn't have any idea what was going on for a while. They spoke to the three Lao guys running the boat and, while nobody raised a voice, we could tell they weren't happy.

After about five minutes, the younger guy who made the deal with us came over and informed us that we had to pay more money to equal the official ticket price. I really didn't care and just wanted the boat to get moving so I forked over the money immediately. The Brits were a little short on cash so we spotted them and that was pretty much that. Was it a bribe? Was it the money going to the ticket office? Who knows. My guess is that the older Lao guy from the pier radioed a friend with some authority and told him that the younger guy was taking passengers away from the other boat, potentially run by a friend of the older Lao guy. This caused the boat police (or tourist police or whoever it was) to track us down.

What was interesting to me was that nobody lost their cool at all during the argument. They didn't show any emotion whatsoever--just a calm exchange of words and a lot of standing around. I really wish I had understood Lao at that moment but I had to settle with imagining the dialogue in my head. Alls well that ends well though and we were on our way after about half an hour.

The sky really cleared up by noon and we enjoyed a gorgeous day going down one of the most famous rivers in the world. Periodically we passed small villages on the water or saw animals grazing by the shore. Some of the scenery was monotonous but overall it was fantastic. Between staring off the side and reading, I also found time to do some crosswords, play some poker, drink some Beer Lao, and even learn an important life skill. Tricia fixed my technique in shuffling a deck of cards and I feel that I will be eternally grateful.

We arrived at the border around 5:20pm and had to hustle in order to go through Lao exit immigration, hop in a little boat to cross the river, and stamp into Thailand. We had the unfortunate experience of dealing with the only rude Lao guy of the whole trip who got furious with us for refusing to take his minivan to Chiang Mai. I'm not sure why he went off the way he did but it took us by surprise. Regardless, we took the last motorboat across the river and made it to the Thai side at almost exactly 6pm.

I chuckled as I walked up to the office because it was easily the most lax border I had ever seen. There was no fence, no gate, no officials, no nothing. If we had wanted to, we could have walked right through without talking to anyone. Instead, I knocked on the window and got some guy's attention to hand us the necessary forms. We stamped in without a problem (stamp #10 overall) and went to try and negotiate a ride to Chiang Mai, a five or six drive from where we were.

Being with the two French travelers, we thought we had enough leverage to bargain down the price a bit. We talked to a tuk tuk driver and he called a friend on his phone who agreed to take five people for the price of four. The deal was, we had to make sure that all of us bought tickets. I wasn't quite sure how that was going to work, but he convinced us it would work out. Four of us arrived to the minivan and we handed over two 500 baht bills, the agreed upon price. The driver's friend changed the two 500's into ten 100's and proceeded to look away and hold out two 100 baht bills. I was a bit confused but decided to play along and took the bills. The second French guy arrived a moment later and the organizer announced that we had to pay for the fifth ticket, at which point we handed him back the two bills he had just given us. Whatever works!

We boarded around 7:30pm and were on our way. The road between the border and Chiang Mai was incredibly windy and unlit, but our driver seemed to know what he was doing, as he was speeding the entire way. I wasn't thrilled about going around hairpin turns at that velocity, but I didn't really have a say in the matter. I was also more concerned about Kelly who seemed to be getting hit with a bout of food poisoning at a really bad time. Sure enough, she had to toss her cookies at one of the rest stops and felt like she had been hit by a truck--hardly ideal at anytime, but especially when you're in transit. Luckily our psychotic driver got us to Chiang Mai safe and sound in record time (less than four hours) and we signed right into the hostel where he dropped us off. Only took two days, but we made it.