Not So Romantic

I know there were some high hopes posted in the comments, but it's hard for anything to seem romantic when you're smushed on a little boat with about 70 other people, sitting on just about the most uncomfortable, bum-numbing benches imaginable for 8 hours, 2 days in a row. At one stop we all thought we were about to be joined by a dead water buffalo that we saw two men carrying down the hill toward our boat. Instead, they tied it to a little canoe-like rowboat (so that the buffalo was in the water) and dragged it down the river to some unknown destination.

But I do have to say, despite all that, it was a beautiful trip. The scenery was gorgeous--lush green hills, steep cliffs, and rocks jutting up from the water. It all has a pretty wild feel to it, you don't ever see much evidence people or development, just a few tiny villages every once in a while. We were pleasantly surprised by the village of Pakbeng, where the boat stopped for the night. We'd heard from others that it was a rough introduction to Laos, with run-down guesthouses full of rats and cockroaches. Maybe we were just lucky, but we found one of the cleanest guesthouses we've been in for a while for just $2. Even the mosquito nets had a nice, freshly-washed smell to them--it's funny the things you get excited about after traveling for a while!

All in all we're happy we did the trip, but also happy when we finally made it to Louang Phabang yesterday evening. This is a beautiful town, with a lot of French influence in terms of architecture (and food too!). But it's also very touristy, which for us has lately been having the effect of making us less interested in a place, or especially in those sites or activities that all the tour agencies advertise as "must-sees" and "must-dos". So instead of all that, I rented a bike for the day and just explored a bit on my own, while Michael did some reading and journaling. After that we enjoyed a long lunch by the river and then climbed Phou Si (the Sacred Hill) for a beautiful view of the city complete with sunset (it didn't rain all day today!).

I think we're going to head out tomorrow and take a bus down to Vang Viang. There's an organic farm there that we're going to check out.