Full of enthusiasm to be moving on again, we left Luang Prabang. Only 8km north of the town we reached the pier, where we also got our tickets for the slowboat on the Mekong. Some of the typical colourful wooden boats were fixed along the river. Due the low water of the Mekong we had to climb down quite a bit. There a wooden board let us step on to a floating platform, from where the boat was loaded. Our bikes went on the roof and the bags were placed with all the other luggage piles of the locals. There were plenty of seats (built in car seats) the boat was not sold out. For 9h we traveled up the Mekong. A beautiful journey through the limestone mountains and several stops to let passengers and there luggage of or board. We cannot imagine, how the people live in those very remote villages behind the palm trees up the steep sandy stairs.
It was another extremely hot day despite the wind from the movement.
The stay in Pak Beng, where the boat stopped, wasn’t great. It has become a tourist-party-place. Loads of tourists from Thailand travel two days down the Mekong, from the border to Luang Prabang for a quick taste of Laos.
Finally on the bike a again, we had three wonderful days ahead of us. We started early when the villages were awaking too and made our way north along the river Beng, who has formed a beautiful wide valley. Until then we had only found deep steep valleys in Lao. We enjoyed the space, the air and the view. The flatter areas we ideal for agriculture and after burning off the native forest they are used for banana or maize fields and planted kautschuk forests. The many villages were very friendly and the people seemed to have a bit more money at hand as in other areas. The big money though must go to China, as the plantages are run by Chinese. In the evening of the second and the third day there were thunderstorms with heavy rain, cooling down and clearing the air. This again added to our pleasure. We stayed overnight in Muang Houn and again in Oudomxai. This time we left Oudomxai in direction northwest, once more through great scenery with a lot of agriculture. Kautschuk was predominant here.
There we were already in Na Teuy, at the turn off to the Chinese border. We decided to keep going until the little place right at the borader, situated another 200m higher, hopefully a little cooler. Ban Boten then was a unfriendly passing through village with 3 ugly hotels and lots of places for storing, paking goods. Hoping it might improve we kept going and found ourselvs already at the border. It was still open. We decided on the spot to go for it – into the next border crossing adventure as sweaty and dusty as we were. Well, it turned out to be a very organised, straight forward procedure. In the Lao office we got the exit stamp (the other people all had money in their passports, however we never got asked for any?) – we walked 500m to the Chinese Hall for the immigration inspection and got the entry stamp – we showed the stamp to the officer at the gate – ni hao China!
