Rolling on the (Mekong) River

Our long, skinny slow boat on the Mekong River in Laos

When most people think of the Mekong, they probably imagine the rice paddies of the Delta in Vietnam.  The Mekong that we saw during our first two days in Laos was instead a beautiful boulder-strewn river surrounded by mountains.  We really enjoyed a perfectly relaxing couple of days cruising down the river in a "slow boat."  Our days went like so: chat, read a book, watch fishermen, eat lunch prepared by the family that lives on the boat, see a local village, chat some more, eat snacks, visit Buddhist caves, relax.  If we had any expectations going in (which we didn't), it would have far exceeded them.

Gazing out over the Mekong

Anne relaxing on the slow boat

We overnighted in the little village of Pakbeng.  The village was basically just one road up the mountainside connecting the river at the bottom with the Hive Bar at the top.  Signs along the road informed us that the Hive Bar was "the only bar in town," and everyone made their way there by the end of the night (i.e., 11 pm). 

We were all really disappointed that the ride was over when we pulled into port at Luang Prabang.

~David

P.S. Great news about my computer.  I replaced the hard drive in Singapore and have almost finished restoring all the files that I had backed up online.  This is the first post in a while that we have written on the laptop.  Look forward to captioned photos again!

Hive Bar - The Only Bar in Pakbeng!

David W. Reed Co. - Lao-style