I had booked a flight from Luang Prabang to Chiang Mai and the travel agent had told me that she had already given my ticket to the bus driver. He knew nothing about it, and so I had to wait another day in Thailand for my ticket to arrive on the next bus.
The representatve of the Easy Trip tour company was concerned that I might be upset, but I replied "sabai sabai", all is well, what will be will be.

I was given a room for the night for 200 Baht then I went to the internet cafe to clear the spam from my inbox... Dinner was lasagna (120 Baht) at the Italian restaurant next door to my lodgings.
The proprietor, Antonio, was from Italy but married his Thai-Sri Lankan wife while living in Newcastle in Geordieland (NE England).

I try to get up early these mornings to walk in the cooler air, and so I was up before 07:00 and I walked the length of Chiang Khong... Breakfast was in the Italian restaurant again, and then I finished reading the novel "Master and Commander" over three pots of tea.

These trips are very good for meeting people... Like Katherine from an elephant rescue charity she had set up in Sukhotai. She was there trying to rescue a pregnant elephant from Laos. [http://www.blesele.com].
There is a guest house at the Sukhotai sanctuary and I am welcome to stay, so perhaps I'll make a trip there.

In the afternoon together with the new bus arrivals I got into the motorised canoe to ride across to Houei Sai, Laos.
This journey is not suitable for anyone who has trouble walking. Leaping off and onto a canoe without getting wet is not easy!

Laos money is the Kip, and the rate is 250 Kip = 1 Thai Baht, or 9,200 Kip to the US dollar. The tour company said 8,000 Kip to the dollar was what they offered without stating the real rate!
We were given a stern warning that the government decreed that all trade in foreign currencies was illegal in Laos and that we must deal only in Kip.
Then they charged me 200 Baht for my own room since I was the odd man out! The room was supposed to be included in what I'd already paid. They wouldn't accept Kip!
There was no towel in the room, and no-one seemed to be able to get me one.

On Friday morning I awoke at 05:00 with the Wat's gongs beating away, then at 06:00 the monks chanted, and at 06:30 I got out of bed, shaved, and walked the long steps up to the Wat (temple).
I met a monk, O-phat, who spoke excellent English and asked me a few questions... Why was I not married? was one of them, and I have to explain this one more time... The lonely life of a poor aviator...

At 09:00 we were bussed to the dock where the larger boats moor.
Many shops sell cushions for about 50 Baht (not Kip!), I bought one, and I'm sitting on it as I write this. The boats have hard seats, take at least one cushion, preferably two, you'll get a painful bottom otherwise.

They attempted to overload the boat with too many people, and then finally they commissoned the boat alongside ours. This second boat was brought closer and many people simply leaped across.
It was around 12:15 when we set sail; the scheduled time was 10:30.
At 14:00 we pulled up to the rocks by a village where children brought baskets aboard to sell cakes, crisps/chips, and drinks... There was already food and drink on board the boat, with many of the backpackers drinking Beer Lao in huge quantities...

After the village we had to pass three sets of rapids with the boat at full throttle to maintain steerage while we rocketed past the rocks at close quarters, great fun. One of the Lao lady attendants asked several people to sit on the port side to balance the boat. I was already sitting on the port side, it's posh to do so.
I was told by people who were on the boat I was supposed to take the day before, that they had rolled in one of the rapids, and water had flowed over the port side into the boat, they had a big scare!

It was calm but rapidly getting dark when we arrived at Pak Beng for the night.
The dock has steps up the slope to the road into the village, but you need your mountaineering skills to climb the rocks between the boat and the steps. The rocks are hard jagged igneous, good purchase under foot, but very hurtful if you fall.

We were told that there were only nine guest houses at Pak Beng and so everyone was scrambling to get off and get a room lest they would have to sleep aboard the boat (free of charge if you do!).
There are many guest houses in Pak Beng all vying for your business, with plenty of rooms, they are of a much better standard than Houei Sai, and include towels. I paid 75,000 Kip though many had rooms at 200 Baht.
We were told the generators were turned off at 20:00, but we still had power when I showered and went to bed after 22:00. Dinner that night was an excellent Tikka Masala in the Indian restaurant (41,000 Kip inc Lao beer)... The jungle village of Pak Beng was a different place to what we had imagined. I had thought of bamboo huts with palm leaf roofs, and a hole in the ground for the loo... What Pak Ben is is Whistler village in Laos!

In the morning we changed to a slightly bigger boat and everyone was accommodated in tightly spaced wooden bench seats. This boat had less of its own cushions and was somewhat less comfortable for the longer trip. There was no food on board, and so I should have accepted the many offers of sandwiches the Pak Beng locals make for people traveling down the Mekong. On the boat there was a lot of beer and some bottles of water in a cooler... All of this had gone down the backpackers throats before we arrived in Luang Prabang at 17:50.

The Mekong threads its way through the igneous rock and upthrusted sedimentary rock that is evidence of a tormented volcanic land in prehistory.
Mountains rise on either side, some of them dormant volcanoes... But like the lack of birds, they were not to be seen as the smoke hid them. The air quality in northern Thailand and in Laos at this time of the year is to be avoided. Eyes stung in the smoke.

People who travel in boats over hours and hours become friends it seems, and we coalesced into a friendly group, and this made everyone's journey that much better.
I took a taxi ride into town with an Australian couple who were on their honeymoon, we tried a couple of guest houses, and then settled on two that were side by side.
My room was $8 USD a night (no price given in Kip!) with a shared bathroom, and their's next door was $15 a night, bargained down to $13. Steve and Nicole had an ensuite bathroom, a double bed, and satellite television. $15 a night is on the upper end of the accommodation cost.

I changed $20 USD at 9,200 Kip/$1 at an official tourism office and then went in search of food.
Luang Prabang has French architecture... The restaurants also have neatly laid tables with table cloths in the French style. There are many bakeries as well.
I ate Lao food at the Pizza restaurant where I met a French couple. The husband flies Robins and Cessnas in France...
Nath, a local girl, was there promoting Beer Lao, and she chatted with me for a while to improve her English.

Although many of the signs are in French, French is no longer taught in schools, but English is.

Early Sunday morning I was up and about in the cool morning air to walk around the town.
Even before 08:00 there's someone to collect 20,000 Kip off you for a ticket to see the landmarks... I was caught at Wat Xieng this morning!
Breakfast was another 20,000 Kip for muesli and tea.
I had bought some shampoo in town and so I washed my hair for the first time in three days... With all the smoke you should do this every day! With all the filth I washed out of my hair, I wondered what damage had been done to my lungs... I didn't get out of China to be faced with this level of pollution!

Mala, a Chilean from the boat trip, organised a trip in two taxi's to the Kuang Si Water Falls for $2 each (+ 20,000 Kip entrance fee)... So fourteen of us went.
There are a few swimming holes there, and everyone had a fun time.

On the way back the other taxi had its left front tyre blow and the left rear spring a leak. There was only one good spare and so we had to wait for another Changan taxi to come along with another spare...

Sunday night I walked through the street market and around town, but didn't have an appetite for food... I'd had a submarine sandwich during the trip to the falls, but didn't feel like eating in the evening.

I was out of the B&B at 06:00 on Monday morning.
People tried to sell me bowls of food to feed the monks as I reached the main street, but I was on a mission and I had seen the procession of monks returning to their Wat.
I walked through the town and mounted the steps to That Phu Si, the hill with Wat Tham on top.
138 steps up I was collared for a 20,000 Kip ticket, and then spent some time pronouncing the Japanese alphabet to the attendant. He is learning Japanese!
Another 198 steps and I was at the top to see the sunrise... No, the smoke stopped that, and was even thicker up here, cough cough.
I paid my respects to Buddha, but didn't have any matches to light incense and a candle.

Breakfast was at a bakery with the French couple I'd met on Saturday night.
We were interupted by a man in a monk's saffron robe, it was dirty, and he was asking for money. I gave him a five thousand Kip note and he left. I think the monk's outfit was bogus.
I had a cup of tea with the Aussie couple who were breakfasting near the guest house... An American/Canadian back packer had rented a bicycle that had been stolen from his guest house during the night, and he wanted to pay for it and take a receipt to the police station.

The communist government at the urging of the Vietnamese has tried to curtail the Buddhist religion, but Buddhism is a philosophy as much as a religion, and here in Thailand crimes like theft are rare. So be a little bit more careful in Laos.

I showered, booked out and took a $4 taxi ride to the airport to catch the Lao Airlines ATR72-202 back through the smoke to Chiang Mai.

This anti-aircraft gun protected the approach to
Luang Prabang Airport
The Wat uses bomb tails as flower pots!