Tooooo geeeet to Luaaaaang Prabaaaang (Laaaooosss), we toooook the sloooooow boaaaaaat. (We heard the speed boat was uncomfortable and dangerous. Don’t do it.) The sloooooow boaaaaaat took twooooo daaaaays with a quick stop in Chiang Khong to cross the border, and an overnight in Pak Beng. It was ssooooo sloooowww that wee leeearrnneed  tooo speeaaak whaaaallee.

I expected a boat with some seats, space to move around a bit, but not much else. So in other words, they were pretty low. And my expectations were sort of met, but not quite.

FIRST of all, the group we bought our tickets from corralled us at an office before the boat ride and told us the following:

• There is ZERO food/drink for sale on the boat (So we bought sandwiches from the ladies at the office)
• We have reserved some good seats for you (bad seats are in a smaller area by the engine)
• It’s better to get a hotel reservation through them, so we are guaranteed a ride to and from the hotel. (This of course I did much to Brandon’s chagrin – but they struck a nerve in my Type A side.)

LIES! All of them. (Sort of…)

• There was some food and drinks on the boat, and enough beer for half of the boat to really enjoy their ride. (But honestly I am glad we had the sandwiches.)
• The “reserved” seats just meant, “We will get you on the boat.” But it was a free-for-all to get your bags in the storage area and find any seat available. And finding 2 together that were not squished, broken or wobbly was even harder. Luckily, we did find 2 decent seats next to a very nice couple.
• The ride to and from the hotel was basically a 3-minute drive up a hill and totally unnecessary. We could have just walked and found a place to stay. Plus there were people all over the docking area offering rooms. (Though some of those ended up getting double booked.)

In the end I was glad we had the food and reservation, but I was still annoyed. It’s the principle of the thing. Anyway – the slow boat was basically 2 days of sitting on a slowly moving boat. Every so often we would dock to let locals on or off, and pick up cargo. We heard that on other boats, this cargo included live pigs! But ours was not that interesting.

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