Welcome Aboard The Leaki Tiki

On Wednesday, we set off from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang. We'd decided to take the whole trip as a package instead of doing it independently as it was supposed to be cheaper. The first day was a pleasant 5 hour drive north to the Thai border town of Chiang Khong with 14 of our closest new friends in an A/C minibus. As we were the first to be picked up from our guest house, we were a bit skeptical of an empty van. We were waiting for them to tell us that we would be added to some other group or moved to a crappier bus once everyone else was collected. Later, at a rest stop/relative-of-the-driver's-gift shop, Kiima and I whispered to each other how relieved we were to be with a group of rambunctious Dutch. They had complained when they thought the driver was going to try to stuff more people into the already overflowing car. That night, we stayed at the ultra basic but still pleasant NamKhong guest house in Chiang Khong. Over dinner with a couple from Sweden, we discussed the Trans Siberian Railway (they've done it and now I want to), whether or not we were at that moment looking at the Mekong River (we were), whether we'd ever heard of Gothenburg (we had) and the relative popularity of Mando Diao.
The next morning we minibussed a minute and a half down the road and very smoothly exited Thailand. In groups of 5 or 6, we crossed the Mekong to the sandy shores of Huay Xai and began the work of officially entering Laos (pronounced "Lao," no S). It turned into a bit of subdued madness as we had a couple of hundred people intentionally kept ignorant of the way forward by their respective tour groups (to better extract the price of expediting it for you) and three immigration officials to process the lot of us. The army has a word for this. We did succeed in avoiding the extra 100 Baht fee our guest house was pushing though.
Three and a half hours and half a mile later, we boarded boat #088. As each spot filled and bags were loaded across a precariously perched gangplank, the collective mind realized our new masters' intention to load the boat with more people than seats. After much moaning, they relented and we split into two groups. The 6 hour trip went by quickly enough. I finished Bourdain's "The Nasty Bits," avoided the hard wooden bench seats as much as possible, and watched farmers' kids take a dip in the river. That night, we stopped in Pak Beng. Before the lights went out (power's on from 6-11pm each night), we had noodles and BeerLao, were offered weed (others opium), and bought some Sangsom before going to bed under many many layers of blankets.
Woken by a succession of insistent roosters and goats to another brisk morning, we bought sandwiches for the day's ride and boarded our last boat towards Luang Prabang. This time, we all squeezed onto one slightly larger slow boat. The next 8 hours were much more of a party. Everyone gawked at the witch doctor wannabe (French, of course), ate their fishy tasting cheese baguettes, read, and noted the curious lack of wildlife (one bird in total). A small crowd drank the boat dry of BeerLao three times, so we stopped at a sand bar every so often to replenish. After watching a bloated human corpse float by, we chatted up a South Korean elementary school teacher on her month's vacation, followed the betting of a group of Canadians counting the number of beans in a plastic bag (1,248), and blew hot the coals of a Zimbabwean divorce-to-be. It had been my dream to be pass around the bottle of Sangsom and this guy provided the opportunity. After retelling his glory days of playing rugby with Idi Amin, he continued with "I set myself on fire seven weeks ago." Sure enough, he had (we saw the raw flesh of his stomach), so we poured some additional medicine into his pepsi and the magic continued ("My wife used to be beautiful, two nights ago"). We passed more incredibly green scenery, several groups of water buffalo, and a couple "speed boats" and I started reading Hitchens' new book as the time limped forward.
Thankfully ashore hours later, we hiked our sore a$$es up the hill past surprisingly uncommitted guest house touts and found our way south of town to our bed for the night. Glad we didn't fly this leg. It wouldn't have been nearly as fun.