Pak Beng
Our second day up the Mekong was uneventful. Both of us woke up with full on colds after a day of the sniffles. I slept a LOT (but will spare you of the incredibly unflattering video Andrew took of me sleeping). When awake, I listened to at least five hours of Fareed Zakaria. We stayed in a kindacreepy (but cheap and very close to where our boat docked) guest-house, had dinner with a new German traveler, and crashed early.
I didn't have time to take the slow boat up the Mekong four years ago, so I thought we'd give it a go this time around. Nearly everyone we had heard about it from took it down from the Thai border crossing to Luang Prabang. I think that trip is a little more fun, more backpackers and less time (going downriver instead of up). Not that we didn't have a swell time, but it was one of those days where we weren't sure we were going to make it out of bed at 7:00 in the morning, much less be ready to spend the day on a boat. So sore from the four hour afternoon down the mountains yesterday (not to mention all three days of the trek) I was moving rather slow. Both of us waking up with scratchy throats and runny noses didn't help much either.
Fortunately, the boat upgraded its seats from wooden benches (from what I've heard) to old van seats drilled to wooden planks. And, the boat wasn't that full so we were able to spread out and lounge more comfortably for the ride. Sitting on a boat for 8 hours- slightly sick, and very sore was probably the best travel time management yet… Maybe not the healthiest time management…
