Riding the Mekong to Luang Prabang

More images can be viewed at: http://picasaweb.google.com/robyou/ChiangKhongToLuangPrabangLaos8178192010

Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai to Chiang Khong and finally here we are in Luang Prabang.   Our travels have felt accelerated of late, with many miles being covered since leaving Cambodia two weeks ago.  The transport has consisted entirely of buses, so we felt we needed to break things up and take a romantic river cruise down the Mekong into Laos.  It wasn't exactly romantic, but it wasn't all bad, somewhere in between.  The two day river boat trip was similar to being on a crowded, uncomfortable bus for seven hours a day.   The first day was certainly worse than the second, as the boat was packed with people and the wooden benches were tough on the bum.  The second day was vastly better, as a larger boat with comfortable seats somehow appeared in place of our first boat.   We overnighted in the isolated village of Pakbeng about halfway between Chiang Khong and Luang Prabang.  The town has become relatively wealthy on this captive tourist stopover, and while I wouldn't see any point in lingering, it was decent and cheap.    The scenery along the way was good, with lush green hills and a fair amount of blue sky.  The river, like all the rivers we have seen in SE Asia was a muddy brown.  Being the rainy season, the river was running high, with lots of debris floating along.  Every hour or so we would stop off at a riverside village (not many roads in the region) and either drop off a few locals, or let the local children on board for ten minutes to sell their snacks and beer.  Yes, children sell beer in Laos.   We spent the first day reading, gazing at the scenery and shifting around in our seats.  On the second day we met a British couple that had been traveling for many months and had recently been to Nepal.  They spent six weeks there and did two treks, one of which was the trek to Everest base camp.  That got us thinking about our upcoming trip to Nepal, and the possibility of doing a challenging trek like Everest base camp.  We leave for Nepal in three weeks, so we will have some time to consider this and other treks, such as Anapurna or perhaps the drier Mustang region.  We would welcome comments from anyone that has done trekking in Nepal.  At the moment we are enjoying our time in the beautiful city of Luang Prabang.