THAILAND - Border crossing into Laos
So I woke up early in Pai to pack my things and check out of the crazy hostel I stayed at. I rode my bike into town while balancing my huge backpack in between my legs. I rode to the rental place and returned it no problems. I took my backpack and hike to the travel shop to catch my bus. I was early so I stopped at the 7-eleven to grab a coffee and some yogurt for breakfast. And then I boarded the tiny mini van first. I sat in the middle row next to the window as the driver and I waited for the other passengers to show up. Little did I know that I was waiting for Domien! The guy I met at the bungalow with Moni on Koh Lanta and again saw on Koh Phayam! Such a small world. He got in the van and sat next to me while his friend grabbed the seat behind us. I mention how I remembered him and it jogged his memory that he remembered me! We got to talking and it turns out he was a project manager for an engineering company in Belgium and that is exactly the kind of job I was looking into for myself. We had a lto in common and we talked the entire 9 hour van ride to Chiang Rai. By the end he got out to stay a few night in Chiang Rai with his friend before they parted ways. He told me he was headed to Laos only a few days after me, and I told him I wanted to see him once he got there! So we exchanged numbers and said goodbye. One the van more people got on and they were going to the same border town as me to get the 2-day slow boat the following morning. Sitting next to me was a polish girl that spoke broken english. We were unsure of how the whole ticket thing worked and how far it would take us into Laos, but we decided to stick together and see how it went. There was 7 of us left on the bus and we all were dropped off at a hotel on the river front that separated Laos from Thailand. We all got assigned rooms and had to share with random strangers in this tiny lonely border town. The hotel owner was a chubby Thai guy that lived with his grandma. She came out and was bossing him around to help us find our rooms and take our pictures for us to bring to the border the next day. I got assigned with another polish girl named Mirthe who seemed very standoffish towards me at first and then asked to switch rooms and stay with a french girl. SO that left me alone in my room which was nice. There were 2 other british boys from Whales in another room and the other room had Anameik, the other polish girl who stayed with another British girl name Jordan who was very outgoing, a typical british girl which was funny to hear her slang talk. After we put our bags in the room we all walked outside and sat on the porch. We introduced each other to ourselves and decided to go look for a bar and restaurant to eat dinner at. The hotel said we got a free meal at this local place so we all walked down the street to find it. Inside the bar there was costumes to dress up in and take pictures as well as a pool table. We all got drinks and the others were very social towards each other. I was very quiet because I had the feeling everyone didn't like me for some reason because I was the only American. So I sat at the table and order my food from only 2 options we had for a free meal. I was doodling some pictures on a corner of a napkin as the others chatted around me. The Polish girl named Mirthe was talking to the (kind of rude) French girl named Anaise. They seemed like friends and then the British girl, Jordan, was talking to the 2 boys about their home country a lot around the pool table. And Anamiek was quiet like me but was trying to but her way into a conversation. I didn't know till a few days later that no one knew each other until this point, so we were all strangers to each other. I got up to talk a little to the british boys about myself and played a game of pool. Our food came and we sat down to eat either veggie or meat curry. Then Mirthe saw my drawing on the napkin and got everyones attention to me and how "good" of a artist I was, but to be honest the drawing sucked haha. After dinner I just wanted to go home because I was feeling very lost and lonely and sad. I didn't know how much longer I wanted to go on traveling because back home trying to register for college the next year was becoming a huge hassle that my dad was getting frustrated at and me as well. The only way that I could fix it and enroll in college is to fly back home and figure things out, but I wasn't sure of what to do. So I told everyone that I was going to walk back to the hotel by myself to call my dad and talk business. I told everyone I would see them the next day to board the boat. Back at the hotel I facetimed my dad to talk about school and my next steps of my trip. It was hard for him to understand that I was not sure when I was coming home and that I was just going with the flow, he got a little angry but afterwards I cried to show that I was sad and scared of being alone and not knowing the future. What was really scary is that I had no home to go back to which was part of the reason I wanted to continue traveling for as long as possible. After my phone call I did some yoga in my room to calm down and relax. The others came back from dinner to go into their rooms and smoke some cigarettes. I read my book and slept until the next day. We all woke up at 8 to pack our things and receive a free breakfast from the hotel manager. We were the only people staying the night so we had bread, eggs, fruit, tea, and coffee which was surprisingly delicious for this small town. Another group of people from Germany who didn't speak english came to the hotel to get on a taxi to the border crossing, our group let them get the first truck and we waited for the second. Though there was a huge argument about how much money we needed to cross the border and what currency it needed to be in, either the Thai Baht or Laos Kip. The hotel guy offered for some random person to come to the hotel and exchange it for a certain rate, but some wanted to do it with a professional at the border, which I decided to do because I feared of getting ripped off. We all got onto the truck for the 40 minute ride to the crossing. There we all got off and checked in at the front counter and got our paperwork down, one of the girls left her bag at the counter... little bit of a clutz. We then went passed the large building and got our money out of the bank from a professional, turns out the cost of it was the same price as the hotel guy offered, but better safe than sorry! We then boarded a bus full of people and drove across this large bridge over the river to Laos. We got dropped off at a restaurant type thing where we would wait to board the long river boats that would take us into Laos. At the restaurant, our group of people still needed to exchange our Baht to Kip so we could buy food on the boat. We left the restaurant in search of a ATM which was kind of far and we were all nervous we would miss our boat, the boys stayed behind though to make sure our luggage was safe. At the ATM I went first and it was all out of money. The next ATM down the street had money but my credit card was not working! It would not give me money, only the french girl could get money out. So she was kind enough to let us use her money until we got to the next town and would try there. We ran back to the boat place and got our bags and just barely made it onto the boat before it left. All 7 of us found a table together with facing seats. And then the boat pulled away from the dock and we floated down the long slow moving river. It would take 2 full days to reach the town of Luang Prabang in central Laos. The first day would be about 6 hours on the boat to the first town of Pakbang were we would have to sleep and then get on the boat again in the morning. We had the option to buy a prepaid hotel room at the hotel last night but we passed on it in hopes of finding something cheaper. We all took off our shoes and started talking and playing card games with each other. And about 30 minutes into the boat ride the british boys pulled out a bottle of rum and the girls bought some beer. It was only noon and they pressured me into drinking. I didn't want to but they insisted because there was nothing else to do on the boat except drink. SO I gave in a bought myself a beer, didn't want the hard stuff yet. And I guess they were right because time went by really really fast. It was fun laughing and playing games with these guys, I really got closer to them. Anaise got super drunk and was hanging off the side of the boat at one points. Jake was flirting and confessing his love to her. Annemiek was confessing to me she had never gotten drunk before, and she's 27... Mirthe was smoking really really strong cigarettes and Will was getting plastered next to me with Jordan. Jake took some chew from a random stranger and got really fucked up. I had a few more beers in me because why not. We were the loudest drunkest circus group on the boat, I was too drunk to even see if we were bothering anyone. At around 5 we arrived to the first town of Pakbang. Here we all stumble off the boats narrow wooden bridge and got onto land where we were bombarded with locals holding signs to hotels. I was just staying close to the group because I was unable to communicate. We then all got on the same truck bed with 2 other guys and were taken to a hotel close by. Between the 7 of us we all split 3 rooms, I was with Anise and Annemiek and the other 2 girls together and the boys were in another. The 2 guys that we shared the truck with stayed in the same hotel and were really weird and drugged out. After putting our bags away we all piled in one room to hang out and be belligerently drunk together. I tried to teach them some yoga on the ground and we had a little pillow fight as well. We hung around out on the porch shoving money into Wills pants as he flaunted himself wearing Annalise's tiny shirt. After a bit of rough housing we got a knock on the door from the 2 strange men next door, they told us to follow them to the bar down the street, aka the only bar in the small town, to see a local man taking a bunch of drugs. We were all uninterested but ended up going to the bar anyway to continue drinking the day away. When we walked to the bar we passed an ATM where I tried and succeeded to get money out! But some were still unfortunate to not receive any money. After that we arrived at the lonely and sad looking bar with only one other person in it. At least it had a pool table! We were also given menus to order dinner from a little girl that was basically running the hotel and bar we were at. Her english was better than mine and she was at most 9 years old. Everyone was giving her props for helping us losers out. We ordered food and it came one plate at a time as usual, so no one ate together. I ordered a few more drinks and sipped out of the 2 british boys cups because they were so far gone drunk they had no clue what was going on. Music started playing and I taught the guys how to tango to electronic music which was not the best I must admit. The room was dark and there was no atmosphere, except for our loud drunk asses. After we all ate, which I had a really spicy dish so it enhanced my drunkness and I was basically hallucinating, we stumbled back to the hotel and stopped at a tiny street mart that was closing up shop. We talked to the owner about buying a bottle of rum from them that we found in the back shelves of the overcrowded mart. We haggled im down to 30 Kip, or 1 US dollar for a huge bottle of rum. I had my doubts but we would see if it was the real deal on the boat the next day. And then before we separated to our rooms we went to another mart to buy some vodka that was dirt cheap and smelled of rubbing alcohol. Up the stairs we went to sit on the porch outside and smoke some cigarettes and take about how much Will wanted to make out with Annaliese. We laughed and I did some yoga and retired to my bedroom, which I was later awaken by Annamiek in a strange panic...