Second day on the slow boat.

We had breakfast and stocked up on food and water for the boat at out guesthouse (everything is overpriced by a factor of two on the boat).

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We freewheeled down to the dock and took our seats after the bicycles were loaded, first on the small desk fo'ard of the whell and finally on the roof when they needed extra space for motorcyles. The boat up river to Huay Xai was berthed alongside us and was also loading. After a month of just two glances at other cycle tourists, we spotted a cyclist's bike being loaded and the cyclist came an sat right across from us in the seat on the boat going up to Huay Xai. Fatalism occupies a space in many African minds but how likely was this ? Anyhow, we had a long and enjoyable chat with him b efore his boat departed. He was a young (that means anything below 50) German who had done what had for the next three months of our trip in reverse and was now on his way to Thailand followed by Myanmar and Indonesia.

Todays trip was probably even more scenically beautiful than yesterday's but we had more time to look deeper today and couldn't help feeling disturbed by the amount of damage being done to the forests through which the river flows.

Another lifer in the form of a number of Dollarbirds (on the river ????).

We didn't take the smartest route from the dock to Luang Prabang and ended up doing an extra few kilometers through a busy section of town in the late afternoon. We settled in to Tingkham Guest House one street back from the river, at 120,000 Kip per night a reasonable deal for the small but clean and well kept A/C room with decent furnishings.